I know my systemzors

[Department stores *sigh*]

More of a WTF moment

So had a customer ask me to look up two items in the computer to see if we have any in the store. His two items is a specific kind of soup and hot chocolate.

So first I look up the soup, see that we are no longer carrying it, and no stores in the region have any either. When I tell the customer this he acts completely surprised and repeats the name of the soups. After I show him every step I took to find the item in my system using the name he gave me he just stops and stares at me. I figure I should move onto the hot chocolate before he blows a brain cell.

So I start looking up the hot chocolate. We are also sold out in all locations since we carry it closer to Christmas. He asks when it will be in. At this point I bring up my old merchandising problem solving skills and manage to dig deeeeeep into our system.

I told him the reason I was digging deeper is because it was a seasonal item we should be carrying soon.

Essentially I looked at all the stores, found the 4 versions of the brand he was looking for, cross referenced it with a general inquiry into our supply depots, found one that was moved into a "new" status, punched in that item number into the computer searching out depots and found a supply order for multiple pallet quantities for our southern depot for the end of the month.

Now this train of thought isnt impressive, its just combining my receiving/merch skills with my supervisor skill set and I am the only supervisor with a receiving/merch history. In other words I know my computer systems!

After all this extra work to track this down he turns and says.

"Ok, can you look at the soup again in case you made a mistake? Or find someone who knows how to find it for me?"

..........wtf

[teh_blumchenkinder]

maybe he can find it online?
I've gotten urges like that, cold weather, comfort food, the like... a tea I really like, but have to be in a mood for, has gone missing from Teh Velly-- and I can only find it online. Like, _all_ of the stores I know of in my town and a few neighboring ones don't carry it, even though they carry the _brand_ it's under!
Very confusing.

[MoonCat]

So because his soup is no longer in your inventory, you must not know what you're doing? Even though your search for the chocolate showed that you do, in fact, know what you're doing? Sounds like a brain cell disconnect on the customer's part. They never believe anything unless it's the answer they want to hear, I guess.

[Marmalady]

"Ok, can you look at the soup again in case you made a mistake? Or find someone who knows how to find it for me?"

..........wtf

Is it possible to dowse for soup?

[houdini]

They never believe anything unless it's the answer they want to hear, I guess.

The Soup must exist somewhere because the customer wants it, so therefore, it must logically be in that store. If one employee denies this, find another until they tell you the truth about where they are hiding the Soup. If everyone has the same story, throw a tantrum and storm out, threatening never to shop there again...until the next time you need *obscure branded food product*.

Is it possible to dowse for soup?

You require two pieces of spaghetti and a trained operator. When the spaghetti goes floppy, you have struck soup. It does, however, take a highly skilled master to get alphabetti.

[Marmalady]

You require two pieces of spaghetti and a trained operator. When the spaghetti goes floppy, you have struck soup. It does, however, take a highly skilled master to get alphabetti.

I just had the most wonderfully surreal mental picture of someone actually doing that.......thank you

[terakhan]

Oh, spaghetti noodles. That's why it never works. I've been using linguine, and all I've been finding is Hormel chili springs.

The problem I see is, your search for the hot chocolate crashed his brain, and in the course of rebooting it, he forgot that you know how to do your job and told him his soup was not available.