My feet are tired! We're gearing up for the big season at Build-A-Bear--after Thanksgiving it's going to get really busy. I'm still enjoying it, and have definitely cut down on the number of "blowouts"--when I accidentally let go of the animal and the stuffing comes shooting out at me instead of into the animal. For some reason our Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls are really prone to this. We are also, sad to say, completely sold out of Mumble, the penguin from the movie Happy Feet and our limited edition holiday item. He went really fast. The good news is that when people walk in, I don't have to say, "Hi! Welcome to Build-A-Bear! Have you seen Mumble? He's the penguin from the movie Happy Feet and is our special limited edition holiday animal this year [and so forth, expanding on Mumble's fantastic features]" anymore. Now I get to say, "I'm sorry, Mumble is completely sold out. [insert customer response] No, we're not going to get any more of him in. [insert customer response] Actually we just sold out of him yesterday. [insert customer response] No, we don't have the capability of checking other stores' inventory, but I can give you the number of the [if Orange County: Mission Viejo or Fashion Island] [if Los Angeles: Glendale or Hollywood or Los Angeles] store." While the original Mumble spiel was longer, the new, improved version does require me to look up telephone numbers, so I'm not sure which is better.
Posted by Shelby at November 20, 2006 06:29 PM