Pen Clerk-in-Training

Because it's Friday and because it's almost spring, I thought I would share a few funny snaps of our pen clerk in training. Although really, I would just be happy if he could be a user-of-the-potty-in-training. We've got big dreams for the little guy, once he figures out his numbers. In all seriousness, though, it's so crazy to see how Caleb has turned into this little human, watching everything. And he really puts on a convincing act, given half the chance, and a tall chair. He knows that you're supposed to push the buttons on the card machine, and that the paper is supposed to come out after you've pushed some buttons, and that the stapler somehow goes around the receipt papers, and then we need to pull out a bag. It's the oddest thing to watch him go through his own process, a bit uncanny actually. It's nuts to me because no one has "taught" him how to do any of this. He's just been watching it happen, I guess literally since he was born, and when the day finally came and someone popped him up on a chair, he was ready for action. I can't wait until this guy can start doing stuff for real, instead of roaming around the shop and packing area, grabbing everything for examination, with a very high potential for damage. We need to channel all of that energy into something productive, like breaking down boxes for recycling, or picking up coffee. He's in this stage right now where he likes to do everything we're doing, so when I'm sweeping, he likes to "sweep" with me, but it's mostly just sweeping all the dust and dog hair into the air, and then whacking things with his broom. The other day, I gave him a bin and an "online order" (i.e. a piece of paper with some random notes on it), and he started pulling stock off the shelf to put into his bin, and brought it to the packing table. He had a bottle of Diamine and four Noodler's Konrads. He got a bit excited for his next order, which was just a bin of 25 Konrads...

***

As always, it's been a busy week that's flown by. We've been counting shipments (Pilot converters are back in stock! New Leuchtturm colours! New things to play with!), getting a few new things up on the website, like our Winsor & Newton inks that I've been teasing for a ridiculous amount of time, and trying to organize the packing area.

Back in the day when it was just me and Jon in the shop, and I guess mostly just me, I used to keep all of our packing material to re-use. If you ever visited our 906 Dundas W shop, you may recall looking into the back area by the sink, and seeing a mountain of random bubble wrap and newspaper and boxes of peanuts. It was honestly one of my favourite things to patiently and methodically dig through our mountain of supplies to select the best materials to use to pack orders.

Now, though, our volume has increased a bit, and so it's a balance between re-using things and efficiency. We have, you know, a few boxes piled up, and I've been trying to "assist" in the packing process by making suggestions to everyone on which packing materials to use. Jon says everyone is too nice to say it, but I'm just getting in the way.

Hope you all have a great Friday, and a happy Aprils' Fools.