Like I needed this fifteen minutes before going home....

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I had fifteen minutes left in my shift after finishing all my tasks and setting up for the truck, so I checked e-mails on the computer in the receiving office one last time. People are sending and responding to e-mails at various times in the day, so the receiving clerk has to check for new e-mails periodically.

And this round of new e-mails included a bunch from various stores about a problem they're having with our new book vendor, which also takes care of our CDs. These were their first shipments since taking over, and stores were finding themselves either shorted books their invoices showed they were getting, or finding extra books that weren't on the purchase order.

When I checked in our shipment of their books, the boxes scanned just fine and didn't flag for an audit, so I figured that was the end of that. But no problemo, I can just pull the boxes of books that came in back off the shelf and leave them for the receiving clerk to physically count tomorrow...

...except standing outside my door is the vendor rep for this same book vendor, and she has to put her books out! Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Now I have to find a way to tactfully tell her her company's fulfillment department appears to be staffed by drunken, inbred, glue-sniffing orangutan misfits, and I can't let her put out the shipment that came in today until they're physically counter, and that won't happen until tomorrow at the earliest.

At least she took it well and found other stuff to do.

[Setsunaela]

At least she took it well and found other stuff to do.

Thank goodness for that. She could have gone hissy-fit and that would have been not so lovely..
Though, the orders being so constantly messed up is very wtf..

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Reps are often at the whim of their companies as much as we are. I was dealing with one once and he was describing to me some stupid new rule his company now had. I gave him a weird look and he replied with "Yeah I don't know what the fuck they're thinking either".

Note: this conversation took place in a stock room AWAY from customers.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Le sigh...

It's been nothing but one giant shitfest with this vendor.

<BG>Packages that are delivered to us by UPS or FedEx generally have a special barcode on them. This barcode is attached to a special shipping number. You scan this barcode and the contents of the carton are automatically checked in and added to inventory. Unless the scanner prompts for an audit, in which case the merchandise isn't checked in until you physically scan and count every piece and the quantity you scan matches what we're supposed to have. If a carton doesn't have this barcode, we have to open it and manually scan and count each piece. If a carton does have the barcode but scanning it doesn't bring up the correct shipping number, we must put it to the side, send a note up to corporate about it, and wait for them to resolve the issue or tell us to manually check the merchandise in.</BG>

Well, many, many cases of books from this vendor aren't bring up the proper shipping number, so we can't check them in. (Trying to manually check the books in at this stage doesn't work--the system will want you to check them in using the barcode on the box). We have about 50 cases of books in the backroom, sitting on pallets, that cannot move until they are checked in. Many other stores have about as many cases waiting to be checked in.

At first corporate was trying to get the vendor to change their shipping numbers somehow so their books could be checked in, but the vendor rep was dragging his feet on that, saying it was against his company's procedures. So in the end corporate decided they were going to have us manually check the books in. It's going to take about 6 hours per store to get them all checked in, and they're making the vendor pay for all this extra payroll.

It's a really great thing I'm on vacation next week; otherwise I'm sure receiving clerk would make me help her check all those books in.

Oh, and we're not even going to be able to check all those books in. Last week the vendor's in-store rep took a couple cases of books waiting to be checked in (and having a note on them saying as much, and not to take them to the floor), and stocked them. So our counts will be messed up.