Counting Counting

Inventory

The least fun project of basically the entire year.

Where we have a third party come into the store and count all the product we have within the store.

Usually this happens in the beginning of the year.

Like March.

But due to COVID, Inventory got cancelled.

We were hoping it would get cancelled for the year.

But nope.

No such luck.

Ours took place last night.

Which in of itself was....well it feels like corporate kinda just gave us the middle finger when they gave us our inventory date.

Because it's the first week of the month so we have new sales going on, plus we have to organize planner --aka reset sections of the store and the endcaps for the month to showcase new product, add onto that that we had to have all of Wednesday's truck worked before and the fact that we have a holiday sale this weekend that we also have to prep for....added to the fact that we were shorted hours this week?

Yah.

It's difficult to find the time to do all that and the prep for Inventory itself.

As we have to precount certain areas of the store and ensure that those products are in order before the third party crew even comes in.

And for the last 8 years...I've only been party to like...the before and aftermath.

Never the duringmath.

Usually it's the before prep that I encounter.

Where the managers are going crazy wanting us to make sure everything is faced and in proper locations and all the same product is grouped together.

Which it's easy to not notice how many empty spaces we have on our shelves...until you're going through all the aisles facing and notice just how much product is missing.

It's probably moreso than normal.

Like usually they don't send too heavy of trucks around inventory just because a ton of product makes counting it all take longer.

But due to Covid....a lot of the supply chains have broken down and so we have problems keeping things in stock because everyone is going pet crazy currently and buying animals and stuff for their pets so yah....a lot of the shelves aren't as full as they normally are.

And then I usually work the morning after the inventory count.

So usually I see the aftermath of needing to take down their little counter stickers and pages and getting the shelves back in order and such.

But I haven't been there for the process itself.

Occasionally I work an evening shift where I'm there as the third crew arrives and is getting started.

But not for the main process itself.

It's kinda amazing I haven't done the overnight inventory shift with the third party before, considering I've worked in the store for 8 years.

At the same time, I'm not surprised as often the managers realize they need me to open the department and such, so therefore don't schedule me to work the graveyard shift. 

And I didn't work a full graveyard. No they had me come in around dinner time to help with the closing in my department and the evening rush. 

And while my other graveyard coworkers wouldn't be leaving until 5am this morning.

I was off at 1am.

So it was basically a normal night for me considering how late I usually stay up lol. 

I just don't usually stay up that late at work.

In any case.

It's interesting dealing with the third party counting crew.

Like their energy is just...off.

Which I suppose knowing that these people are working constant graveyard shifts...would make sense. That can't be easy at all. And they definitely had the 'worn out' feel to them. Which makes even more sense considering that some of them had just come off an 11 hour shift to come count our store. And some of the crew had come from a completely different state after counting up there.

So like. The crew was tired.

And my managers weren't too happy with that.

Because the counters were having problems well...counting.

Which is why there's a two check system I suppose.

To make sure things are getting counted properly.

As the third party crew goes through and counts everything.

And then we go through and double check their work.

Which it seems like there's specific sections that 'have' to be double checked to make the computer system/corporate happy.

But we also have the option to do randomized checks. Where we just pick a section, input said section into the little ipad thingy and double check how the counts went there.

Which those counts were mostly focused on the 'higher dollar' products we sell in the store. As it is important to make sure those are accurate in their numbers.

In any case.

It was a mess at least for the time I was there helping out.

Like...there were times where there was a counting issue found in nearly every section we checked.

Not a good sign.

But at least we had this double check method.

Of them counting first and us counting second to make sure it all evens out in the end.

It will be another day or so before we find out how well we did with our overall losses and such in this particular inventory.

But we can at least take comfort from the fact that our store is doing a ton better than our poor sister store who had their inventory done last week...and ended up having the worst inventory in the history of the company. :S :S :S 

Just like Yikes on that.

I was grateful that I only worked until 1 am though.

As it was hard being around the third party people. Their energy just was such a dissonance to mine, I was grateful to get out and go home and crash. 

Until you next see these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi