Inventory *cringe*

[VComps]

So I'm standing here at work, and even as I speak I have a small army of counting drones from an inventory service here molesting my stock... and I've already had to talk to their supervisor about the language one of her drones was using on my sales floor!

I'm going to have to clean up such a mess after

[the_std]

I feel for you, sir. They're going through my beloved store on the 12th, and we've done so much prep work that I haven't seen our department look so good the whole time I've been here. I remember how painful it was last year, especially due to the fact that 90% of their workers couldn't speak English, and thus answering their questions took a lot of time and effort away from attending my customers.

I'm just praying that it's better this year, but your post does not lend me confidence.

[shadowpanda]

I remember when my old store had an inventory day.
A bunch of people who don't know the stock were pulling things apart in the stock room and on the shop floor. I almost cried and ended up volunteering to take a zapper and do some myself.
I found that the inventory wasn't terribly sucessful as they would scan one mascara in the stock room and count all others in that drawer as the same thing, even though they really were different things, with different bar codes. The inventory screwed up our numbers on soooooo many things it created lots more work over the next few days

[Betweenshades]

The inventory screwed up our numbers on soooooo many things it created lots more work over the next few days

Ugh! And they got paid to do that!

[Andara Bledin]

I was hired as a temp, two years running, for one shop's annual inventory run.

However, the shop in question knew what the hell they were doing and were prepared for the crew of temps who would be doing the counting.

I suspect that half of the inventory nightmare stories are the fault of management not giving parameters, with the rest being idiots who can't follow them.

^-.-^

[Frantic Freddie]

Back when I worked in a music store it was just the owner & me,you'd think a music store would be easy to inventory,right? I mean,all the pianos are on the floor,same with the drumsets,amps,the guitars are all on the wall,easy,right?

No.

Guitar picks & strings,all the strings for the other instrments,reeds for the woodwinds,literally a gazillion parts for instruments (do you know how many tiny little parts are in a saxophone? I don't either,but it's a shitload),a library's worth of sheet music,on & on & on.

The only good thing was that since it was after we closed,the owner'd send me to get some enchiladas & beer from the place up the street

[Android Kaeli]

I think the word 'inventory' is one of the most despised words in all of retail. My store's inventory is next week, and I am so not looking forwards to it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Funny, inventory at the swamp is usually one of my easier weeks.

We work really hard to keep our backroom organized. That makes it so much easier to pre-count the stuff back there. We never have any issues there. Counting stuff gets to be tedious but at least it isn't physical work.

The counting on the sales floor, which is done by the outside inventory service, is dicier. But even there we usually don't wind up with any major issues. At least none I have to deal with, because I'm not around when they're counting the sales floor.

Oh, and in advance I call not having to count those f-ing silly bands we keep getting in even though we have approximately 765,329,045,357,122,307,452,945,315,258,341 of the damn things in the backroom to begin with. Corporate even had another store transfer some of those goddamn things to us. Why, oh why, must the children pick such stupid things to blow their allowances on?

[Becks]

Why, oh why, must the children pick such stupid things to blow their allowances on?

Because even Wisconsin has a minimum legal drinking age.

[Dasota]

We do inventory weekly at my place. But it's a food place, so we have to keep up so we know what to order on the truck.

[shadowpanda]

Ugh! And they got paid to do that!

Yep, and they were getting paid more an hour than I was

We would do our own stock checks every day on items that were running low or caught our attention to make sure the computer systems were kept up to date, but, once a year, the whole shop would be done in one day by strangers. I would have pulled a night shift and done the section I was responsible for and it would have been better

[Captain Trips]

Let me guess the company's name was similar to a retiring talk-show host? (ReGIS is retiring, yes. Note the capital letters for the company.) I know that company's policy is "get in, get the check, get out, and be damned with quality."

I know this from former supervisors of theirs. I worked (20 years ago) for their competitor, the one with our nation's capitol in their name, and some of their people came over to us because they really did want to do quality work.

Next time, get the "Capitol of U.S" Inventory Service. They cost more, but the benefit in accuracy is worth it.

As to the "one sku for entire drawer" situation? When I was a supervisor, I wouldn't stand for it -- I'd clear that out of their machine and have them start over - doing it right, even going so far as to force their belt-computer into the "auto-count 1" mode, so they could just scan each bar code and not enter any quantities. Slower, but more accurate.

Oh, and we were probably paid LESS than you, starting was at minimum, and I ended up after 4.5 years getting only slightly more than that. (One year, I only got a $0.10/hr raise!)