Inventory: Someone please shoot me

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Tomorrow we begin backroom pre-counting for inventory at the swamp. Yay. Not.

We spent today trying to push as much merchandise as we could from the backroom to the salesfloor so the inventory service has to count it and not store employees. Unfortunately this is being done in ways that don't conform to the swamp's merchandise presentation rules and will need to be taken down and re-backstocked after inventory is finished, if not during the process and then counted in the backroom by employees. There will be managers from other stores and corporate people trawling through the store during this process.

Today we tried to push out as much toilet paper as we could from the backroom, even though there wasn't much there to begin with. One of the truck kids built a main-aisle display of toilet paper, and it looks like CRAP. Many of the packages are turned backwards and upside down, and it just looks like a big pile. Corporate would veto this because it isn't "impactful" and doesn't "drive sales."

Then we had some cookware sets for a new set in housewares. Their planogram doesn't get set until after inventory. What does my manager do? Stack them in the main aisle. This wouldn't be so bad except we only have two or three of each set. Again this would not be "impactful" and it will need to be taken down eventually.

Reconciliation on Wednesday will be a blast. I have a box of about 100 of a certain glue stick in the backroom, and the scanner says we only have 16 of that glue stick on hand. This is likely the result of one of several transfers of merchandise from some of our small-town stores that went pear-shaped and wasn't properly manifested and added to our inventory. There's going to be a lot of this stuff. Luckily I am not doing reconciliation. That's my day off, and after six days in a row I'm going to need it.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I feel your pain . . . we have ours scheduled for the 22nd (a week from this Thursday.) I've already had to let my guys know so they can reroute their deliveries for either Wednesday or Friday that week (those who have Thursday delivery that is.) Plus everybody who keeps back stock in our store has to come by no later than the day before to get as much worked to their sections as they can, credit out any damages and organize the remaining product so it can be easily scanned by the crew when they come in.

In the meanwhile, I have to make sure my back stock cigarettes are ready for counting (not hard - have a few drawers underneath the kiosk cases where I keep some) which I've already started on this past Friday. Have a couple of drawers that I still need to go through but most of them are already set.

And also make sure that anything I can't send back to reclaim that's still salable is marked down and on the clearance rack. Have a handful of items that I'll take care of this week and that shouldn't be an issue.

But the biggest challenge of all is seeing how Grasshopper will handle this - even though he's been through inventory before, this will be his first at our store as store manager (ie, he's about to get his cherry popped.)

Strangely enough, I don't feel stressed about it - all I can do is what I can do and the results will be whatever they turn out to be.

Hopefully I won't be stuck there all day - that has to be the most boring day we have, b/c I really can't do anything (pull dates and clean/can't work cigarette or wine back stock) except for stand there and watch the back room get counted or take sheets and go to the sales floor to do recounts (which do no good IMO as they don't seem to adjust anything we recount before the final totals are run on the computer.)

What kind of booze should we send to you? Beer? Liquor? Wine?

[Sapphire Silk]

I just finished a really good book: Pretending you care: The retail employee handbook by Norm Feuti (who does the Retail comic).

He did a chapter on inventory and pre-counting.

<shudder> Glad I'm not you guys.

[prjkt]

I'm assuming that Inventory over there is the same thing as Stocktake is here

This next one coming up will not be fun, as the previous managers never fixed up the errors from the last 3-4 stocktakes, so my stock on hand list vs actual stock in hand will be very different...

[dalesys]

This next one coming up will not be fun, as the previous managers never fixed up the errors from the last 3-4 stocktakes, so my stock on hand list vs actual stock in hand will be very different...

The offog came apart under gravitational stress...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

/falls over

So, okay. We arrive at work at 5 in the am and begin counting items in the backroom, and there's a thunderstorm. 45 minutes into it the power goes out.

