It's been a pretty hectic couple of days around The Paper Factory. It is the slow season, so there are fewer people working at night, which we're still adjusting to. Typically it is deeeeeead except for lunch and dinnertime, but it's been oddly busy this week. (And a lot of time-consuming customers, balloon and banner orders, random weird things.) Ann and Bruce (the owners) are in Texas for a trade show for a week, and even Chad (usually second in command, and my boss in the print shop) has taken off for a bit. Which puts a bit of extra pressure on everyone else even vaguely in charge, trying to keep things running smoothly. Stupid things always come up, like someone from some company coming in to pick up a few cases of paper towel, which we had in stock, but could not find a price for ANYWHERE in the store.

There's been an unexpectedly high number of things going on printing-wise, but they all got hung up at various stages. Chad left me three orders he was waiting for more information on, and I'd taken a major order last weekend I was still waiting to hear back on. One of the orders was for some flyers for Wing City (local restaurant), buuut the girl we were dealing with is an intern, and just reading her emails I got the feeling she was an airhead - or, at the very least, really wasn't thinking her job through. The third email we sent her, I attached a proof for the flyer to, but even then, I still had to ask if she wanted color or black and white flyers done up. Supposedly, she'd wanted them ready by Thursday.

8pm last night (Thursday), I still hadn't heard anything back. I was off today. SO, just in case, I ran around and made up a black and white version of the flyer (which didn't look half so nice, but would cost them 5 cents apiece rather than the 45 cents the color ones would), and left a huuuuuge note for the one other girl who does any of the print work.

And I left my cell number.

...last night was stressful already, I was supposed to be working downstairs but I think I was only down there for half an hour. The rest of the time, I was helping one kid put boxes of bulk supplies away, taking care of random things I knew needed doing, fixing the mistakes of our one especially braindead employee, finishing up things that other people hadn't finished and I was the only one there who knew what to do with...

When I got home, I flopped on the bed, and crocheted my heart out while watching ridiculously girly anime. (Yay Pretear!)

...I *did* get a phone call from the store today, but it was an easily-answered question about the marker banner printer acting up. Turns out the Wing City chick finally DID get back to them, and Ashley got the flyers all run off with no hitches at all. (And they went with the color, thank goodness, I was really happy with my layout.) Rather, she had to make a few minor changes, and it took her a bit to figure out how to do one of the things I'd done, but, comparatively, no trouble.

So yesterday was a bit extra-harried, but, still not far from par lately. I don't really mind the responsibility of being in charge in the evening, it's something I can handle, but... it *is* exhausting, having to drop what I'm doing pretty much every fifteen minutes to answer questions or fix things, and then go running around like a spazz dealing with everything.


Wednesday, however, was a mindfuck day in its own right:

Sometime after the dinner rush, probably around 6 or 7 or so, there were a few of us standing around up front when a customer came in - a middle-aged guy and his daughter, who was somewhere around middle school, junior high. He asked if we had calligraphy pens. I'd been working in that section of the store all afternoon, and had planned on going back that way anyway, so I was a good little employee and led him back there, pointing out that we have both the more traditional pens and the calligraphy markers. I stayed there for a minute as they looked, in case they needed anything else, and heard him ask his daughter if she was getting these for regular calligraphy, or the Japanese kind.

Me being me, I perked right up and jumped in, saying that we carry the sumi brushes for Japanese calligraphy as well, over with our art supplies. He had me show them those as well, and I showed him the rice paper we (rather surprisingly) carry that's specifically designed for Japanese calligraphy.. He asked all kinds of questions about what size brush they should get, and this and that, and I answered as best I could - which, really, was pretty well. I think the *only* art supply we carry that I haven't at some point used myself is like the gold leafing stuff, and the only people that ever come in for that already know what they're doing with it.

While they continued deciding what to get (the girl was really shy, but seemed to know what she wanted pretty well), I headed off to take care of something or another. I did happen to be up front when they came to cash out, however, and he asked me about the ink. We keep it shut up in our break room (apparently there was an issue with kids stealing it at one point, for doing self-tattoos?), so I got some, and went over its use with them. The father's one of those super-outgoing people, very intense, needs to know every detail kind of thing. Very friendly, just, throws you off-guard a bit with the rapidity of the questions. (Luckily, I know a LOT about art supplies. Yay for being the daughter of a sales rep!)

