My customers often comment on how awesome my job as a cigar shop manager must be. While I assure you, the sitting around smoking cigars with great people is indeed awesome. There is also a lot of hard work involved in managing my shop.
I work a number of hours a week that I'm never paid for in supply runs to warehouse stores, waiting in line at the bank or post office, preparing shipments, speaking to representatives before or after my shift... the list goes on. This morning I opened late because I was locked in mortal combat with our thermal label printer - almost resulting in a lost sale. However, at the end of the day, I'm thankful and blessed to have employment in our current economical situation.
That being said, I often get to sit back and enjoy the perks of being in my line of work. A representative of a major cigar company recently approached me and invited me to travel out to Nicaragua pretty much all expenses paid and spend three nights at their plantation. And so, sometime in February I'll be boarding a plane to go see the front end of our product's production line. This is very exciting.
"So, can you smoke all the free cigars you want?"
This is another question I hear pretty often - usually from the younger patrons. The short answer is yes, I can. The long answer is: not exactly. You see, representatives of various cigar brands often come to me asking if I'd be interested in stocking their products. In the nineties, their might have been a few thousand different lines available to stock, total. Nowadays, there are well over ten thousand. This means I'm constantly inundated with different sales reps hosting different lines all containing different blends. The long and short of it is I get a lot of free cigars. I get so many free cigars, I can't possibly smoke them all, myself, without succumbing to acute nicotine poisoning. So I can, effectively, smoke all the free cigars I want. That being said, some of those blends our reps are hawking are great. This year, we discovered the wonderful Cordoba and Morales brand. Many of those blends are also awful. I'm not here to give bad press.
So I wouldn't want to smoke every cigar I get, but I enjoy challenging my palate to quantify these new offerings to see if they'd be something worth stocking. It's frankly something I work very hard at, bringing to bear a number of tools for the cause. I'm a human guinea pig for cigars.
Changing gears here, I want to discuss what is probably my favorite aspect of working in the cigar shop. And frankly, you don't even have to work here to experience this blanket effect. The absolute best social networking I've ever seen occurs on the shop floor. The people you meet here are some of the most valuable acquaintances you'll ever come across, I mean it. I've met one of my best friends in the world when we sat down over a cigar and started talking about the cinematic qualities of the Bioshock video game franchise. I met my awesome boss here, who I consider like a father to me. I've met numerous professional acquaintances who led me to interviews and other working opportunities. Seriously.
Fuck Facebook. Fuck Myspace. Fuck LinkedIn.
My favorite perk of being in my line of business is the people. Sure, I meet some true assholes who are beyond redemption. I threw a salesman out this morning for raising his voice over mine, cursing, disturbing my customers, and welching on a bet (he bet me his house I was paying flat rates on my personal credit card sales transactions, I proved I was not). But, then I met his boss (bet that guy wishes he never left his business card on my counter) when I called to let him know his salesman was a no-fly in my store and several others on the block. His wonderful boss called me back indicating "I hear you've just had a visit from the worst salesman in the world," as the first words out of his mouth. We are now friends. He's coming in for a smoke tomorrow.
And of course, I'd bring shame upon myself if I didn't mention my "internet friend" community abroad. I'm a member of the /r/cigars sub-reddit online. Reddit is a free forum of people who gather together to share like-mindedness in a myriad of sub-reddits (individual threads keyed towards specific topics). The cigars sub-reddit hosts a community of cigar enthusiasts who are absolutely chomping at the bit to adopt you into their fold and begin trading and "bombing" each other in random acts of genuine altruism. They're literally trying to "out-nice" each other, and I'm proud to call them my "internet friends". Just be wary to read the rules and become a verified member by conducting your first trade, and you too can enjoy the benefits of the community.
The point I'm trying to hammer home here is you people are my most valuable asset as customers, and my greatest source of inspiring friendship, and if that sounds like a hallmark card - imagine a grizzled twenty-something with a pirate beard saying it, then taking a drag on a terrible cigar he's smoking for your benefit.
You wouldn't be too far off base.
-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: Armando Gutierrez Azul Vintage 2008 (Trabajador 5"x54)
(It's so-so, not terrible.)
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