I work in E-Commerce, that virtual storefront world where
you pick items off web pages, click Add to Shopping Cart, and then Check Out
with your order. In fact, we are just emerging
from the development of our new storefront product.
Today is a bright, shiny moment for our team’s project.
Today, I flipped the switch “on” for our
first real live site, and sent an email to the team to say we are ALIVE!
It was exciting!
It was new!
It was the pinnacle of all my team has worked so hard for
these past months.
It was…
…super quiet in my office.
Even the dogs were napping.
Minutes passed. My
husband poked his head in the door as he does from time to time. I grabbed him, and showed him my first live
site. I beamed with pride, pointing out
how everything was working and ready for business.
He told me he didn’t understand what it was, but he was
happy I was happy.
Not the reaction I had hoped for.
I went back to work in my quiet room.
Three hours later, and we had a sale! I felt like I’d caught a trophy fish on the
line. I grabbed a screen capture of our
first sale, and threw it in an email to the team. I was smiling like the store owner who frames
his first dollar bill.
Tick
Tick
Tick
Three more hours, and I get an email back from our happy
director. And another from another team
member's email response comes in shortly thereafter. That
was it for the celebration of all the late nights and long weekends thus far.
I chat up a teammate late in the evening about the day’s
victories. When you work from home, and
you leave your chat app running, you are always fair game to an incoming message.
From seven states away, she says it best.
“Wow I wish we could all meet up for happy hour. We need to
celebrate this one!!!”
I agree, feeling that unusual but occasional ping of sadness
that our team is so spread out. We’re really a good group of people, lots of
fun when we get together too.
I joking write back, “phone cams in our local pub of choice?”
Pass me a (virtual) pint of whatever goes best with success
in absentia
I really enjoyed your post. You put the metaphor's perfectly. It is almost like my educational life has been so far. I did online high school and made tons of friends, but if I got a good grade or wanted to go to the movies, I couldn't actually say "hey, come on over". Do you guys ever get to meet up once in a while? Or is it a strictly online business? That has to be hard. Plus, I have recently started a long distance relationship with my fiance because he went to Florida to find a job. It's been tough since we have been so close to each other for the past 4 years. AHH! Anyways, I am happy to hear that you have been successful and I wish you more and more successes.
ReplyDeleteI really like reading your blog. You really have a way with words and it's very easy to read. Very funny too! Congratulations on your first site opening!
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