Staff Spotlight: Cindy

Job title: 

Housewares Buyer

How long you’ve lived in this area: 

34 years, came from Bradford, MA. Grew up in Rhode Island.

How long you’ve worked here: 

in her 23rd year

Bio:

Cindy loves her job. She purchases and displays all the Housewares items in the store, which includes all the kitchen gadgets, dishware, gift cards, toys, and other items like books, magazines, and calendars. She says “every day’s like Christmas,” because much of her time is spent looking through catalogs of beautiful things we could sell. She’s got a knack for this kind of work, but it’s not just that she has a good eye—Cindy is a design professional. Her background is in photography and interior design, and for many years she worked designing kitchens and bathrooms. She uses those skills in her job here, and it really shows. Her sales numbers are consistently great, and she’s built our Co-op into a destination for people searching for unique and wonderful gifts and kitchen items. 

Her professionalism also shows in her respect for other local shops in her decision-making. She’s always mindful of what other stores in our area are selling; she avoids carrying the same items and keeps up with what they have in stock. And she really cares. She takes it personally when Housewares items end up in the disco bin! It makes her wonder what she did wrong and how she can do better.

Cindy is proud of the work she does and is excited to come to work every day. She loves her coworkers, too. When she’s gone through tough times here, her coworkers have made a huge difference in her life. They lift her up, give her love and appreciation, and she gives it back a hundredfold. 

What animal do you identify with or just like a lot?

The answer to this has changed over the course of Cindy’s life. First it was pigs. Then penguins. Now it’s hedgehogs. This isn’t because she resembles these animals, but because she is in love with them, and surrounds herself with objects and images of them! 

Pigs: “They’re amazing creatures; they have beautiful eyes… I take photos of them.”

Penguins: She loves their shape, their black-and-whiteness, how unique they are, how both parents take turns sitting on their eggs. She even stole a big penguin from a mall display in the 1980’s when she worked there at WaldenBooks. It sits on her back porch today. “They never missed it!” She still has a set of penguin sheets from her college days. 

A few months ago she got a real little hedgehog as a pet! Her name is Winnie, and she’s about a year old. But Cindy’s love of hedgehogs has been around since she was about seventeen years old! In fact, she’s been a member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for a number of years, and once spent many hours watching for a wild hedgehog crossing in the middle of the night in England.

Cindy shared a lot of hedgehog facts with me: they only live to be like 3-5 years old. They’re nocturnal. And they’re like cats, she said, in that they don’t come when you call them, they’re pretty indifferent to your presence, and just generally don’t care if you’re there or gone. Nevertheless, Winnie is completely adorable and gets lots of attention! Cindy holds her (or carries her in a home-made little pouch) for half an hour a day because that’s what’s recommended to get the hedgehog accustomed to its owner’s scent. Hedgehogs can’t see or hear very well, but their sense of smell is quite keen. They also sleep 18 hours a day. But during the six wakeful nighttime hours they are constantly on the move. They run eight to twelve miles every night in the wild! A lot of people track their pet hedgehog’s running distance by putting a little pedometer on their wheel, and pretty soon Winnie will have one, too. 

In conclusion: Cindy is one in a million, and we’re so lucky to have her in our BFC family. Thank you, Cindy!

-Ruth, Content & Community Relations Coordinator