“I expect you are used to this.  But just so it’s not a surprise to you on Monday, I wanted to let you know that I have found a unit similar to yours that does offer a modesty panel.  Prices are similar as well so I may go that route.  I’m not sure yet though because, believe it or not, I like your wheels better!  Buying furniture is too much like dating.  You never get anything perfect.”

 

So that got me thinking… if you compare buying furniture to dating, how do we stack up against the ‘eligible’ competition?  What features are considered when ‘playing the field’ with furniture options?  I thought of a few…

• Dependability – No one wants something that’s not going to last.  You need to have faith that a product will stand the test of time.
  (Good thing we offer lifetime warranties for any manufacturing defects.)
• Flexibility – Change is inevitable so you need something that will grow with you over time.
  (Not only do our products allow you to decide how to configure your workspace at the start, but we have accessories and companion products that help your cart evolve as quickly as your interests do.)
• Personality – How can you bond with a product if it’s just not compatible with your personality or lifestyle?
  (With several product lines, accessories, and color options, who can argue that Anthro isn’t compatible with just about everybody?  We make it easy to customize your workstation to compliment your style.)
• Availability – Who wants to fall in love with a product just to find out that it’s not available when you need or want it?
  (No sense in waiting once you’ve made up your mind.  Luckily with Anthro most products ship within a week.  Not fast enough for you? Some products ship in just one day!)
• Strength – Products need to be strong enough to carry your equipment and your reputation. They can’t wimp out when the going gets tough.
  (Don’t worry, Anthro’s products can shoulder the weight.  Depending on what you choose, our furniture can hold 150lbs and some can hold up to 500lbs! Whew!)
• Appearance - We’re talking about that instant attraction.  You know the kind that makes you stop dead in your tracks and say ‘Wow’?  Furniture can’t have that ‘just rolled out of the cardboard box’ look – it needs to impress.
  (Anthro has a lot of show stoppers and we’re always coming up with new and innovative designs.  Take a look, I’m sure you’ll find one that’ll make you believe in love at first sight.)

With all these things working in our favor, I think we’re a pretty good catch – don’t you?

We have a 10 year old cat that is too smart for her own good. 

I’ve noticed as she gets older she really likes to stay warm but I didn’t know just how warm until yesterday when we were sitting in the living room and saw her jump to the top of her cat tower.  As we watched, she reached with her paw around the corner of the wall and started swatting at something.  I got up and walked around the corner to find she had been swatting at the touch pad thermostat and turning up the heat to over 70 degrees in the house.  I looked and my husband Tim and we both said, ” No way! Really??”

The only way that Tim & I could explain the strange behavior was we figured that she must have learned her new ‘trick’ when he adjusted the controls the week before.  She was watching him and swatting at his hands to play.  Now she finds it fun to swat at the touch screen to see the lights come on.  Nice trick… but no thanks kitty!!

6 Verte Chairs

5 Anthro employees covering the floor

4 days at Macworld

3 men on a cart

2 eNook Pillars

1 sale for Macworld

Monday, we got the official reports from the employees representing the booth at Macworld, and the show was in our humble opinion was a success. It was a busy, foot-aching, back-breaking, Verte-Chair-demonstrating kind of week and all are glad to be home. New to Anthro this year was the featuring of our very popular Verte Chair.  While it has always had a presence in the booth, this year we upped the ante and brought 6 chairs. This of course, brought a lot of attention to the booth. The Verte Chair is a gigantic attention grabber, and so we centered our Macworld theme around it… Please, Make Yourself Comfortable.

Fit Console

Elevate Wrap

Also new to the booth this year was our Elevate Wrap (often called our ELT Wrap). Previous years we have always had our very popular Fit Console in 2 configurations, but this year we decided to switch it up. Our ELT Wrap is height adjustable electronically as opposed to the Console which is adjustable with the squeeze of a paddle.

We’ve attended Macworld for 25 years; devotees know us and expect to see us. Scarier is that some of them actually know more about Anthro, than some of the employees, so they expect to see our sales, hope to snag a few more of the Tidy Tube gifties, lust over the Verte Chair, but most importantly love our products. Macworld is far and away our favorite show of the year.  It’s the most fun, it’s got a great reputation, it’s in an amazing city, and it’s a reward to work the show.

The buzz from this year was the brush with greatness, by way of Sinbad the comedian. Sinbad graciously comes to visit the booth every year, stays for a while, chats with the team, offers hi-fives, knuckles and the willingness to be in a few pictures.

So after so many years, we are continually thrilled to feature our ergonomic solutions for small businesses, home offices and education. And for the first time, to share our height adjustable products ranging from more affordable to top-of-the-line including the Fit Adjusta, Fit Console and ELT Elevate. With a small sampling of the breadth of products at the show we hope that Macworld attendees are inspired to make themselves comfortable, too.

Sinbad 2009

Once name tags and drink tickets were distributed, my guest and I were knee deep in Ho-Down shenanigans.  Before I can even cash in a ticket my guest and I are our shuffled into the photobooth by my boss Nichole Pichole for a picture.  My poor guest was forced to sit on the shoulders of my boss’s husband as we all piled into the booth.  By the drive and determination of Nichole Pichole alone, we successfully fit 8 adults into that darn booth, earning us the prize of most people in a picture, and each of us were bestowed our BBQ Sauce trophy. The picture itself generated a small glimpse of a face, forehead and a frenzied blur, but no real clear evidence of 8 adults in a photobooth.

While many were playing on the many Wii’s floating around the room, to me the real highlight of the evening was without a doubt watching my members of Team Anthro ride the mechanical bull. One by one, well intentioned adults took off their shoes, climbed into the ring and flung their leg over the bull, a bull with a back covered in the fiberglass slide material, as if from some fast-food chain playland. This made it all just a little more interesting, a chance to watch your co-workers clench up and ride the slickest bull in town.

