As my longtime readers know, I am the department manager in a discount grocery store. My official title is Dairy Co-ordinator, but I also look after most of the frozen food in the store.
Any time a holiday approaches, the pressure rachets up, and the days leading up to Christmas exert seventy thousand shopping carts per square inch.
I don't know whose sanity is more in question: mine or the industry's. At this time of year, people would gladly pay a premium on things like cream cheese. So why put cream cheese on sale for $1.50? I know the average customer doesn't give a flying express lane, but we're losing a substantial amount of money at that retail. It's practically impossible to keep in stock; we went through something like twelve thousand units last week, and we were out of stock a goodly chunk of the time.
If cream cheese was my only problem, I'd have laughed it off. But we also had
- Green Giant vegetables @ $2.00 (sold almost double what we did the previous year at the same price)
- 10% and 35% cream @ $1.00 (sold thousands)
- Pillsbury Crescent Rolls @ $1.00 (sold over three thousand)
- Pillsbury Pizza Pops @ $2.00 (sold over 1500)
I could go on...and on...and on, just in my own departments, to say nothing of the rest of the store. One special mention: Astro yogurt cups at 3 for $1.00.
Last year, I threw out some $1200.00 worth of yogurt between Christmas and New Years'. As one of my yogurt reps noted some time ago now, "you can't stuff a turkey with yogurt". So when I saw that these cups were on sale over Christmas, I reacted with disdain. Of course, this year, I couldn't keep the damn things in stock. We've sold something like five thousand cups. Evidently you can stuff a turkey with yogurt. Or stuff something, anyway.
Last Friday I went in knowing an 832-case behemoth of an order would be arriving. It came in four hours late--perfectly expected and acceptable, given the volumes our warehouse had been coping with. The list of out-of-stocks printed on the invoice was, however, daunting. No Old South orange juice. No McCain chilled orange juice. No French fries. Distressingly, no hash browns. (In the last two weeks of December I sell more hashbrowns than in any two-month period of the year).
Never mind that. No butter on the invoice. Not 'out of stock'; not 'substituted'; not even, God help me, 'item scratched'--that latter notation would signify the warehouse people couldn't find any. It just wasn't mentioned on the invoice at all--as if I hadn't ordered it.
This had me nearly in tears. You see, last year, I didn't order enough butter and I got my ass reamed for it. (I wasn't yelled at...but my boss has an all-but-unique method of ass-reaming that uses a normal speaking voice.) I make mistakes--I'm don't claim to be perfect--but I try really hard not to make the same damn mistake twice. I knew I'd ordered butter: ten cases (five hundred pounds!) worth. Sure enough, there it was in my order machine: ten cases (five hundred pounds!) worth. Gremlins, I guess. Meanwhile, there's no butter in the store. There's never a good time for that to happen, but this past weekend was absolutely the worst time. They called Saturday morning: there was no butter in the warehouse. Which explains, I suppose, why I didn't get any.
The delivery schedule this year was...how shall we put this...not optimal. My last delivery was Friday...I had/have to go through Friday night, all of Saturday, all of Monday, all of today, and most of tomorrow between orders. I had nightmares of coming in to find my department completely stripped of product and myself out of a job. "Ken---you're FIRED!" my boss intoned, over and over again, before I jerked awake.
I really should stop stressing about my job.
Saturday was not particularly busy. We were closed Sunday for Christmas, but for the first time ever we opened Boxing Day. I don't think we'll be doing that again: we managed about a quarter of what we'd done in sales the Monday previous. Anyway, the department was reasonably well stocked, all things considered, this morning. I wasn't out of anything critical that I hadn't been out of for days (butter/hashbrowns/etc). Except Astro yogurt cups, of course. All those turkeys, you know.
(Okay, I admit it: I have some serious prejudices that sometimes get in the way of doing my job properly. For example: I never seem to order enough soy milk. Sales on this have skyrocketed since it first made an appearance on my shelf. I started off selling three varieties and now sell ten. I know, I know, milk allergies are contagious these days. But Jesus, I'd rather avoid milk entirely than drink that swill. And so I constantly underestimate the demand--surely there aren't that many masochists in the world?
Our sales, last week, needless to say, absolutely shattered the previous record. We're talking almost twenty percent busier than the busiest week we'd ever seen. Somehow, we got through it. Because we had a full week (Saturday to Friday) leading up to Christmas, I think it will be a long while before we ever see that kind of sales total again.
I hope so, anyway.
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Santa was very good to me this year. I got a beautiful hockey-themed shadowbox clock, a comfy sweater and the Polar Express DVD from Eva's brother; a toasty electric blanket from her parents, and a nice black sweatshirt and gold Leafs tickets (!!!) from my dad and stepmom.
On Boxing Day we ventured out to the Brick for their opening (7:00 a.m.) My wife was unpleasantly surprised to see the line that snaked back a couple of hundred feet from the entrance doors. I'd expected something similar, though maybe not to that extent. Eva was a little more surprised, I think. Anyway, we got ourselves a new living room set at an absolutely phenomenal price--such a great deal we had to throw in a dinette set. This is getting to be a holiday tradition for us: last year we got a recliner.
It's been a pretty good holiday season. As usual, I had to go through hell to get here, to the point where I've come down ill. Garden variety cold.
I've simply got to stop stressing about my job.
2 comments:
Dammit, I am jealous about those Leafs tickets! I haven't been to a Leafs game since grade thirteen--at the Gardens...
Well...you SHOULD be jealous...they're about twenty rows up from ice level, right at a blueline. Offhand, I can't think of better seats. Of course, this is the ACC--there aren't any bad seats--the one and only time I've been to a game since early childhood was two years ago, way the hell up about twenty rows from the ROOF, at a goal line. And I found the game perfectly watchable even from there.
February 11th versus Jagr and the Rangers. Looking forward to it.
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