Okay. So Sandy (Yeah, that link won't be relevant for more than a week.) is bearing down on the North-east coast. I'm somewhere in the red region, right in the path of the hurricane, and almost right on the beach, no less.
One of the people who works in the stockroom with me is a football field's length away from the beach itself. We're terrified for him. He was fine during Hurricane Irene last year, as was most of the people, (I didn't even lose power, oddly enough. I'm quite grateful.) but people are worrying, oh yes.
So the Hurricane is expected to hit roughly between Monday and Thursday. Last Friday was one of our truck days, (The truck itself was a few hours late.) and we were scrambling to get as many storm supplies up as possible. We took down an entire Halloween display shelf set in favor of lanterns, duct tape, tarps, and whatever would work as all of those as well.
When the truck came, we didn't bother sorting it out or anything. We looked in each bulk pack and took all the storm supplies out of it that we could find and just left it all for the birds. We're understaffed to the point where this is a serious setback for us into the weeks to come, to be so backed up.
Even before the store opened, there were calls requesting a generator. There was a waiting list by the register for anyone who wanted one, though no promises were made.
All the while, I was also unofficially on carry-out duty, simply being that I was out front at the time. We went through six skids of 50 pound bags of sand, 60 or so per skid. That's 18,000 pounds, mind you. We also went through two skids of topsoil for the same purpose. A truck with 800 bags of sand was ordered for the same day. I was long gone at that point, though.
Then, an hour and a half from the point my stockroom co-worker and I had to leave, we were called into the office to be told that at some point between Sunday and Monday, a truck with 144 generators. That's 36 skids of 4 generators each.
I don't have room for 36 skids. I don't have room for 20 skids. I don't have room for 10 skids. I don't have room for 5 skids.
I have no idea what they're doing today. When I left, we were all tending to the storm-related goods, ensuring they were stocked with whatever would help from whatever we happened to have. We couldn't get any of the christmas skids out to the seasonal aisles to put them into overstock because people kept bugging us in the middle of working why we don't have any more flashlights or whatever.
I'm the only one in the top half of the store on Sundays. I do all the keys, of which I get a flood of people for keys in, (Pun unintended, though appropriate for a beach-based hurricane in a shore-based store. :-/ ) The guy in paint doesn't leave paint for anything, (He makes the best income on a department by department basis, generally, and is constantly busy.) and the Electrical guy is busy covering the other half of the store because the seasonal guy is put on the register. So I'm the guy who does the carry-outs anyway, key line or not.
So yeah, I'm not looking forward to Sunday. I don't know what I'm going to do with the generators. I really don't. They're so heavy...
One of the people who works in the stockroom with me is a football field's length away from the beach itself. We're terrified for him. He was fine during Hurricane Irene last year, as was most of the people, (I didn't even lose power, oddly enough. I'm quite grateful.) but people are worrying, oh yes.
So the Hurricane is expected to hit roughly between Monday and Thursday. Last Friday was one of our truck days, (The truck itself was a few hours late.) and we were scrambling to get as many storm supplies up as possible. We took down an entire Halloween display shelf set in favor of lanterns, duct tape, tarps, and whatever would work as all of those as well.
When the truck came, we didn't bother sorting it out or anything. We looked in each bulk pack and took all the storm supplies out of it that we could find and just left it all for the birds. We're understaffed to the point where this is a serious setback for us into the weeks to come, to be so backed up.
Even before the store opened, there were calls requesting a generator. There was a waiting list by the register for anyone who wanted one, though no promises were made.
All the while, I was also unofficially on carry-out duty, simply being that I was out front at the time. We went through six skids of 50 pound bags of sand, 60 or so per skid. That's 18,000 pounds, mind you. We also went through two skids of topsoil for the same purpose. A truck with 800 bags of sand was ordered for the same day. I was long gone at that point, though.
Then, an hour and a half from the point my stockroom co-worker and I had to leave, we were called into the office to be told that at some point between Sunday and Monday, a truck with 144 generators. That's 36 skids of 4 generators each.
I don't have room for 36 skids. I don't have room for 20 skids. I don't have room for 10 skids. I don't have room for 5 skids.
I have no idea what they're doing today. When I left, we were all tending to the storm-related goods, ensuring they were stocked with whatever would help from whatever we happened to have. We couldn't get any of the christmas skids out to the seasonal aisles to put them into overstock because people kept bugging us in the middle of working why we don't have any more flashlights or whatever.
I'm the only one in the top half of the store on Sundays. I do all the keys, of which I get a flood of people for keys in, (Pun unintended, though appropriate for a beach-based hurricane in a shore-based store. :-/ ) The guy in paint doesn't leave paint for anything, (He makes the best income on a department by department basis, generally, and is constantly busy.) and the Electrical guy is busy covering the other half of the store because the seasonal guy is put on the register. So I'm the guy who does the carry-outs anyway, key line or not.
So yeah, I'm not looking forward to Sunday. I don't know what I'm going to do with the generators. I really don't. They're so heavy...
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