Today, we went over a lot about what would be taking place within the warehouse. I walked the team around, showing them where inventory would be stored, the different packing stations that I had, and where any returns would be processed if we had one. I received more inventory this afternoon, so I had the crew open those boxes, where units were counted, SKUs were checked, checking for any damage on the inventory, and things like that.
Because my man was a business owner himself, a couple of weeks ago, he taught me the importance of hiring a marketing team for House of Henry. With that, I was going to need a social media manager, and someone to be the creator of all the content that we were going to put out. I did do interviews again for that, and right now for my marketing team, I have three people working in that position.
There was different office spaces throughout this huge warehouse, so the marketing team had their own space for them to create, and let me tell you, they have been creating!
At noon, we officially dropped the Instagram for House of Henry. Because of the members that I had on the marketing team, who knew about social media to a science, they knew exactly what they had to do for the post to go viral. Not only that, but with me already being someone that was well known throughout Miami, plus having people around me that were well known as well, who could share the page, House of Henry Instagram page already had well over 100k followers.
I had so many emotional breakdowns today, but they were all good breakdowns. When I saw the way the followers kept going up, and then my sisters, my man, and Blake kept calling me, telling me that I was going to sell out at the end of the week when I launched, it made me really happy to the point that I kept taking trips to my office, or to the restroom, so that I could release tears of happiness.
If I wasn’t going to the bathroom to shed tears, then I was going so that I could pee. I had to call Tommie earlier, so that I could ask her if she was constantly peeing like this when she was pregnant with my nieces. She laughed at my question, confirming that the constant need that I had to use the restroom was completely normal.
I still couldn’t believe that I was pregnant. Like, I knew that raw sex, mixed with skipping out on days of taking birth controlcould possibly lead to pregnancy, but I was just used to being on the other side of pregnancy. Like, I was the one that would show up at the gender reveals, or baby showers, strutting in my heels, usually coming with the most expensive gift. I was used to getting Liberty, babysitting her for a couple of days at a time, and giving her right back. Now, it was me that was pregnant this time. It was me doing my research, trying to figure out what I wanted my birthing plan to be.
I truly wanted a home birth. I felt like home births were so beautiful. Tank wasn’t sold on it though. You know that was an old school man that I was dealing with, so I was going to have to come up with some kind of presentation to present to him, where I was going to have to convince him why I felt like a home birth, with a midwife was more beneficial than having my baby in the hospital like most people.
It was after four, nearing the time that the workday would be over, and I was making another trip to the restroom, so that I could relieve my bladder. Instead of going to the restroom that was in my office, I decided to just use the employee restroom because it was closer, and I really had to go.
I walked inside the women’s restroom, where it housed three stalls. The second that I opened the door, I could hear sniffling inside.
At first, I thought that it might have just been someone that was dealing with allergies, but then you could visibly hear that someone was inside one of the stalls, and they were crying. I really had to pee, so before I stood here, and I peed on myself, I quickly went into one of the stalls, locked the door behind me, and I moved quickly to get the jeans unbuckled that I was wearing, and I handled my business.
The cries that were coming from the stall next to me had ceased. I’m not sure if they stopped crying because they knewthat someone was now in here with them, or if they were genuinely finished.
I finished up, fixed my clothes, and I walked out, going for the sink that was out front, so that I could wash my hands. The plan was to knock on the stall door when I finished, so that I could see who was crying, and if there was anything that I could do to help, but in the middle of me reaching for some paper towels, that stall door opened, and the woman that was inside, she quickly walked out, trying to leave out of the restroom. It was one of my employees.
“Wait. Wait. Hold on,” I called out for her, quickly moving myself away from the sink, so that I could walk over to her.
I was much taller than her, so when I approached her, I had to look down at her. Her eyes and her nose were red from all the crying that she had been doing. Her beautiful, hazel eyes held so much pain in them.
She was one of the inventory specialist that I hired. Her name was Kalani. She came for an interview a couple of weeks ago with her heart on her shoulders, telling me how desperately she needed the job, so that she could provide for herself, and her son. She had a pretty good resume, and from her job history, I could tell that she always kept a job, but right now, she was just falling on hard times. I hired her on the spot, and all day, I had been watching all my employees, just wanting to really get a feel for them, and see how they were handling the job, and Kalani was good.
I didn’t mind my employees listening to music while they worked, so all day, she had her AirPods in her ear, moving around, sticking to herself, getting the job done. I could sense something was off about her this morning when she came in though. She seemed sad, and I asked her earlier if she was okay, but she assured me that she was fine. Obviously, she’d lied because the brokenness in her eyes told it all.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, and she immediately shook her head no, as if she didn’t want to engage.
“Nothing. I’ll be fine. I’m on the clock, anyways, so I shouldn’t even be in here. I just needed a minute. I’m fine,” she lied, not able to keep her eyes on me, as she tried to cut by me, so that she could get out of the door, but I blocked her path, not allowing her to get out.
“It’s okay. I know where you are, so you don’t have to rush to get back out there. Most of the work is done for the day anyways. What’s going on with you? Are you okay?” I was genuinely concerned.
I’ve always been sympathetic when it comes to people, and their sadness. I could be out, and about right now, and see a random stranger crying, and I would want to know what was wrong with them. Not because I was being nosy, wanting to get in their business or anything like that, but I really didn’t like to see other people sad.
“This… this has just been a hard couple of weeks. My boyfriend was killed a few days ago. I ran out to get some medicine for my son because he was sick. My son witnessed the murder. Life is just kicking my ass right now girl, but I’m going to be okay,” she finished, and she even tried to laugh through the tears, but the tears continued to fall.
What she just put on me was sad, and I could sense that she needed a hug, which is why I stepped closer to her, and I wrapped my arms around her, so that I could hug her. The way her body clung to me proved that I was right about her needing this hug. She wasn’t crying anymore, but I could sense that she was still hurting.
I offered her my condolences, told her how sorry I was for her loss, and that her son had to be there to witness the murder. After about a minute, I let her go, and she picked her hands up, so that she could wipe at her red eyes.
“Thank you. I’m going to get back out there,” she announced.
“You don’t have to. You can leave now if you want. Go be with your son,” I told her.
“No. It’s okay. I want to finish the job. Plus, my son is fine. He’s in aftercare right now with his school,” she assured me, not going to take me up on what I was offering.
She eventually left out of the restroom, and I truly felt so bad for her.
I didn’t walk out until a few moments later, and for the rest of the workday, I stayed in the back with the marketing team because I really wanted to see what they were in the back cooking up. They had an entire content day planned for me tomorrow. They had everything mapped out to a t. Scripts were written for me to recite tomorrow for all the promo videos, since I was the face behind the brand, and they wanted me to really tap into promo, and getting to know my future customers.
Different shots were planned, as far as where we planned to film. Tomorrow, literally all I was going to have to do was show up and be the face of what I was building. I gave my marketing team a budget, letting them know that I wanted them to do whatever they had to do to make our marketing, branding, and promo better than anyone else. With that, they were able to reach some high-ranking photographers, and videographers that were all set to come in tomorrow, so that we could start shooting content.