Eventually, the father goes, "Wait, so I have to ask - how do you know all this stuff??" I laughed my little polite employee laugh, and babbled my way around saying I'm an artist. (I don't know why I always hesitate to use the term - that's really all I needed to say, but I think I feel like it's this title I'm not yet worthy of claiming for myself. Which, from an outside perspective, is completely ridiculous, though in my head it's another story.) He asked what I do, what I've studied, something like that, and I said I majored in basically digital artwork.

At that, he perked up. "What exactly do you mean by digital artwork?"
"Well, just, computer artwork, I do a lot in Photoshop, and---"
"Photoshop! That's what she does!" he exclaimed, pointing at his shy daughter. "She draws, anime, and she's been teaching herself Photoshop..."
Once he discovered that I do some of the same things (granted, I haven't finished many of those projects, but I've done enough like that to know what I'm doing)...
"Would you be willing to tutor her?"
As he rightly pointed out, outside of the college you'd be pretty much on your own around here for learning anything like that. I, obviously, said I'd love to. There was a good deal more discussion, I gave him my name and phone number, as well as what days I'm usually available, and he said he'd probably be in touch Sunday, or early next week.

I spent the whole rest of the night in a mind-blur. I am nervous as hell - I've never done anything like this before, and teaching software is a really... like there's really no good way to do it, it's just a matter of learning by doing, but I know I can explain. I can't say I know EVERYTHING about the program, but, I *do* know a LOT, I've used it for, what, eight years or so now? And the girl seemed pretty bright, for all her quietness - to be teaching yourself Photoshop at that young an age is pretty impressive. I think she'll turn out to be a sweet kid, once the shyness is aside, and I think that will abate a bit if her father can manage to take a step outside the room for a few minutes. It seems like she does a bit of everything, just like I do, and that has me really excited.

ALSO! I can nip bad anime fanart in the bud!!! \0/ ...a mistake that's often made, not just in kids drawing anime but in comics as well, is that they try to jump straight into the stylization, without understanding the physical construct of the human form. You really do need to have an underlying understanding of the structure of things, perspective, proportion, before you can make anything look right. I've cheated on drawing hands as many times as anyone, but once I finally sat down and looked at a hand and drew it for what it was...god what a difference!!! I actually started an anime-style drawing about a week ago... uh, a Sailor Moon character, actually. Had to happen sometime. But I honestly found it *very* difficult, as I have for years, to get things to line up right. I had to take a step back and first sketch out how the facial structure would be for a normal person, and then adjust it from there. And the reason it's still only a sketch is because I haven't quite worked out the mechanics of the way her arms and hands are folded. I've seen I don't know how many images of this character, but I still have to work at the drawing, as hard as I would any portrait.

Anyway, my tentative plan is to set up a time to meet with her for an hour or so, just as a preliminary before we set anything up regularly, to see where she is in the program, and where she wants to go with it, and I can make up my own little lesson plans from there. :) I'm pretty sure she and I'll get along just fine. Her father makes me a little nervous, but he's friendly enough, and seemed to take me at my word for my experience levels pretty well. He's obviously super-motivated about doing all he can for his daughter, and I just hope I can help as much as he'd like someone to. I know I'm incredibly patient, and I *think* I'm decent enough at explaining things to people... and I'm good at dealing with people one-on-one.

I have nooooo idea what to charge, I really need to think that one over. I'm going to look into what the going rate around here is for tutoring, and then go from there I guess. Like I'm not a professional or anything, but... I *do* have a degree, which I tend to forget. Transportation is also something of a potential issue, and Tom's first reaction was a little cranky about having to drive me somewhere else now, but, I think once he stopped to think for a minute, that he's pretty happy for me on this one. :) He said once I know what days it'll be, that he'll see what he can do about getting those days off from work. He's such a supportive sweetheart of a thing.


...and, holy crap, it is 9:30, and my cookie dough has been in the freezer for faaaaar more than twenty minutes! (I told Tom I was probably going to do some food-making today, and asked if there was anything he'd like. "MORE OF THOSE COOKIES!!!!!!" "...uh, actually, I meant more like, regular food, for meals..." "Cookies can be meals!!! All depends on how you eat them!")