From the Desk of ... Jennii!

[While Jenette is on sabbatical, her column will be guest-written by other key members of the organization.]

In many respects, Jenette Bras is a mom-and-pop shop. Jenette and Aaron are Mom and Pop. They stop by the stores, chat up the customers, help make decisions about what is sold, fix the broken hook in the fitting room, and literally do the heavy lifting into the loft at the Burbank store.

But Jenette Bras, like all children, grew up over time. The stores multiplied, the inventory exploded, and the behind-the-scenes business-y stuff became more complicated. Somewhere in between the mom-and-pop shop and the Nordstroms of the world is the messy middle – where one must decide what responsibilities are best left at the store level and what responsibilities need to be centralized; where software becomes more expensive because it’s now “for business;” where someone has to manage all the invoices and checks and vendor correspondence for five stores across two time zones.

(Now you see why Jenette needs a sabbatical.)

For better or worse, the success of Jenette Bras meant growth that moved beyond what two owners could provide. There are now three gals in the middle of the formerly-flat food chain: one to help oversee what we sell, one to help manage who we hire, and one to help manage how we do business. This is simplified, of course. Nothing in retail is that simple.I’m the person tasked with that last part - the Operation. I track our sales, pay our vendors, troubleshoot technological issues, and help choose the right digital (and sometimes physical) tools to help our stores run smoother and our fitters serve our clients better. In the last 18 months as the Head of Operations, I have installed a ladder hanger with power tools, learned about accounts payable so I could create an accounts payable system, counted donated bras on my living room floor, helped make financial decisions, drove around LA with mannequins strapped into the seats of my SUV, and been on hold waiting for customer service more times than I’d like to admit. Every day I learn something new.

So, while this middle stage is sometimes uncomfortable, it means we as a company are learning. It means growth and change and progress. And now that we have people who hang out in the messy middle, our fitters and store managers can focus on YOU – our clients, without whom Jenette Bras wouldn’t exist.My first visit to Jenette Bras was 15 or so years ago. While I went in for a fitting (with Jenette!), my husband stayed in the car with our napping baby. Last week that almost-16-year-old daughter said (unprompted) she wanted to work at Jenette Bras because, “It’s such a fun place to work.” She’s heard many a story around the dinner table and still thinks this, so maybe we’re doing okay, even in the messy middle.From the other side of a spreadsheet xo  Jennii