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Stock horror
Feb. 1st, 2004 05:21 pmThe day of the annual stock-take. I'd managed to duck out of last year's by pleading 1) a prior engagment (Anthony Asquith's "Underground" at the NFT) and 2) pointing out that I would be working Tues - Sat, Sun, Mon - Fri back to back if I did come in.
This year's stock-take is hopefully the last full, annual count that we'll do : full EPOS and goods-in scanning are on the way, apparently, with monthly, compartmentalised stock-takes to follow. Until then though, it's every shelf, fitting, spinner, table, dumpbin and trolley, all to be tallied up by hand.
We'd advertised for one day, cash-in-hand volunteers to help out - sixteen and seventeen year olds mainly, with a couple of friends and relations added in. Jacq did the honours and pulled names out of the hat, and so I was paired up with a young lady who probably shouldn't have been there at all.
She'd been so excited at the prospect of the day's work that she'd woken up at 3 am and been unable to get back to sleep. Jason later told me that she'd been outside the shop at 8.10, asking if it was too early to come in.
Jacq gave me the count sheets - Computing, tricky, as CD-Roms have to be scored on different sheets to ordinary books, and there's never a run of books with the same price. Audio - fairly easy, except (unlike books) all the stock has to be priced by hand when it gets unpacked - if anyone can find the one working price gun before it gets slung out on the shelves.
Humour - disaster. Not my area, and packed with tiny books such as the icky Purple Ronnie titles which are fiddly and time-consuming to count.
My Young Lady began quite brightly, but was probably not going to thank me if I gave her the Computing count sheets to wrestle with. "Just call out if they've got CD-Roms inside them or not", I said, and then watched her diligently open every book on the shelf very carefully - no problem there - including the Collins Gem and DK Guide series which are half the size of any shiny metal disc which might be hiding inside.
MYL kept asking when we'd be finished - not having been to last year's, all I could do was vaguely guess "when we've finished these". By the time we got to the tapes MYL's sleep deprivation was catching up with her. She lifted up a bottom shelf and said "there's a spider down there".
"Are there any loose tapes there?"
"No, but there's a spider".
I had a look. It was a stray bit of purple tinsel from our Christmas 2002 decorations.
By the time MYL asked me how to spell "Puzzles" for the heading of count sheet #852 I had attained a state of Zen-like calm. A state I'm still enjoying, as I type this now, despite the rain outside.
This year's stock-take is hopefully the last full, annual count that we'll do : full EPOS and goods-in scanning are on the way, apparently, with monthly, compartmentalised stock-takes to follow. Until then though, it's every shelf, fitting, spinner, table, dumpbin and trolley, all to be tallied up by hand.
We'd advertised for one day, cash-in-hand volunteers to help out - sixteen and seventeen year olds mainly, with a couple of friends and relations added in. Jacq did the honours and pulled names out of the hat, and so I was paired up with a young lady who probably shouldn't have been there at all.
She'd been so excited at the prospect of the day's work that she'd woken up at 3 am and been unable to get back to sleep. Jason later told me that she'd been outside the shop at 8.10, asking if it was too early to come in.
Jacq gave me the count sheets - Computing, tricky, as CD-Roms have to be scored on different sheets to ordinary books, and there's never a run of books with the same price. Audio - fairly easy, except (unlike books) all the stock has to be priced by hand when it gets unpacked - if anyone can find the one working price gun before it gets slung out on the shelves.
Humour - disaster. Not my area, and packed with tiny books such as the icky Purple Ronnie titles which are fiddly and time-consuming to count.
My Young Lady began quite brightly, but was probably not going to thank me if I gave her the Computing count sheets to wrestle with. "Just call out if they've got CD-Roms inside them or not", I said, and then watched her diligently open every book on the shelf very carefully - no problem there - including the Collins Gem and DK Guide series which are half the size of any shiny metal disc which might be hiding inside.
MYL kept asking when we'd be finished - not having been to last year's, all I could do was vaguely guess "when we've finished these". By the time we got to the tapes MYL's sleep deprivation was catching up with her. She lifted up a bottom shelf and said "there's a spider down there".
"Are there any loose tapes there?"
"No, but there's a spider".
I had a look. It was a stray bit of purple tinsel from our Christmas 2002 decorations.
By the time MYL asked me how to spell "Puzzles" for the heading of count sheet #852 I had attained a state of Zen-like calm. A state I'm still enjoying, as I type this now, despite the rain outside.
