I’ve often wondered if they even do a cursory background check on some of these characters. You almost expect them to still have their prison clothes on.
I’ve never been to prison. I was just desperate for a job, any job, and got suckered into inventory work. For a little while, the pay was a livable amount for a single person.
Amongst my coworkers across all the years I worked there, roughly half had been in trouble with the law, and only a handful had been to prison. One of the smartest guys was busted for possession, once, and couldn’t get hired anywhere else for it. Most of them were just working shmoes trying to get by.
Golden, Of course there were some good hires by the inventory service. However, the ratio of questionable hires to good ones was MUCH higher than any other industry I’ve been associated with. If a person with a record and wants to earn an honest living, then more power to them. I stand by my comments though about some of the ones I’ve dealt with in the past (haven’t been in retail in over 10 years). WIS is the people we dealt with and I bet at least 20-30 percent were under the influence of something much stronger than coffee!
January is when the biggest group of new hires come in to an inventory company. That’s when you AND we deal with the least experienced trying to muddle by. And no, inventory is NOT just common sense stuff. Our software is cryptic and written by armless monkeys. The equipment can be cantankerous, just like any other computer. What is and isn’t counted varies greatly from store to store and client to client. Whether we can single-scan or multi-scan merchandise varies. Training varies a lot and depends on the care of the workers and of the managers. Both get turned-over with frightening regularity.
Like any job, we try to hire “good” people, and end up with “people desperate enough to show up.” Sometimes employees work out, and sometimes not. It takes time to sort through and train up. For us, January is that time to test the new hires. Some will quit and some will get fired. And some even WE don’t like will stay on because we need luke-warm bodies. At least until we can hire more.
I’ll admit, I was lucky. I was in a decent district with semi-decent people. Some of the other teams I’ve encountered make my skin crawl.
I remember every time we had inventory, I was charged by the SM to go over certain categories counted by the inventory service (this was after we’d done all our pre-counts) and it never failed, I never came across one category that was correct.
I remember one year, the vitamins section was especially egregious and those things really vary in price! Of course, when I pointed it out to the guy who’d done that aisle, he got all incensed, “NO WAY I GOT ALL THAT WRONG, NOPE, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT, ETC.” And I was like, bro, I look at this shit day in and day out… it’s definitely right.
ahh.. vitamins… there are literally hundreds of varieties of vitamins. Our store got a mini reno this summer, and I was on the reno crew. Vitamins were first and last to get done. I remember when it got moved from it’s temporary spot to it’s home, It took 7 of us a full 8 hours to planogram the vitamins, and we each got a four foot section to plano. (That’s 12 shelves of 4 feet each). Those in retail know what I mean. Crazy. First you place your labels according to plano, then you find your product for your plano, because it’s not in plano from where you get it from, then you place it according to plano. Crazy.
The inventory service is packed with some of the shadiest people I’ve ever met.
A few years ago, one of the inventory guys propositioned my co-worker. Told her to meet him in the stockroom restroom in five minutes so that he could show her a good time. He was given the boot.
Last year, a co-worker walk into the restroom and found two of the inventory crew having sex. Who does that?? They were both fired.
I worked inventory for Sears many many years ago before we had computers that kept track of your counts, which was kinda a good thing because then merchandise got lost in the stockroom and it would be marked way down. For example, I got a brand new router in a box for 97 cents. Now, the router bits I bought for it cost $29.99
The inventory crew had the most fascinating body art, piercings and tats and other stuff, I’ve ever seen. One never sees people looking like some of them walking around in daylight. For all that, they were pretty decent people.
We use an outside inventory service as well, and our company only requires them to be 60% accurate. However, we have to count our backroom and god forbid we miss counting a pen! I am convinced the people who work in our head office have absolutely no concept of how things actually work at store level.
I’ve often wondered if they even do a cursory background check on some of these characters. You almost expect them to still have their prison clothes on.
Ahem.
I’ve never been to prison. I was just desperate for a job, any job, and got suckered into inventory work. For a little while, the pay was a livable amount for a single person.
