Hennepin Technical College

Aspiring Entrepreneur Catrice Grandberry – Profile

Catrice Grandberry – Business woman in the making

Dwight Hobbes/MN Spokesman-Recorder

Catrice Grandberry is a businesswoman in the making, determined with strong promise.  Grandberry works retail at [a Twin Cities] liquor store going on three years and already is a manager, planning to eventually set up her own shop.

The 27-year-old aspirant is laying groundwork.  She walked in as a clerk, handling the cash register, looking after stock and doing whatever else needed doing.  It entailed opening and closing the till and, when not ringing up customers, carting bottles and cigarette cartons from the back room to fill shelves.  And, since nothing gets dusty quicker than bottles, she had to be handy with glass-cleaner and a rag.  When necessary, she swept up. The promotion came as a combination of things.  Business hit a bump, necessitating a change in ownership, creating an unexpected chance to advance.    When opportunity knocks, be ready to answer.  The new owners looked to fill a vacuum in managers.  Grandberry stepped up and put in for the position.  The owners liked what they’d seen of her work and decided she’d fill the bill just fine. 

Around the same time, Grandberry started studying business administration at Globe University/Minnesota School of Business.  After a year, she felt the institution’s price was steep enough without a policy she found counterproductive.  “All the money from your financial aid loan has to go to tuition and credits.  You can’t use any of it to buy, for instance, a computer.”  When you consider how essential computers are to business is, that’s a bass-ackward constraint to put on students.  So, she’s switching to Hennepin Technical College to complete her associate’s degree.

Along with the store’s other three managers, she still puts in time at the register.  Only, now, she supervises and, while it’s an enjoyable challenge, there’s a mildly annoying aspect.  Having to make sure grown men do their jobs.  When she assigns a task to a woman, she can get on to other things without a concern.  Not necessarily so with the fellas.  “They’re lazy.  Well, maybe not lazy, but forgetful.  You have to tell them everything twice.  You say, ‘Stock the beer coolers.’  Ten minutes later, you have to tell them again.’  But, I love ‘em.”  You can believe she does, since anytime you go in, there’s an easy camaraderie among all the co-workers.  “We’re like family.”

Some people don’t have the right personality for retail.  It requires interpersonal skills.  Including the ability to not let knuckleheads get on your nerves.  Catrice Grandberry takes to it like a duck to water.  She’s pleasant with a ready smile, a thick skin and a great deal of patience.  Quite handy in a line of work where customers often have a had a nip or two before they get there.  When they call her outside her name because they’re trying to do something they’ve no business.  Like, use somebody else’s i.d. to buy booze.  Or make a purchase with ten dollars in quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies when a sign on the counter clearly states the store can’t accept more than two bucks in coins.  It rolls offs her back.  As woman, exceptionally attractive at that, she routinely contends with come-ons.  “All the time.  Some of them just can’t believe I’m not interested.  I shut ‘em down, softly.  They just keep trying.”  And keep failing.  While Grandberry leaves it all behind her at the end of the day and goes either home or to class. 

She unwinds maybe once, twice a week with her girlfriends or her man, sometimes both.  Or just relax at her apartment.  Like everyone else, she notices a savings when she opts for home entertainment, but the recession hasn’t really dented her lifestyle.  Mainly, because she has never been a slave to clothing stores. And everyone dresses down at the workplace.  Jeans, tee-shirts.  Allowing her to indulge a favorite pastime.  Food.  “I love to eat.”  For which she hits [a supermarket chain].  A concession is that she buys a little more in bulk than she used to.  Actually, work and school don’t leave much time to spend money.  For the job, she says, “I grind.  There’s a lot of times when I don’t get a day off in the week.  There are Sundays when we’re closed to the public but still are here.  [To take] inventory.  Clean up.  Make pricing changes.  Take down old displays, put up new ones.” For school, there is, naturally, in addition to attending class, hours bent over books, doing homework.  Suffice to say, the lady leads a busy life.  And, indeed, has her eye on the proverbial prize. 

What moved her to become a businesswoman?  “I don’t want to work for [others].  I want to be on my own time [at] my pace.  I don’t want to have to answer to nobody but the IRS.” Catrice Grandberry intends to call her own shots and is putting in place the means by which to do exactly that.  Sounds, as the saying goes, like a plan.

About the Author

Industry profile: Consulting …

Hennepin Technical College.(SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT): An article from: Techniques $9.95 This digital document is an article from Techniques, published by Association for Career and Technical Education on February 1, 2011. The length of the article is 497 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Hennepin Technic…