Invisible Woman Blues

A customer holds the basket (I) made for her earlier in the day and says, "The gift is beautiful... she's so talented, isn't she?" The phone rings and a voice says, "Can you have Julie call me when she gets in...I'd like to order a gift". Julie's out of the store, another day is unfolding at The Syracuse Gift Basket Company... and I am The Invisible Woman.

Why are you The Invisible Woman, you may ask? My daughter has always has been the face of our company...and that is as it should be. Even though we've been partners for some time now, Julie founded the business before I ever entertained the thought of jumping into this crazy hamster cage. And while I'm pretty comfortable in my skin, I'd really rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than stand in front of a camera of ANY kind. (Just a very weird hang-up I have.) I was actually dragged kicking and screaming to Laura Brazak's studio for the head shots you see on this blog, and on our website....just so that everyone would know I exist.

Anyway.....for some reason that we can't fathom, most of our customers seem to think that Julie does everything! While I know she's a bit of a Wonder Woman ( we both are), there is no way that one person could singlehandedly manage everything involved in our little 1/4 million dollar operation. I'm pretty sure that almost no one knows who I am, or what I really do here.

So what is it, you may ask, that I do do??? The very first duty I took on when I started was what we now classify as Hunting and Gathering. Hunting and Gathering consists of shopping locally for items we need in a hurry, can't find in a catalog, or prefer to see before we buy...mostly ribbon, foliage and floral enhancements, but also alot of other odds and ends and bits and pieces. It's one of the things I do best, and Julie enjoys the least. She has little patience or time to be bothered with it, and over the years we've located wholesalers for most of our stock and supplies. So while she does the catalog ordering, I do most of the outside ( local) buying. I like to call myself The Trim Fairy. The Trim Fairy keeps an eye on what enhancements we have, what's missing and what's needed, and makes sure that we always have great "stuff" to work with.

I've always considered myself a creative and fairly artistic person. After all, there was that fabulous dental health poster I won a prize for in 6th grade, the yellow chiffon dress with the crooked stitching I made and wore for my junior prom, and that charming Chewbacca costume with no fly that I fashioned for my son in elementary school. Making gift baskets? Easy. Wrong!!! Believe it or not, Julie's mentors in Wisconsin waited months before they allowed her to design a basket on her own (Julie, the gift basket queen!) When she tried to teach me, I understood why. A beautiful basket is a combination of balance, color, and content. This is all challenging enough, then throw in the layered hand-tied bows we use, and a cellophane wrap. I had 10 thumbs and it took a long time.

Now fast-forward to the present. Besides Julie, I am the only other designer in our company. When we're super busy, we hire a lot of people to copy our designs, which we then QC. Yes, we are very fussy! There are days when I actually make most everything that goes out the door, and you would be hard-pressed to guess who made which gifts either in the store, or on our website. I am also usually the designated Mutant Gift Maker. A Mutant Gift is one that is next to impossible to design, due to unusual content, color, or theme. Think pastel pink baby gift, with Dinosaur BBQ sauce or S.U. orange products included. The key is CAMOUFLAGE!

Julie and I have also evolved into a well-oiled web team. She handles the technical parts...uploading the photos from disks, creating spreadsheets to cost-out each gift, and creating links. I tweak the names of the gifts, write the descriptions, and manage most of the text on the site.

So, there you have it...The Invisible Woman's jobs at The Syracuse Gift Basket Company; Hunter and Gatherer, Trim Fairy, Other Designer and Head Mutant Gift Maker...Website Tweaker. Pretty impressive. eh?