So, I rode. I just had to. I had to prove my skills and after being late, apparently my reputation required some improvement as well. So I step up to the bull and flung my leg over… had to try again, and realized the material of my pants worked about as well on the bull as trying to run down the greased up bowling lane. After an impressive 18 seconds beating many, and losing to only the truly devoted bull riders, I hung up my spurs and am officially never riding a bull or a play land slide again.

In the end, thoughts of revenge schemes were wiped away and the warm fuzzies that come from sharing a special day with your co-workers and their special loved ones became the greatest gift of all. Well, maybe that and the BBQ sauce.

I knew something was a little off when someone was found dead, and the mystery was afoot.  One woman kept commenting on my jewlery, turns out she was an actress.  One gentleman spoke very passionately about dental health, turns out he worked there.  At some point, I had to appreciate that I had no idea who I was talking to and whether or not they were giving me clues to indicate who the murderer was.  By the way, it wasn’t the dental health guy, I almost pointed him out as the murderer, but being so new had me feeling a bit bashful.

However, I may have been in the minority, being bashful.  The liquor was flowing, the spirits were steadily rising, and the bar for professionalism appeared to be lowering.  Even after the party ended, the fun didn’t stop.  Most traveled across the street to continue the evening at a “grown-up” establishment…much later in the evening one of the guests, a family member of the owner, shouted “TIMBER” as he knocked over the beautiful and very large designer Christmas Tree in the Hilton Hotel lobby.

At that time, a party of such magnitude was considered the norm.  Now that the market has changed, as expected, so has your quintessential Holiday Party.  And for those poor souls, those employees that return to work after the party in shame, this is probably a change for the better.  In fact, times have changed so much that many companies are actually canceling the annual party and choosing to “hunker down”.  Leaving employees to participate in some punch and cookies by the water cooler, and some, if lucky will get to play that gift giving game that extends for hours and you end up leaving with a jar of homemade cookie mix, to replace the well thought out ornament you gave.  Nobody steals jars of homemade cookie mix… trust me.

Fortunately, for the employees of Anthro Corporation, we get to celebrate this coming weekend with the Holiday Ho Ho Ho-down.  If you can’t tell from the name, our party will be Western themed with prizes for the best costume.  I’ve heard rumors of roast beef and a mechanical bull, seriously folks, a mechanical bull… at a Holiday Party.  Some interesting things are going to happen this Saturday.

The move hasn’t come without it’s challenges, half the team has been sick with some wretched cold and in spite of that, today we’ve started a massive relocation of our tradeshow area.  Timing couldn’t be any more delicate, tradeshow season has just started for Anthro and an large scale move is a bit of a squeeze when it comes to logistical planning.  The move has to go just so, we have to make sure that everything is well-organized to avoid the headaches and that moment you realize you just can’t find the precise thing you must have.  On the bright side, we’ve found out what was on this mystery pallet up high, in the corner and covered in dust.  It ended up being quite a few relic tradeshow banners in a variety of colors including safety orange.  We found more chairs than we thought we had, we found spiders and bugs, a red blanket, a mirror you’d hang in your home, and some M&M costumes.  Costumes, someone must have worn, and I am looking for picture proof.

In reality, the challenge is the new home itself, as it turns out; our new home is a warehouse that has no heat.  Now while there will be heaters purchased for our benefit, we haven’t tested the heating strength, it could turn out that stepping 10 feet away from the warmth of the heater will create a risk for frostbitten fingers and toes.    I’ve seen the guys who work full time in the warehouse, they wear as many layers as they can, and they seem to suffer arctic conditions, in spite of what seems to be pretty warm weather outside.  In spite of the chill, we’re just happy to have more space, a lot more space.

Not to brag, but we are about to have our own workspace, more storage for our tools and carts with safer, more protected areas to keep our materials free of damage.  A home for everything.  When you think about it, we get to stake our claim for more valuable company real estate, better security, and we get to find all those little treasures that have been lying around for far too long.  Which if you factor in the increased organization and improvement to the complicated and intricate tradeshow planning process this move is a huge win for the Anthro, and will become a huge asset to us as we continue to exhibit at more shows.

RSNA runs from 12/1-4 in Chicago, IL focusing on showing Radiologists the newest advances in the Radiology Industry this year we will be featuring our Carl’s Table, model CT08 and our brand new Elevate Adjusta.  This Elevate Adjusta features electric legs that will lift and lower with the push of a button and a keyboard area that can be adjusted with the squeeze of a paddle (images to come).

Next on deck is a show near and dear to us, Macworld.  We’ve been attending this show for as long as we can remember and collectively it is the post popular show we attend, we get to meet Anthro fans and enjoy all that Macworld has to offer.

So now you can see just how ugly, ugly shirts  can be, and who our Halloween Costume winner was.  Enjoy!

36% of the food provided is for children and households with children are the largest group served.  Did you also know…

• 27% of households with children report cutting or reducing the size of a child’s meals. Of those, 30% do this almost every month.
• 69% of households worry at least sometimes about how they will get their next meal.
• 67% of households reported incomes less than 100% of federal poverty level.
• 43% of families with children had at least one full-time worker.

Many of these families are just not poor enough to receive much assistance from the food stamp program, so they rely on food boxes for survival.  One recipient stated “Food stamps need to be in line with the real needs of families. $10 a month to a hard working single mom only buys one gallon of milk per week.”

We are proud to say that we were able to donate 573 lbs and $330 in cash.  Next year we hope to aim even higher!