We are back again at the Town Center Mall in Port Charlotte Florida managing what we call the Crazy Christmas Kiosk. This is our second year working for Slippermania at this mall and we are sharing it with our friends Randy and Fran. We work all mall hours, seven days a week, selling fun sport team related items.
You name it, we have it in a sport team item (mostly NFL and college teams) We sell reasonably priced items such as Christmas wreaths, beach towels, gnomes, Christmas ornaments, lanyards, wrapping paper, scarves, piggy banks, blankets, and yes lots and lots of slippers. It sounds like a crazy type of gig but it's a lot of fun. Folks love talking about their favorite teams and tell us some great stories. They are thrilled to find items with their team logos and the time for the most part goes by quickly.
Last year we ran the kiosk by ourselves and attempted to hire a few young adults to help out. Finding good help as we soon found out is hard to find. You have to be open all mall hours, seven days a week and being on your feet for such long hours can take its toil. This year we decided to ask our friends Fran and Randy to join us and it has worked out splendidly. We met four years ago at a NOMADS project in Eustis Florida and have kept in touch every since. They are lots of fun and such a pleasure to work with each day. John and Randy especially like going out to breakfast together and Fran and I enjoy movies at the theater in the mall during our time off.
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| Randy and Fran |
We've been here for 2 1/2 weeks and have put a lot of effort into setting up the booth and tagging all the items with prices. Fran has alphabetized everything to help finding an item so much quicker. Randy has offered some great suggestions on making the booth look more appealing. Each item as it is sold is entered onto a sheet which is faxed in each day to the warehouse. Twice a week items are delivered to our kiosk for restocking. The owner of the company has 26 locations in Florida malls and hires folks like us to work in November and December. He is a great guy to work for and gives you a lot of flexibility in running the kiosk.
This year he added a second kiosk with stainless steel barbecue tools called Sportula's. They are really cool and are selling well.
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| Sales for the Red Sox's have been phenomonal |
We are staying at an Harbor Lake RV Resort (Encore park) which offers a buy one month / get one month free deal. It's well maintained and has a nice pool. This time we can actually enjoy it due to sharing the hours at the mall.
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| Our sites |
We are enjoying kayaking more and more and decided to try and find hard sided kayaks for each of us. Our inflatable kayak has served us really well but we now wanted one of our own with more versatility and improved tracking. Facing alligators and rough oyster beds in Florida in an inflatable is a little unnerving. Randy has a Wilderness System Tarpon which he recommended as a good choice. After several months of searching on Craigslist and outfitter shops I found a gently used and reasonably priced one for sale nearby. We are now the proud owner of this twelve foot blue beauty Now I just need to find another one for John. :)
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| Wilderness Tarpon 120 Kayak |
Life continues to be good. John celebrated with 29th birthday yesterday (with 30 years of experience). Our friends brought red velvet cake over last night to celebrate with a funny singing candle. Yum! Happy Birthday to my favorite guy!
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| Jimmy's favorite pillow |
Looks like you are all set up to work and enjoy the holidays. It really interesting to see what folks do. Your kiosk looks great!
ReplyDeleteTHAT sure looks like it beats Amazon's crazy hours etc.
ReplyDeleteHaving other mature workers with you should work out very well this year. Good thinking!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lotta stuff. I can see why the sports themed BBQ tools would sell. That's a perfect match up.
ReplyDeleteGreat update! Say happy birthday to John for me and that he is now older than I am 😊
ReplyDeleteSoon it will be time for you to return to beautiful Sanibel, yeah!
That sunset photo is beautiful. Jimmy looks very comfortable there.
ReplyDeleteA Christmas Stuff kiosk is surely a lot different than taking care of turtles and photographing birds. You will definitely be ready for the natural world again after your stint at the mall.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday John!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you got help in the kiosk this year. I'm sure it will be much nicer than trying to cover all the hours by yourselves. I wouldn't mind working there. Maybe we should check out where else he has his shops...for next year.
That kayak looks exactly like Al's old kayak. It could be the same one! We sold our wilderness kayaks a few years ago when we bought our Fast Track kayaks. We liked them real well, except for their weight. Wouldn't it be funny if it was the same kayak? We sold to them to a woman in Vero Beach.
What a great gig! Doing the setup yourself and having another couple to not make it not so overwhelming sounds great! We would love to do that some time. Is it a good money maker?
ReplyDeleteI love your "sharing the duties" idea. . .good one!
ReplyDeleteOur church ran a gift wrapping booth at a busy, busy mall for several years. . .we were just volunteers, but always thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere. . .wishing you an easy, breezy season!