Plan-a-grams, People!

I tell ya, it just keeps getting better and better...

Last week at this time, I had never even heard of one; but when My Very Own Fabric Store Manager announced earlier this week that he was going to have me work on the "plan-a-gram," somehow I just knew that the appropriate response would be:

Kate Reveling in her Very Own Fabric Store

(March 15, "My Very Own Fabric Store")

I was right! It turns out that I love plan-a-grams (although I'm not positive that I'm spelling it correctly)!

You know how in some stores (such as MVOFS), when they have their merchandise arranged by aisle, sometimes at the ends of the aisles they'll have special displays of things that are somehow related to each other? Well (and you may already know this, but I didn't until recently), those displays are called "end-caps" (again, uncertain spelling).

Now have you ever wondered who gets to decide what goes on those end-caps, and how they should be arranged? I never had. (Just like I had never wondered who went around putting back all the crap I may have carried around a store, then just dropped wherever I happened to be when I decided I didn't want it. (I guess some would say that makes me "oblivious." But since they'd probably say it in a tone of voice that would imply that oblivious is a bad thing to be, I'm certainly not saying that about you -- just in case you haven't wondered about end-caps, I mean. Really -- It's perfectly all right if you've just been taking for granted, as I have, that stores have some kind of special magic about them, and you're not supposed to ask.)

But now I know, at least as applies to the end-caps in MVOFS: Corporate decides. And of course Corporate is very busy, and is therefore unable to personally visit every store to make sure their end-caps are properly arranged...That's where the plan-a-gram comes in!

Let's see now...Where was I?

Oh yeah...So the other day My Very Own Manager handed me a packet of papers and directed me to a unit with horizontal grooves evenly spaced from top to bottom. Beside that stripey-looking unit was a shopping cart loaded with metal racks and little plastic sign-holders. And in that packet of papers I found my very first plan-a-gram. Here's what it looked like (sort of):

Rough Drawing of a Plan-A-Gram by Kate, 5/8/09 (MSN Paint)

Also in that packet was a sheet of little tiny perforated "signs" saying things like Under-the-Sea Stickers and Pirate Velvet Coloring Sheets. (I know you're going to want to come in and get some of those; when you do, be sure you also pick up a bottle of Grandma's Secret Spot Remover -- and remember to say that Kate sent you!)

So I went to work. When I was done, the result looked something like this:

"End-Cap" by Kate, 5/8/09 (MSN Paint)

(Note: Lack of conformity is due not to my indadequacy as an

End-Cap Arranger, but rather, to my inadequacy as an Artist.)

And I was righteously proud!