Not to say that things went smoothly, or hitchless - in fact, I learned today that I had an error of my very own. Scanning, not counting (I can manage zero just fine, thankyouverymuch), and looking at the area, I know the timeframe and exactly why that would be the time I screwed up: it was either immediately before or immediately after dinner. Sigh.
But the "fun" of inventory isn't my shortcomings. No, it's the incredible laziness and/or stupidity of my peers. Shall we get to some of the highlights?
The traditional pre-inventory kindergarten lesson of what's expect of us during the count, how to mark the boxes, how to scan in barcodes, etc. is met with almost audible eyerolling. Only one question is asked during the Q&A section, and it's me with a request: [paraphrase] Please, please, PLEASE for the love of (INSERT DEITY HERE), take the 5 extra seconds and check if there are boxes behind what you're counting, make sure those boxes match what you just counted, make sure those boxes are sealed and complete. Please. This was a major source of recounts last year. [/paraphrase] The response from my immediate right? "Good idea. Use common sense, right?" Flash forward to the Saturday recounts, where I'm finding uncounted boxes behind the items the very same individual who called my statement "common sense" was counting. I reminded her of her previous statement. She got very sheepish. (For the record, most of the recounts I was sent to check on that turned out to be incorrect? Missed boxes behind product. Something something deaf ears something.)
Other recounts were just baffling. On the plus side, I got to yell things into empty aisles such as "DEAR MORON: EIGHT IS NOT FIVE." "I GUESS THE RIPPED PLASTIC WASN'T ENOUGH OF A GIVEAWAY THAT THIS WAS A PARTIAL?" and "WELL, THERE'S THE DOZEN WE'RE COMING UP SHORT. BEHIND THE BOX. IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD MENTIONED THAT CHECKING BEHIND BOXES MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA. MAYBE NEXT YEAR!" On the minus side, we still have people who somehow add up 5+5+3 and get 7. People who look at a sealed case of 80 and count it as 1. People who insist that they can't possibly reach that product without a ladder, and if a ladder is available? Suddenly, they can't use a ladder at all. Sad, really.
Still, the reason I didn't have a meltdown this year (aside from basically only scanning in what I counted) was the first half-dozenish recounts were spot on. No stupid counting errors. No mistaken units of measure or skipped cases. Just an accurate physical count, even if there was a discrepancy between what we physically had and what we were supposed to have.
This brings us to Sunday. As the standout problem-fixer from the crew of counters and re-counters, this marked the third consecutive year where I was brought in for last minute recounts (thirds, fourths, FIFTHS even) and assistance with the external auditor. Aside from having another "warehouse associate" there for the recounts (manager's idea due to the amount of counts he was unhappy with, but I got to pick the cohort. It was a short list. Of one.), things went as they usually do.
Until we started the spot counts with the auditor.
Second item checked out of 45? Wrong. Counted and scanned as a box, it was actually a case of 6. Strike one.
Fourth item checked? 12 over from our count. Because? Yep. THERE WAS A CASE BEHIND THE BOX THAT NEVER GOT COUNTED BECAUSE NO ONE MOVED THE FIRST BOX. (If only someone had mentioned that checking behind boxes might be a good idea. Maybe next year.)
This is the point where the auditor mentions that if we hit 5 miscounts out of the overall list of 90, we're going to have to do the whole thing all over again. Management is visibly shaken at this point.
The auditor tells us a delightful tale of an audit done on Christmas Eve. When he was finished, the whole company was starting their 2 week holiday vacation. People had coats on waiting for him to finish his runthrough. The counts were so far off, they had to do the whole thing over again, pushing back vacation.
Did I mention management was visibly shaken at this point?
The rest of the count goes by swimmingly. Until the last 2 items, that is. The first of these is a duffel bag, effectively. We counted 15. System says we have 14. One case on the overstock. Sealed on the top and the bottom, labeled QTY 15. Cut and dried - except for the gaping hole in the side of the box. Almost like someone without a blade needed just one more bag, and in a fit of slothful rage found the easiest solution to their problem.
There's the easy way. There's the correct way. Rarely are they the same thing.
Fortunately, the auditor gave us the benefit of the doubt, assumed it was a handling error (instead of a "this is easiest for me" error), and credited us the 15. (The next day, we split it open out of curiosity. Of course, 14 inside. Score one more for my theories.)
The final item came up without a location. This was a problem.
Something that I noticed over the course of several recounts this year: some of the oldest, deadest stock had just been purged from our system. Counts reduced to zero, locations stripped away. Of course, they still got scanned and counted during the physical inventory process. Then it became my job to track down where these rogue items might be stashed and discover exactly how many we had.
This final item was a container that we had not bothered recounting during any of our earlier recounts - and it could be anywhere in the warehouse.
Did I mention management was visibly shaken by this point?
While he went off to do some computer-sleuthing related to our scanning, I set off on foot. 3 minutes later, I'd found the item, verified the count, and written myself up a post-it to relocate it come Monday morning. 3 minutes after that, management came back with a rough timeframe as to when the product had been scanned. I let him know it'd been taken care of.
The auditor was kind. We did no additional counts, and I got to leave earlier than anticipated.
Now, just because Inventory Weekend is over doesn't mean that everything is fixed. Our recounts were only assigned at a certain dollar threshold, so there's plenty of items still slightly off. I've sent over a dozen products to be adjusted in the past 2 days.
This is what I'm good at. A sense of curiosity (why is this count off) and rational theories about that "why" fix problems. I realized today where that comes from. My gaming hobby.
Hear me out. I've been solving problems for years upon years now, from how to get that 1-Up mushroom to the perfect assembly of lines to score a Tetris to optimal sentry gun placement in Team Fortress 2. From how to win this game of Magic when the opponent has a Platinum Angel out to successful tactics for surviving a horde of orcs in D&D to making a shrewd building placement in Settlers of Catan. Everyone else at work doesn't share this passion. It's sports and reality TV and watching/listening to others doing things and not having to work things out for yourself.
I solve problems. They don't try.
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