The Most F**ked Up Inventory Ever

So I helped out with the store inventory last night and this morning. I probably shouldn't have. I should have gone home and gone to bed and stayed in bed. After all, I only had about an hour and a half of sleep and then had to be at work from 7:30am to 4pm. But at some point during the day, I decided to come back for the free pizza and do inventory. So I went home, took a shower, ate some dinner, took an hour nap and went back to the store.

At first, things went just fine. I was put in charge of the Gift Department and was supposed to clean things up before the inventory team got started. Although the manager did change his mind within five minutes and wanted me to finish doing the markdown's first. But this was all minor. I even survived the fact that we couldn't change the muzak system to the Disco channel. John, the new Head Cashier, was very resourceful and found two disco CD's to put in the CD player, so that I could have my late night music. :-)

Once the inventory company got to the Gift Department, I was running back and forth, trying to find ISBN's for cards and journals. Around 1:30am, they finished with my section and moved on to another department. About to fall over from exhaustion and stress, I went to the break room to have some pizza and coke, and try to pull myself together. And of course, it was during all this that the CD player started breaking and stopping in the middle of CD's. :-P

So after my break, I began verifying the counts. It took FOREVER to go through even three fixtures and I was all alone in the section. Now, I've done inventories before. I even helped out with the Music Department inventory a month ago, so I know how they work. Well, we were told that we just need to generally verify the numbers. It didn't have to be a precise count, just so long as it was no more than a 1% variance.

Fine. I did my best, though I'm really bad at guessing numbers. Like I told John, "I'm related to the people who counted the Million Man March." Well, about 3:30 or so, Thomas kept coming by and asking if he could take the inventory count sheets taped to each bay. Well, I hadn't gotten to any of them, so I told him he couldn't. Later he came over and said the manager had said to stop counting. I didn't understand why. Finally, one girl (who I've never officially met but she and I had chatted the day before about her snazzy sparkly red skirt) explained that in the rest of the store, they hadn't verified every bay. They had done a bay here and there. I was shocked! What the hell is the point of even having us do any double counting?

So I was a little upset. After all, I was the only one still counting. I kept people there longer than they had to be.

And I felt like a disappointment. Like a failure. I mean, they had trusted me with the gift department, which is one of the most difficult departments to inventory. And I failed them. I misunderstood the instructions. I felt so stupid.

That is, when I wasn't feeling frustrated. Frustrated that they gave me and only me the section. I didn't have anyone helping me at all. Even if I had been doing it right, I'd have taken too long. Plus, did they ever send over any help when people finished the other sections? Nope. No one. And so I finally aquiesced and helped them take down the inventory tags that had never been verified. And what did we do with them? We f**king threw them into the trash!!!!!!!!!! What the hell was the point of having them??????

The conflict between the frustration, disappointment, and stupidity combined with sleep deprivation almost made me cry. But I didn't want to cry in front of my managers and co-workers and seem weak or like a baby. So I tried to hold it in and mumbe about having no sleep (hoping that they'd realize it was the sleep upsetting me.)

And of course, things got better. *grumbles* I brought my coke bottle and water bottle (neither of them empty) and sweatshirt to the breakroom and put them down on the table. I went to the Music Department to get my CD's out of the CD player and when I came back, I passed Jocelyn who happened to have 3 coke bottles in her arms. I went into the breakroom and noticed that my water bottle was now sitting alone. I ran after Jocelyn to get the rest of my coke back, hoping to catch her before she went outside. (After all, I still had a 20 minute drive ahead of me and I'd only had 3 1/2 hours of sleep in the previous 40 hours...I NEEDED the caffeine.) WELL, SHE HAD EMPTIED OUT MY COKE THAT HAD MY NAME ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She offered to pay me for the coke, but I didn't want her friggin' money. I wanted the last of my coke. I didn't want a new bottle of coke, because I didn't need that much caffeine. I just needed the last third of my coke. That's it. I didn't think it would be too much to ask for.

So there you have it. Those were the highlights of the most f**ked up inventory I have ever been involved with. The story's not quite as polished as I would have liked it to be, but I'm tired and I've found other things at work to irritate me. :-)