Furnitureland South

It has been five years now that a position I held and loved was eliminated due to the failing economy, of course, we never imagined that it would become much worse. My Husband's co-worker was married to woman who worked at Furnitureland South and told him of the success she had there. A position became available and I reluctantly applied for it. The thought of working weekends and evenings was something I had no desire to do. But, we had a Son in college and a Daughter on her way there so I needed employment and went on the interview. Within a half hour of my first meeting with FLS Management I became captivated with the place and came to realize that the nights and weekends might not be that bad. OK, I would take the job. Not that easy, I was faced with another month and a half of grueling interviews with the Harris Family and upper management. After all this, I impressed them enough to be rewarded with the position of "Sales and Design Consultant".

For the next three years I made friends I will have for the rest of my life. Learned so much about furniture and design. It became a passion. Other than the wonderful people I spent about 50 hours a week with, I had the opportunity to meet and work with people whose lives were so completely different than mine. There were the ones from other countries whose customs and bartering drove me a bit crazy.

I learned that the wealthy from the Middle East create bedrooms for their daughters
with the idea that this is a room for a princess. Their furniture tastes tended to lean towards opulent and ornate. I learned that some people had no idea what they wanted in their homes or what their tastes were and relied on me to lead them in the right direction, these were the ones I so enjoyed until they brought in friends and family who knew as little as they did to offer ideas.

Then there were the ones who knew exactly what they wanted, tasteful or not. They would sit on every sofa to which there were hundreds to find the one where their backs, feet and necks were in the spots they deemed appropriate. They were also the ones who would look through hundreds of fabrics to find the colors they envisioned. So many times these choices were never found. However, I realized that these were huge investments and I patiently complied.

Of course, the all time favorite customers were the ones with padded wallets and only took a few hours to completely furnish a home.

After building such bonds with all those mentioned you then faced the worry of "Will it all be OK"? "Did you order it right"? "Is everything in stock and will it be delivered in the time you promised"? "Will the delivery go smoothly"? A happy day was when it all was in and everyone was thrilled. A really bad day was when something went wrong and you disappointed a client. I was lucky that through the errors, most of the time I made it right. I never wanted any of my clients to be angry. I took some amazing hits to my paycheck as I would never call a customer to tell them I screwed up. One such instance was selling leather furniture to dear friends and quoting them a fabric price. I go into their home now and see this furniture and know that I contributed about $600 to their sofas. My secret.

I loved visiting the Furniture Market and the showrooms of some of the most fabulous furniture you could ever hope to see. I went to "Home Shows" decorated in FLS's finest in some of the grandest houses I had ever seen.

I had the opportunity to go into my clients homes and help them put it all together, and design and furnish vacation condos. What fulfilling and wonderful times.

Alas, all good things come to an end. First, a real "homebody". My position was taking me away from family and my home. Second, after years of running and the bad feet left to me by my grandmother, walking the entirety of FLS in dress shoes was taking its toll. Third, no matter how much I networked, the economy was on the decline and my biggest fear was to lose a special part of my life involuntarily. So I left.

Through Facebook I now have access to all the extraordinary friends I made through my tenure and continue to see how FLS grows and defies odds. So proud to have been a part of it.