In my experience, a missing digit is an honest mistake.
It’s when the numbers are off by odd amounts that either:
a) it was miscounted
b) something was shopped and never updated
c) it was off and then shopped.
I don’t know which inventory is worse: those held at night/closed when associates are not happy to be there, or those held on an active sales floor. Closed stores tend to be twitchier about accuracy, and open ones still try to hold us accountable for things they legitimately sold. No, I will not change the count on the milk cooler. In two hours, a lot would have been sold. It was already checked, recounted, cleared to be restocked, and sold down again. The count stands. Period.
As far as closed stores go, I have but two words. Fry’s Electronics. That is all.
With a closed store, the counts theoretically would be “accurate” since there is no way stock would escape the closed environment vs. an open store, where the inventory would fluctuate constantly and there would be no way to verify the pre-existing numbers that were in the store.
Also I guess I should consider myself lucky cause my store would hold the inventory on a Sunday when the mall closed at 5PM.
Ah, for the Good Old Days, when the employees did the inventory themselves in a closed store.
Instead of now with a crew of (RG)Inventory Specialists, in the open store.
I mean, how can they miscount 27 bags of frozen green beans as 6?
Those guys are terrible at taking inventory! I had a friend who used to work for them, they are trained that if they can’t reach items to count to guess. We had to re-count OTC because for every hook of cough drops they put 10, regardless if there were 20 or 5. Then there was the one crew who practically robbed us blind. We found so many empty boxes in the perfume case when they were done.
Our store used an inventory count company and they were off in so many places. Missed shelves, missed SKUs, mistakes! One company person consistently counted bins of mixed items by taking one, scanning the SKU, then counting all the items in the bin as the same SKU. Guess who had to recount that fixture?
Marla must still be documenting, so that Courtney can’t come back when she feels like it or runs out of cash (or even public assistance).
One more strike for Courtney.
I didn’t say how long Marla would be documenting….
Probably, ’til she can hire someone who come off like Amber in the interview and references (because the present store is trying to get rid of said individual) and becomes Courtney-squared once hired.
In some stores, it was the store managers that made mistakes. Usually due to not knowing much about a particular department or the nuts-and-bolts of inventory prep. Experienced department managers and associates that worked inventory day for years did very well. As an inventory team lead, I did what I could to give pointers to the associates that helped me. Quid pro quo.
Don’t get me started on when managers from other stores came over to “help”.
Why is counting so difficult for some people!? I was an auditor for a gas station for a few years and it was the easiest job of my life. You literally learned everything you need to know for this job in Kindergarten yet still on occasion our counts would be so completely off it was amazing! Mistakes happen but often it was just someone being lazy or someone who was too tired to be doing the work and yeah I will admit that person was often me myself. We did our audits at 3am at 3am even counting is difficult! But these retail counts aren’t done at 3am. When I worked in retail we did our counts during the day and jewelry would have done theres between customers but even with that how do you not look in a bin and see more than 30 earings!?
Courtney needs to retake Kindergarten, as does anyone else who can’t count to 100. Why can’t people ensure those skills are honed their whole lives? It’s stuff you should use every freaking day!
This begs the question: Is education a lost art because of how it’s run by a corporate office (aka the school board)?
But remember the posters – SHRINK IMPACTS EVERYONE!
Imagine three scenarios
1. Employees double sales and have literally 0% loss – Floor drones get no bonus
2. Employees have average sales and average loss numbers – Floor drones get no bonus
3. Employees have horrid sales and massive numbers of losses – Floor drones get no bonus (and possibly fired, but an 8 dollar an hour job is not difficult to replace)
Logically, while we can conclude that shrink doesn’t impact everyone, the phrase “SHRINK IMPACTS YOUR BOSS AND WE HOPE YOU’D PREFER BAD THINGS NOT HAPPEN TO THEM” probably wouldn’t fit on an inspirational poster.
That (RG) Inventory Specialist group cost the electronics dept over $1000 in shrink a year ago. We had cards for a digital movie download (they looked like gift cards) that were $25 a piece. They were not labeled DNI like the gift cards and phone cards were, therefore you are supposed to count them. Yet they did not, and there were stacks and stacks of them on the shelf. We never got any of those download cards again after that.
They looked like something that is not normally counted. Both an inventory associate AND a store associate should have asked. Neither did. Everyone is at fault.
Besides, shouldn’t it have shown up on the items not counted and variance reports, and corrected the same day/next day?
Perfect.
Marla should delete a digit from Courtney’s next paycheck, and say, “So it’s off by one. Big deal.”
LOL, I agree.
Hahaha wow. Genius idea. That might be good for Courtney, really… yet another lesson learned!
Good idea. She is so annoying!
Don’t give management ideas.
They (except Marla) WILL do it.
And take their time correcting it.
I sixth this suggestion.
Sorry, GoldenToad.
I mean fifth.
In my experience, a missing digit is an honest mistake.
It’s when the numbers are off by odd amounts that either:
a) it was miscounted
b) something was shopped and never updated
c) it was off and then shopped.
