Help Wanted

As my little rope company has grown from something started in my backyard and prospered to what it is today, I have done so with the help of some great people. From friends who offered a hand when I could barely afford to feed them, to others whom I have recruited and hired to be on my permanent payroll. Some of them have only spent a short time with us while others have become interwoven into the narrative and become an integral part of tale that is TwistedMonk. Right now, in addition to Nerdy and myself, we have a handful of awesome part time help here at the Abbey. Next month one of these superstars is going to leave us so that she may study abroad, and while we are all very excited for her, I’m stuck having to find someone to fill her job and then some.

Yep, looks like it is high time to hire us another full time employee. Someone with a background in customer service, warehouse work and possibly fiber arts would be perfect. 40 hours a week, geed pay, and all the hemp rope you can eat.

The problem is finding just the right person.

While my first desire would be to hire from within the community, a customer, reader, or individual who otherwise “gets” what it is we are doing and how amazing and unique this tiny kink business is. Unfortunately, that can backfire. See, it is not all “Porn stars and prodoms,”-- we bust our asses in a cold, Pre-WWI warehouse. There have been those who came to us in wide-eyed wonder, thinking that we spent the day tying up pretty girls and all my (and Nerdy’s) rants about our sore hands were just exaggerations. This is a job that we take very serious and while we do our best to have a good time it is, in the end, a job.

The other option is to look outside the community, cast a net into the vanilla world and see what bites. This, this is dicey. A carefully worded advertisement will get a line of potentials at your doorstep. We have found some good folks via this route, but more than a few have shook their heads and backed away, wanting nothing to do with “those kinds of people.” For those who do stay, it is just paycheck and nothing more. Let me tell you, after clocking in your 10th straight day of a death march, nothing makes you want to stab someone in the eye with a whipping needle more than when the person you are busting ass in order to make sure they get paid well says with a shrug, “I don’t see what the fuss is all about. It is just rope.”

Alas, it is a tricky balance. To find someone who understands just how rare and lucky we are to be doing this (and getting paid), yet also willing to shoulder the day to day grind of making miles and miles of rope a week. I tell every new employee the same thing: have faith in my dream and I will reward it. Work hard for me and I will do all I can to keep you safe, and know that you will always be paid before I pay myself.