Spending the day at the main Fred Flare location is always a mixed bag for me. I usually start the morning thinking that I’d love to move to New York and be a full time part of the business. But by day’s end, I’m thinking that I have the best job of all waiting for me back in Michigan.
It’s mostly about the work environment. At Home Office, I work alone unless my assistant Emma is there. Which isn’t very often. I work at my own pace. And I work in silence. My most frequent means of communication is email, since I have to touch base with our warehouse, our retail store, and Emma in the Dominican Republic on a most regular basis.
At the warehouse, also dubbed World Headquarters, I work with 15-20 other people all running around packing orders, talking on the phone, and answering the doorbell. The pace is quicker. It’s also accompanied by popular music all day long. And while email is still an important form of communication, although the person you want to talk with is in the cubicle next to you, there is considerable human interaction. There’s laughter and teasing and general hilarity at a moment’s notice.
Maybe that’s what I like most: this sense of actually belonging to the Fred Flare family, this participation in the day-to-day ups and downs. I’ve often said I work in a vacuum, since much of my job is behind the scenes, dealing with bank accounts and credit cards and vendor contracts. It’s the ‘boring’ stuff nobody else wants to do. And I find it’s easier to do in my usual environment.
At the same time . . . I miss the fun.
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