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I AGREE

So, commence an hour and a half of everybody in the store making their way to the front doors, where there is at least a little light coming in from outside, to stand around, shoot the shit, and watch drivers on the main drag through town blow through the traffic light, which is out and thus the intersection is to be treated as 4-way stop.

Lights come back on, we go back to work. Except our scanners are moving extraordinarily slow for some reason. Also the backroom is starting to flood because it had been raining heavily. We came to find out at the end of the day that the roof was leaking water onto the wireless box that controls the scanners.

As a final annoyance, my manager brought in a guy who had been working out in the garden center, but he's moving him inside because he's useless. We assigned the guy to retrieve our count sheets from the printer and hang them on the correct shelves. This he did moving as fast a terminally depressed glacier. We're talking somebody who moves at a climatically-slow pace here.

Oh, and he has at least one other problem:

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I AGREE

He seriously went oozing behind me hanging up his sheets and he let a loud one rip. Right there behind me. I didn't comment on it, even though I was being gassed almost to death, the smell was that bad. I figured maybe it just came out as he was walking. But then he let another one go right in front of me and I walked into the Mud Bog Swamp Gas of Death smacking me right in the face like a fist.

He's been assigned to work truck with me on Thursday. I know where I'm putting him. Inside the truck to throw the boxes down.

[Krivak]

It's like he's a walking reminder of those damn senior days.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

It would seem that my manager, in his frenzy to push as much merchandise to the salesfloor as possible, overlooked something kind of important.

The pallet of bottled water sitting in the backroom that is currently on sale. We had counted the packs of water on the pallet, and then customers started asking where this water was. Customer service manager came into the backroom, saw the pallet sitting there, and had a shitfit. She isn't the most professional thing in the world, and you really want to steer clear of her when she's having a bad day, but she had reason to be angry.

End result; we had to delete the packs of water on the pallet from our count, enter the new total, print a new count report, and put the pallet of water on the floor so customers could buy it and the inventory service could count it.

Otherwise today was the usual rush to tie up all the loose ends. Oh, but we did have some time to replace the mattress on the flip n' f*** (futon) in the breakroom because the old one had a stain of undetermined origin.

[Kit-Ginevra]

May we suggest you put Glacier Guy not only on the truck,but also next to a large pallet of air-fresheners? That should sort his or if not,at least he can exude citrus scents...

[dalesys]

... pallet of air-fresheners...

Don't know if the pallet of air-fresheners will fit him, but...

Engage Warp Factor 7 on forklift, Mr. Sulu.

[blas]

It's really too bad you don't work in a factory with hanging vaccuums everywhere.

I mean, if I can't get away to fart in a vent, just grab a vaccuum and it's like it never happened.

[sms001]

just grab a vaccuum and it's like it never happened.

That's some seriously funny imagery right there.

I work in a fairly enclosed space. Sadly, as part of my first day spiel to new workers, I spend an inordinate amount of time explaining that farting will not be tolerated. To ostensible adults! The very fact that I bring it up in their training seems to drive it home to most, but I'm a little saddened that I have to do it.

[wolfie]

Be careful about that or you could wind up with ADA trouble. From what I've read, extreme flatulence is a VERY common side effect of a frequently-prescribed maintenance medication - so common that one nickname for the medication includes the word "fart".

[sms001]

Be careful about that or you could wind up with ADA trouble.

Then they have a golden opportunity to bring that up and we'll work to accommodate them. But just as I won't strain my back to accommodate someone with weak upper body strength, I also won't sniff methane all day. (Yes, I'm aware that the chemical composition of flatus is very low in methane.) "Accommodation" reaches absurdity when person after person quits rather than being subjected to unfair working conditions.

That said, I wasn't talking about people with legitimate medical conditions. I'm talking about people (like Irv's gasbag) who just don't care about what they subject those around them to, or (worse?) those with a mentality juvenile enough to consider it funny.

[SmivMoc]

Just to get you in the mood for inventory:

SKU check!