Amongst my coworkers across all the years I worked there, roughly half had been in trouble with the law, and only a handful had been to prison. One of the smartest guys was busted for possession, once, and couldn’t get hired anywhere else for it. Most of them were just working shmoes trying to get by.
Golden, Of course there were some good hires by the inventory service. However, the ratio of questionable hires to good ones was MUCH higher than any other industry I’ve been associated with. If a person with a record and wants to earn an honest living, then more power to them. I stand by my comments though about some of the ones I’ve dealt with in the past (haven’t been in retail in over 10 years). WIS is the people we dealt with and I bet at least 20-30 percent were under the influence of something much stronger than coffee!
Funny story.
Just before I read this comic, I got a phone call from my manager asking me to come into work tomorrow, because the inventory was all wrong.
Inventory service? When I worked at a department store ages ago *we* were the inventory service.
Its like they do not trust their own employees to get the count right…
Outside Auditing. Of course they may trust you, but they “like” having an outside source for “control purposes”
OMG! LOL! This is so true! This is my reaction year after year when our inventory service arrives. Norm, you are my hero!
One little secret to January inventories:
January is when the biggest group of new hires come in to an inventory company. That’s when you AND we deal with the least experienced trying to muddle by. And no, inventory is NOT just common sense stuff. Our software is cryptic and written by armless monkeys. The equipment can be cantankerous, just like any other computer. What is and isn’t counted varies greatly from store to store and client to client. Whether we can single-scan or multi-scan merchandise varies. Training varies a lot and depends on the care of the workers and of the managers. Both get turned-over with frightening regularity.
Like any job, we try to hire “good” people, and end up with “people desperate enough to show up.” Sometimes employees work out, and sometimes not. It takes time to sort through and train up. For us, January is that time to test the new hires. Some will quit and some will get fired. And some even WE don’t like will stay on because we need luke-warm bodies. At least until we can hire more.
I’ll admit, I was lucky. I was in a decent district with semi-decent people. Some of the other teams I’ve encountered make my skin crawl.
ps – found an interesting review from someone who had tried it:
http://voices.yahoo.com/rgis-job-review-job-advantages-disadvantages-6088624.html?cat=31
I’m surprised they can get away with that, especially in non right to work states.
I remember every time we had inventory, I was charged by the SM to go over certain categories counted by the inventory service (this was after we’d done all our pre-counts) and it never failed, I never came across one category that was correct.
I remember one year, the vitamins section was especially egregious and those things really vary in price! Of course, when I pointed it out to the guy who’d done that aisle, he got all incensed, “NO WAY I GOT ALL THAT WRONG, NOPE, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT, ETC.” And I was like, bro, I look at this shit day in and day out… it’s definitely right.
ahh.. vitamins… there are literally hundreds of varieties of vitamins. Our store got a mini reno this summer, and I was on the reno crew. Vitamins were first and last to get done. I remember when it got moved from it’s temporary spot to it’s home, It took 7 of us a full 8 hours to planogram the vitamins, and we each got a four foot section to plano. (That’s 12 shelves of 4 feet each). Those in retail know what I mean. Crazy. First you place your labels according to plano, then you find your product for your plano, because it’s not in plano from where you get it from, then you place it according to plano. Crazy.
The inventory service is packed with some of the shadiest people I’ve ever met.
A few years ago, one of the inventory guys propositioned my co-worker. Told her to meet him in the stockroom restroom in five minutes so that he could show her a good time. He was given the boot.
Last year, a co-worker walk into the restroom and found two of the inventory crew having sex. Who does that?? They were both fired.
I worked inventory for Sears many many years ago before we had computers that kept track of your counts, which was kinda a good thing because then merchandise got lost in the stockroom and it would be marked way down. For example, I got a brand new router in a box for 97 cents. Now, the router bits I bought for it cost $29.99
The inventory crew had the most fascinating body art, piercings and tats and other stuff, I’ve ever seen. One never sees people looking like some of them walking around in daylight. For all that, they were pretty decent people.
We use an outside inventory service as well, and our company only requires them to be 60% accurate. However, we have to count our backroom and god forbid we miss counting a pen! I am convinced the people who work in our head office have absolutely no concept of how things actually work at store level.