Death to patio furniture

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, it's that time again. Time for us to start getting ready for patio furniture to start coming in hot and heavy.

How I loathe patio furniture. This time every year we do the same song and dance:

• Try to think of a way to fit all the patio furniture into one central, easily-accessible spot, so people won't be tripping over stuff and hurting themselves while trying to carry it out for customers.
• Brainstorm ideas for moving things around to create this easily-accessible spot.
• Decide everybody's ideas aren't feasible for one reason or another.
• Finally come up with a plan to move things around and make a spot for patio furniture.
• Start moving things around in backstock to make room for the incoming patio furniture.
• Sometime in the course of moving things, somebody decides the plan we agreed on won't work, because it doesn't leave enough room, creates a safety hazard, or some other reason.
• Frank exchange of ideas on current plan and new plan, or at least a way to avoid having to move all the stuff we've already moved back to where it used to be.
• Finally realize we have to move the stuff back and try something else.
• Move stuff back, move other crap around.
• Find other projects we decide we want to do around the backroom.
• Repeat the above steps one to three times.
• Finally, finish moving stuff around and settle on one spot for patio furniture.
• Which inevitably turns out not to be enough room, because the corporate buyers always greatly overestimate the demand for patio furniture, and send us too much of it, and the excess sits around well into September or October until it finally sells.
• Therefore, patio furniture ends up being strewn here, there and everywhere.

Mind you, the stuff I'm talking about here is outdoor tables, ginormous boxes of chairs to go with the tables, gliders, rockers, screened gazebos, umbrellas, umbrella bases, side tables, gas grills, deck boxes, metal lawn sculptures, water fountains, big tall stacks of patio chairs that don't fit under the ceiling in places, air conditioners and dehumidifiers (not patio furniture, but still summer seasonal in nature), and probably other stuff I've forgotten to mention. In short, lots and lots of big, bulky stuff.

I don't know why we bother. The backroom just isn't big enough to accommodate all this shit.

[morgana]

I don't know why we bother.

Because your management are cretins?

[Der Cute]

And it's only Jan....THIS EARLY???

[Dave0523]

And it's only Jan....THIS EARLY???

Of course. Christmas creep isn't limitted to just Christmas. We've noticed that everything is placed for sale about one season earlier than necessary and pulled when the season actually starts. (We live in Florida, and last year had trouble finding swimsuits for our girls in June. We could have gotten coats and jackets, but no swimsuits.)

--Dave

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And it's only Jan....THIS EARLY???

Yup. We've just begun what I call "retail summer," which runs from early January to the beginning of June. Easter falls sometime in there. Notice I said nothing about Valentines Day, which begins in December and is just about coming to an end already. Right after February 14 comes and goes, corporate wants Easter to start going up RIGHT NAO.

Back to School is early June through, say Mid-August. Then comes Halloween and retail fall for a couple weeks. Christmas is September through, say, early December. By then, shipments of Christmas stuff have stopped.

Retail Winter starts sometime in August or so, when all the warm coats and sweaters start pouring in.

Working in retail means getting your seasons all screwed up.

[Becks]

Working in retail means getting your seasons all screwed up.

Don't forget about sanity.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Don't forget about sanity.

What is this sanity of which you speak?

[KitterCat]

What is this sanity of which you speak?

Its that thing in the corner of all Managers offices. You see they have to have it removed and locked up in order to get the position, in order to do their jobs. You as a lowly underling have yet to have gone through the complete removal operation so you don’t get to receive a managers position.

Don’t worry once the process is complete they’ll be sure to offer one to you. One way of faking it is act like everything they do makes complete sense, and remember not to do your job correctly.

[jedimaster91]

Notice I said nothing about Valentines Day, which begins in December and is just about coming to an end already. Right after February 14 comes and goes, corporate wants Easter to start going up RIGHT NAO.

I think I've only seen Reece hearts at one store. They could have been a figment of my imagination, but I'm pretty sure I saw them. I ran to Kroger today and they've got several endcaps of Reece eggs. Personally, I don't care if we skip V-day altogether as long as I get my candy hearts.

[Pagan]

Notice I said nothing about Valentines Day, which begins in December and is just about coming to an end already. Right after February 14 comes and goes, corporate wants Easter to start going up RIGHT NAO.

We were actually talking at work yesterday about having an anti-Valentine's party.

Its that thing in the corner of all Managers offices.

I always thought that was the little thing cowering in the corner along with the common sense.

[Andara Bledin]

And it's only Jan....THIS EARLY???

My company got some zero gravity lawn chairs, and we've been selling them regularly since we put them on our website in mid-December.

^-.-^

[Summerfly413]

Yep at my store they were moving all the x-mas stuff to one section of the store and putting up v-day stuff mid-to late december.

They just started putting out the lawn chairs, etc a couple weeks ago.

I haven't seen easter stuff but I haven't worked in 2 days so maybe when I go in today I'll see some.

I never noticed this when I was younger. Only since I've worked in retail. Has it always been that way?