Why I Love Panera

First, join me in happy dancing over at Seekerville! I’m the guest blogger today! Come by and say hi!

Anyone who knows me or has seen me comment on other blogs [like Seekerville] knows I love Panera and that I work well there, but why?

First, it’s a Panera. What else is there to say?!

But once I’d been going there for a while regularly, I started to get to know some of the employees. Especially a couple of the managers. Now, it’s nothing deep or anything, but they know me. They know I like my potato soup in a bread bowl with the bread bowl on the side. [Hey! It’s dippabler that way!]

And they love that I sit there and write books.

So last April, when I was looking for a name of a character [the next door neighbor, mentor type] I picked “Doyle” after one of the managers who’s been kind to me. Doyle, in the universe I created, is married to Deeanne. They’re the Doziers.

Doyle and Deeanne Dozier.

What great names, right? And secondary characters so the alliteration shouldn’t get too annoying ;).

A couple weeks ago, I was at Panera, typing away when I got stuck. Just a bit and ended up staring into space. Space where another manager – Travis – walked into and thought I was looking at him.

We had a good laugh over it and got to chatting. Doyle already knew I’d named a character after him by this point and got a good laugh over it. Travis and I were talking about it [he insisted I needed to name a character ‘Travis with the faux-hawk” – guess who my new hero is? ;)].

Told Travis the whole character name.

Two guesses what Doyle’s [the real one] dog’s name is.

Yep.

You got it.

Dozier.

Doyle agreed to send me a pic of him and Dozier to use on the blog, but I don’t have it yet, so I’ll post it when I do.

I love my Panera because of how much work I can get done there and because of the nice people who take good care of me while I’m there.

Plus, I just may get to have a book signing or two there one day.

You know.

When I have a book to sign ;).