Well, it's that time again. Time for us to start getting ready for patio furniture to start coming in hot and heavy.
How I loathe patio furniture. This time every year we do the same song and dance:
Mind you, the stuff I'm talking about here is outdoor tables, ginormous boxes of chairs to go with the tables, gliders, rockers, screened gazebos, umbrellas, umbrella bases, side tables, gas grills, deck boxes, metal lawn sculptures, water fountains, big tall stacks of patio chairs that don't fit under the ceiling in places, air conditioners and dehumidifiers (not patio furniture, but still summer seasonal in nature), and probably other stuff I've forgotten to mention. In short, lots and lots of big, bulky stuff.
I don't know why we bother. The backroom just isn't big enough to accommodate all this shit.
How I loathe patio furniture. This time every year we do the same song and dance:
- Try to think of a way to fit all the patio furniture into one central, easily-accessible spot, so people won't be tripping over stuff and hurting themselves while trying to carry it out for customers.
- Brainstorm ideas for moving things around to create this easily-accessible spot.
- Decide everybody's ideas aren't feasible for one reason or another.
- Finally come up with a plan to move things around and make a spot for patio furniture.
- Start moving things around in backstock to make room for the incoming patio furniture.
- Sometime in the course of moving things, somebody decides the plan we agreed on won't work, because it doesn't leave enough room, creates a safety hazard, or some other reason.
- Frank exchange of ideas on current plan and new plan, or at least a way to avoid having to move all the stuff we've already moved back to where it used to be.
- Finally realize we have to move the stuff back and try something else.
- Move stuff back, move other crap around.
- Find other projects we decide we want to do around the backroom.
- Repeat the above steps one to three times.
- Finally, finish moving stuff around and settle on one spot for patio furniture.
- Which inevitably turns out not to be enough room, because the corporate buyers always greatly overestimate the demand for patio furniture, and send us too much of it, and the excess sits around well into September or October until it finally sells.
- Therefore, patio furniture ends up being strewn here, there and everywhere.
Mind you, the stuff I'm talking about here is outdoor tables, ginormous boxes of chairs to go with the tables, gliders, rockers, screened gazebos, umbrellas, umbrella bases, side tables, gas grills, deck boxes, metal lawn sculptures, water fountains, big tall stacks of patio chairs that don't fit under the ceiling in places, air conditioners and dehumidifiers (not patio furniture, but still summer seasonal in nature), and probably other stuff I've forgotten to mention. In short, lots and lots of big, bulky stuff.
I don't know why we bother. The backroom just isn't big enough to accommodate all this shit.
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