"Knitting Specialist"

Occasionally when I am asked what I do for a living, or sometimes, especially at school, when I hand someone my card, I get a confused look.
If someone asks, I usually just answer that I work in a yarn store. Many muggles think this means a craft store, like Joannes (if only they knew!) Knitters conjure up romantic images of me knitting at work and helping other knitters every so often (couldn't be further from the truth- I have never knit at work, at least not while I was on the clock.)
My business card lists my title as "Knitting Specialist." That really throws my fellow MBA students for a loop. I kind of get a kick out of it, but then usually they ask me explain.

I only worked for three and a half hours today, and I thought I might let you in on the secret of my job by outlining what those three and a half hours looked like.

1. An order came from vendor Crystal Palace. It was a rep order, meaning "new to us" merchandise. One of the other women has all ready checked the order for accuracy, so I took it to enter all the pertinent info for each new item into our point of sale system, set the prices, etc. create a purchase order, and receive it to indicate to the system that we now have inventory. Then I printed a receiving document to give to our AP person and printed price stickers for the merchandise.
2. There was another order there from vendor Cascade. I opened it, so I checked it for accuracy. Another buyer had created a purchase order at the time of order, so I received it into the system, printed report and tags. I checked for and filled special orders placed in this order (there were four.) I separated the tags and attached them to each bag of yarn to try to insure that the right price stickers end up on the right merchandise.
3. I placed an order for vendor Notion's Marketing for merchandise we were low on. Then I placed another order with them while talking on the phone to one of HT's designers, who needed a specific item that we didn't currently carry in the the shop, and also filled customer special orders from that vendor.
4. I take care of the dozens of requests that we get for charitable contributions. Today I organized and bundled up the 2006 procurement forms and left them in AP's in box. Then I sorted through the stack of requests I had all ready this year, determined there were three that fit the criteria we have for donation, filled out the procurement forms, created the gift certificates, created an excel sheet to track them, entered the data into excel, and called the various charities to tell them to come pick them up.
5. I corrected the inventory from a mistake I made in receiving last week when I was trying to work through my sickness (another reason to stay home!)
6. On my way out the door (all ready clocked out, but I love yarn and knitters so it's OK) I helped a customer pick out yarn for a jacket that she wanted to knit.

That is what three and a half hours looks like in the work world of this "Knitting Specialist."