Working in a bike shop has it's ups and downs. There are good days and bad days. Long days and short. The weekend days either go by extremely fast or extremely slow. The seasons change and the feeling in the shop does as well. The summer brings about a hustle and bustle feeling from everyone involved. From the kids coming in to get their first bike, so the bike techs hustling out every work order they can while still taking care of the day to day work, the days come and go.
During the winter months, it seems like every day is a completely new adventure. You never know who is going to walk through the doors. Some days it could just be someone looking for a trainer tire or to spend their $20 coupon they got at an event earlier in the season. And that's all you will see for a few hours. Boring. But then you'll have those days where a customer walks in and just wants to buy the store. In the winter it gets hard not to be too jumpy and almost oversell and give too many discounts they weren't looking for. As it is, you're so excited in the first place to be selling something that costs more than $20.
What I like about the winter months in a bike shop is that it gives you a time to recouperate, relax and sit back a little and figure out what things you did wrong, what you did right and how to fix or expand upon the two respectively. It's also a great time to do some learning and really get to know the other people you work with. There is a lot of down time, and you can only clean the windows so many times until there really isn't anything left on the sills!
Cyclists in general are a weird mix. From your leisurely riders to your hardcare fanatics, there is room for each to work at the shop. And where I work, we have a good mix of them all. It helps us all work together and find the gaps in each other that makes us run more smoothly. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and it's vital to us taht we all know that about each other. Some of us know all the geeky white paper knowledge, and others know more sytles and trends. Some of us know our bike history and others know the up and coming tech that gets people going. No matter what, you need a little bit of all of this in each and every day, because you never know who is going to walk through that door.
Dave
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