I don’t know which inventory is worse: those held at night/closed when associates are not happy to be there, or those held on an active sales floor. Closed stores tend to be twitchier about accuracy, and open ones still try to hold us accountable for things they legitimately sold. No, I will not change the count on the milk cooler. In two hours, a lot would have been sold. It was already checked, recounted, cleared to be restocked, and sold down again. The count stands. Period.
As far as closed stores go, I have but two words. Fry’s Electronics. That is all.
With a closed store, the counts theoretically would be “accurate” since there is no way stock would escape the closed environment vs. an open store, where the inventory would fluctuate constantly and there would be no way to verify the pre-existing numbers that were in the store.
Also I guess I should consider myself lucky cause my store would hold the inventory on a Sunday when the mall closed at 5PM.
No, I mean twitchier. As in, honest mistakes by us are made into huge issues. And mistakes by the store also get US yelled at.
Ah, for the Good Old Days, when the employees did the inventory themselves in a closed store.
Instead of now with a crew of (RG)Inventory Specialists, in the open store.
I mean, how can they miscount 27 bags of frozen green beans as 6?
Those guys are terrible at taking inventory! I had a friend who used to work for them, they are trained that if they can’t reach items to count to guess. We had to re-count OTC because for every hook of cough drops they put 10, regardless if there were 20 or 5. Then there was the one crew who practically robbed us blind. We found so many empty boxes in the perfume case when they were done.
Our store used an inventory count company and they were off in so many places. Missed shelves, missed SKUs, mistakes! One company person consistently counted bins of mixed items by taking one, scanning the SKU, then counting all the items in the bin as the same SKU. Guess who had to recount that fixture?
Depends on the crew, the training, the experience level, and the manager.
It doesn’t help that most of us were paid very little. And speed is stressed over accuracy; it’s “more efficient”.
And our corporate also looks for ways to increase productivity/reduce payroll.
>> And speed is stressed over accuracy; it’s “more efficient”.<<
It most certainly is – when the company gets paid the same either way but the worker is paid by the hour. Management, meet cognitive dissidence.
By the silken breast of Mogg’s mother, Marla – fire that girl’s heinie.
How is Courtney still THERE?! XD
Marla must still be documenting, so that Courtney can’t come back when she feels like it or runs out of cash (or even public assistance).
One more strike for Courtney.
If Courtney wasn’t there, who would Norm have for that role? Real life she should be fired. But as a comic strip, I think her job is safe.
I didn’t say how long Marla would be documenting….
Probably, ’til she can hire someone who come off like Amber in the interview and references (because the present store is trying to get rid of said individual) and becomes Courtney-squared once hired.
To paraphrase the detention teacher from “The Breakfast Club”, you just bought yourself another Friday night, Courtney.
i think this is why inventories are inaccurate. some of the employees don’t care as much as management does. and also people make mistakes…
Woah, there, cowboy! Some employees care as much, if not more than, management.
It all depends.
In some stores, it was the store managers that made mistakes. Usually due to not knowing much about a particular department or the nuts-and-bolts of inventory prep. Experienced department managers and associates that worked inventory day for years did very well. As an inventory team lead, I did what I could to give pointers to the associates that helped me. Quid pro quo.
Don’t get me started on when managers from other stores came over to “help”.
Why is counting so difficult for some people!? I was an auditor for a gas station for a few years and it was the easiest job of my life. You literally learned everything you need to know for this job in Kindergarten yet still on occasion our counts would be so completely off it was amazing! Mistakes happen but often it was just someone being lazy or someone who was too tired to be doing the work and yeah I will admit that person was often me myself. We did our audits at 3am at 3am even counting is difficult! But these retail counts aren’t done at 3am. When I worked in retail we did our counts during the day and jewelry would have done theres between customers but even with that how do you not look in a bin and see more than 30 earings!?
Courtney needs to retake Kindergarten, as does anyone else who can’t count to 100. Why can’t people ensure those skills are honed their whole lives? It’s stuff you should use every freaking day!
This begs the question: Is education a lost art because of how it’s run by a corporate office (aka the school board)?
But remember the posters – SHRINK IMPACTS EVERYONE!
Imagine three scenarios
1. Employees double sales and have literally 0% loss – Floor drones get no bonus
2. Employees have average sales and average loss numbers – Floor drones get no bonus
3. Employees have horrid sales and massive numbers of losses – Floor drones get no bonus (and possibly fired, but an 8 dollar an hour job is not difficult to replace)
Logically, while we can conclude that shrink doesn’t impact everyone, the phrase “SHRINK IMPACTS YOUR BOSS AND WE HOPE YOU’D PREFER BAD THINGS NOT HAPPEN TO THEM” probably wouldn’t fit on an inspirational poster.
That (RG) Inventory Specialist group cost the electronics dept over $1000 in shrink a year ago. We had cards for a digital movie download (they looked like gift cards) that were $25 a piece. They were not labeled DNI like the gift cards and phone cards were, therefore you are supposed to count them. Yet they did not, and there were stacks and stacks of them on the shelf. We never got any of those download cards again after that.
They looked like something that is not normally counted. Both an inventory associate AND a store associate should have asked. Neither did. Everyone is at fault.
Besides, shouldn’t it have shown up on the items not counted and variance reports, and corrected the same day/next day?