December 19, 2015

►    Remember, we close at 3:00 on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.  PLEASE do not upset a customer and your co-workers, who may have to stay late on Christmas Eve because we told him or her that we would be open.

►    Customer Feedback:  An anonymous customer stated that their general shopping experience with us was Excellent.  “It was wonderful to have absolutely everything available locally – and have so many people able to answer our many questions!”  Did any of our team members do an unusually good job?  “Patrick was always extremely helpful.”  Sales help, operations people, and communication were rated Excellent.  Product performance was rated Good.  Pool School, In-store advice, Free water testing, and the Take-It-Easy Program were all rated Excellent.   They would recommend us to a friend.    What can we do to improve?  “Sometimes in-store advice is different than package directions, which is confusing for new pool owners.”  What do we do really well?  “Provide plenty of advice and the pool package we bought was everything!”

►    New advertising and weekly specials start Sunday, December 20th:  “Seasonal Greetings”

►    Happy Birthday to Joe on Saturday, December 19th.

►    Remind everyone that they should not leave picking up a Christmas present to Christmas Eve.  That leaves too many things that could go wrong.

►    A hint:  if you normally throw your paycheck away without opening it, this would be a bad week to do that.

►    Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

►    The written Fire Drills this quarter resulted in $165 paid in bonuses, and only $18 deducted.  So most people lived!  Great job.

►    Company Christmas gifts this week:  Homemade candy from Kathy Schubert, WBIN TV.  Expensive chocolate, nuts, and coffee from Marquis Spas.  Peanut and cashew brittle from the Hesson family (our reps. for Lloyd, Telescope, and Warehouse 2120).  Assorted candy and popcorn from Bel-Aqua.

►    Quarterly Bonuses averaged 130.5% this quarter, and 131.13% for the entire year.  Congratulations.

►    From Ann A.:  To everyone who is lucky or unlucky enough to be working on Christmas Eve, I will be making my annual Christmas chili for lunch.  I will supply the chili and the condiments for the chili such as cheese, onions, etc. If anyone wants to bring in   soda, corn bread, corn chips or deserts please feel free to do so!!  The more food the merrier!!

►    FYI in 2015, we collected $41.00 from the boxes at the registers, $617.03 from selling logo items (the best seller was 135 balsa Seasonal planes), and we are paying $158 for 79 returned polls and Report Cards, for a total $816.03 in customer “donations” to our Seasonal charity list.

►    Laughter, The Best Medicine from the Reader’s Digest:  Two little boys are in a hospital, lying on gurneys next to each other.  “What are you in for?” asks one.  “I’m here to have my tonsils taken out,” the second replies.  “Don’t worry,” the first says.  “I had that operation when I was four.  They put you to sleep, and when you wake up, you get ice cream.”  The other boy, now relieved, asks, “What are you here for?”  “A circumcision.” “Whoa, good luck.  I  had that done when I was born, and I couldn’t walk for a year.”