NATCHEZ — When Sherra Arnold wakes up for the work day, she rolls out of bed, brushes her teeth and heads to the office.

That’s where The Dart found her Thursday afternoon, working at the office on North Rankin Street. The difference for Arnold, however, is that the office isn’t very far from the bedroom or the breakfast table — it’s down the hall.

Arnold is a sales representative for Jensen Dental, a manufacturer of dental alloys and dental alloy equipment. She spends her days talking to clients in Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.

That wasn’t always the case. Arnold ran a dental lab behind her house for 15 years.

One day in 2010, however, when she was attending a convention in Chicago, she met a company executive for Jensen and told him offhand how much she admired the company’s equipment as a lab technician. She wasn’t looking for something new, but made a joke about wanting to be associated with the company.

“I said to him, ‘Some day I might want to work for you,’” she said. “The next thing he did, he introduced me to the vice president of sales.”

Arnold didn’t get a job that day, but when she got back home she emailed her resume to the company. Arnold also baked a loaf of sourdough bread and mailed it with a handwritten note to the vice president of sales.

The company didn’t take long to get back to her, and a few months later Arnold was able to sell her lab and open a work-from-home sales center.

“I kind of mulled it over and said, ‘God just kind of opened a door for me,’” she said. “Something happened that gave me an opportunity to start over with something new at 45 years old.

“Some of my co-workers have to commute in, and for me to be able to work for a company the quality and size of Jensen and be able to live in Natchez and work for a Northampton, Conn., company is a godsend.”

Working from the home sales center has its moments — sometimes her dogs bark when Arnold is trying to sell a $65,000 piece of equipment — but it also provides her the opportunity to observe residential life on Rankin Street.

“I basically sit at my desk and look out the window and watch the people walk by,” she said. “With the bed-and-breakfast next door I see a lot of tourists, and last year after we landscaped, I had a lot of people stopping here and pointing it out.”

While the work setup allows her to observe the speed of life in the area, there is work involved. Fortunately for Arnold, she said, it’s the kind of work with which someone who is talkative can thrive.

She has made good enough friends with some of her clients that they will communicate outside of strict work parameters, Arnold said. In one instance, she and a client exchanged pictures of the hams they were preparing for Christmas.

“I am here by myself, but I am not really ever by myself because I am talking on the phone all day,” she said.