The Student Becomes The Teacher

I never wanted a career in cosmetics. In fact I think I had a bad attitude most of the time I had one. I had gotten so miserable that one day I decided I either needed to look for a new job or change my attitude. Since I am loyal to a fault if it is convenient for me, I knew the attitude had to change. I stopped paying attention to the aggravating aspects of retail management and focused all my attention on what I enjoyed. Makeup artistry, face time with my clients. Growing and developing my staff. And of course once I turned positive things got a whole lot easier. I was doing so well I was offered a promotion. I did not want it, though. My boss pushed me into it. See he needed someone to oversee his stores while he exercised (or exorcised) his corporate responsibilities. I was the most capable and successful manager he had to pull from. He was a good salesman. And somehow he made the deal happen and I entered the "executive" realm. It was much better than being on the front lines; engaging with that customer, tallying each sale, remembering to call the people on your list that should be due for a new moisturizer soon. No, now I collected daily sales tallies from 8 stores and expensed things and had a mess of untrained counter managers struggling to run a business with no support. So I would go and visit these stores and try and impart my wisdom to this sparse and constantly turning collection of employees. And out of the 8 managers I supervised there were 2 that took what I gave them and used it.

The first was a girl who wanted my job. The job I did not want and my boss pushed me into. She was so pissed off she had been passed over for this promotion, and I had been well prepared for her  potential retaliation before my first visit. But I walked into that store that day and this girl was a complete sweetheart! And was naturally my strongest competitor. So after my first day of team-selling at that counter yielded their best sales day ever she set out to beat me. That worked out great for me! She took an awesome and creative interest in running her business and raised sales like you would not believe, which only reflected positively on yours truly. The other was a girl I struggled with. So young, too young to be a "manager" in my opinion. But I saw this girl a lot more often. And slowly but surely the leader in her emerged. And the business woman began to build herself. And yes I am unbelievably proud to say the last month or so I lived in San Francisco she had been promoted to my old executive position, so technically was my boss! I was so proud of her. I beamed from ear to ear and felt like I had graduated a daughter from college.

And I have seen it here. I have seen a select few take the tools and tricks and wisdom I am constantly blathering on and on about and do something about it. One has tested positive for the same viral infection that was responsible for my CFS (not all cases have the same root cause). And she is on the same anti-viral drug that gave me back my energy. It is brutal treatment but she is fighting, oh how she is fighting! And I have seen a whole host of others stand up and change doctors or stop hanging out with harassing family members or get themselves back in school so they can do a job that is not as physical. I have seen it and it does my heart good. And I want to do more, oh so much more! And I will get there. I will get there putting myself, my health, first. And pursuing my awareness efforts to the best of my ability. So while The Fibromyalgia Crusade may be progressing really slow, it is only gaining momentum. Its just running at a Fibro's pace.

Thanks for joining,
Leah