End of the road...

Friday was Stephen's last day in Manchester. And, on top of that it was the last day that we will work together for probably a very long time. It was a bitter sweet day for me as Stephen and I have been eachother's partners in crime for quite a while. I think we are at the point where we both knew how eachother ticked, the decisions we would have made, and have grown to rely on eachother to step up to the plate when the other is not around. Though all that was a good thing I think maybe it is good that we are switching gears and working with new people to keep us on our toes and to learn new things. The store staff has adjusted well to him coming to the store. I think most people realized that it was a good thing to get some new blood in the store and hopefully the momentum for change will continue with Dave's reign. I am pretty excited that Dave is going to be my new fearless leader. I think I will be challenged to improve in different ways than what was expected in the past and that is cool.
We had a party for Stephen, small but sweet. The cake was priceless. It is an inside joke. We got him two gifts... one was a hand held GPS unit for Geocaching. I introduced him to that when we met in Salem 4 years ago! He was pretty excited as he is surrounded by caches at his house. He also received one of the rocks that was thrown threw our front windows last fall. I kept it for a special occasion and painted it with our store number. He got a kick out of it. Stephen will be missed. I am sure the Concord crew is overjoyed to be getting him back. They have missed him!