Good morning: I’m Zora and I’ll be conducting your orientation training today. I should start by explaining that I’m in charge of Human Resources and will be your line manager during your time here. When I’m finished with you, scroll down to yesterday’s post where you’ll find application specifications for the shop-sitting position. I understand the humans who work here have a search going.

But first, let’s get acquainted. My management style has sometimes been described as ‘woofless’ but I would dispute that; indeed I’d say my bark is worse than my bite. As a junior member of staff, your main duties will be to attend to my needs, so you should first take note of where the treats are kept and never let them run out. There’s some stuff about books and customers as well, but you needn’t worry about that yet.

Where was I? Ah yes – my needs. As well as the treats you should fill my food bowl and water dish regularly. I think there’s something about the cats I should be telling you but that’s not important right now – except you should always make sure the cat food dishes are near enough the counter top that I can reach them.

There’s another canine manager here: my subordinate Bert. He’s the security chief. Whenever he barks you give us a treat, me first with the biggest one, of course. You might think he’d eventually stop barking if you wait long enough, but if you think that then you’re barking—barking mad!

I mentioned the cats earlier. There are three of them and the youngest is really quite cute. When he first arrived he was tiny and didn’t know how to look after himself. I soon licked him into shape! He is called Owen Meanie. Then there’s Val-Kyttie, our CEO. She’s a Scottish lady of advanced years and is on the slide towards retirement; she pretends she’s drawing up the annual forward plan, but we’ve never seen one in the six years we’ve been here. Best just to leave her alone and agree with anything she says (if you can understand her accent). Finally there’s Beulah, a unique cat indeed. She played a very important role in publicizing the bookstore when it first opened and quickly became everyone’s favorite (except for Val-Kyttie, who can’t stand her of course). It’s funny how all marketing managers end up marketing themselves!

So, I should probably tell you about your bookish duties now – no, wait, let’s just review what you’ve learned so far. Where are the treats?

(For information on applying to be our shop-sitter, please see yesterday’s blog post. To enter caption contest VI and potentially win a free copy of Wendy’s book, scroll down to August 29. And don’t forget that Big Stone Celtic, the town-wide festival celebrating all things celtic in food, song, story, dance and general merriment, is Saturday, Sept. 22.)