Deli area as a “metaphorical” crime scene: cross this line at your own peril
The question is, though, which scenario is better? This is the thought occupying his mind as he drives to Lorena on Saturday morning. That Todd would latch onto a name already in use out in St. Louis? Or that he was recycling old ideas from a company that had gone out of business, in his former stomping grounds? Either way, it’s pretty freaking weird. It either displays a lack of imagination, or some other strange and possibly shady scenario, assuming he was involved with this other entity — and were they reusing the same logos and other marketing concepts as well? Or, if he wasn’t involved at all with this other Stable 2 Table grocery store chain, then it’s even more bizarre, that he would crib their ideas. And that scenario doesn’t necessarily preclude his having stolen their logo and everything else, either. Whatever the particulars, it’s a safe bet that Rob Drake doesn’t know about any of this. But hey, as the saying goes, worrying about this is way above Edgar’s pay grade.
One thing that does concern him, however, is pulling down as much overtime as he wants, per Todd, for as long as it takes to get this Lorena store on its feet. This is always an exciting period anyway, the opening of a new store, and even if once again it seems that this process could have been made much smoother if management only got everyone involved sooner and asked more (or any) questions in advance, at least they are in the building and hammering away at things now. For the first time ever with this company, he’s planning on working a seven day week, too, much of it at time and a half, and isn’t alone in this regard.
The independent contractors are still putting the pieces in place at a furious clip, which includes a near total revamp of the outdated looking customer service desk region. Aside from this planned eating area in front of the deli, though, which is still a wide-open floor space, devoid of anything except yellow police CAUTION tape roping it off, every bit of this remodeling should be ready by their soft opening six days from now. This crime scene looking spot makes for a nice allegory, actually, for the deli as a whole, which is far and away Edgar’s biggest mess at the moment. Alongside maybe the meat department — which is a separate entity here, physically, in keeping with most other grocery store chains — as it has many of the same issues, with a smattering of similar ones from produce and bulk thrown into the blender. All can be summarized under one broad banner: Todd’s baffling decision to cancel the scale order at the last minute, followed by the half order which now means both sets are in play.
At least Ken is on hand now to back up what’s he saying, and Vicky at least understands the parts that pertain to her. Edgar had been expecting to add any of their unique creations here, of course, because that is only common sense. And it’s these that he’s mostly focusing upon today. Even this is made much more involved than it might appear at first glance, however, considering there are two sets of PLU numbers now, with considerable overlap. On rare occasions, he finds the existing one that this deli had been using, that it is currently unused in the Wholesome Shopper system, too, and is able to just add it as-is. In the precise format needed so that these so-called type 2 or “price embedded” barcodes will work at the register — for example, PLU number 1302 on the deli scale entered into RU Data as 213020000000 where the last six digits change depending upon the price.
Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Far more common is a situation like this one, where they have 213020000000 in their system already, but as an oatmeal raisin cookie, because both Palmyra and Central have been using that number for years. At Lorena, though, in their existing scales, 1302 is a Cajun chicken salad, which Vicky wants them to continue making. Now the dilemma becomes, what is the least difficult way to handle each of these scenarios, as they crop up? The first step is to run a sales history for the past year on every PLU the deli has, for Palmyra and Central combined. If there is no sales history, this is an easy fix, as he just deletes the numbers from the scales at those two stores, changes the name and whatever else might be needed in RU Data.
If there is a sales history, however, this means that the existing number has to change in the existing scales at Lorena. Which means figuring out one that will work at all of the stores. Then either copying the ingredient, shelf life and tare information at Lorena, into the new number, on their old scales, or else waiting for the new scales to arrive and cramming everything at the last minute there — a judgment call, in other words, on when these new scales are even expected to arrive. Which, at present, just so happens to be Friday, the day of the soft opening. The problem is, though, that they are wanting to start making a lot of this stuff ahead of time, before the opening, so they have their cases full. Which is understandable, though seriously complicating things.
And this is but the first wrinkle with this dilemma. The other is that, as they have five different scales in this deli, scattered at different locations, each has a slightly different set of numbers within them. The numbers match, of course, as far as what’s in use, but not all of them exist in every scale. And the deli manager, Louise, says she has no comprehensive list for all the numbers — they just have taped up sheets of paper at every work station, or on the backside of their service counters.
Ken doesn’t know these scales any better than Edgar does, and questions about who their previous data coordinator might have been at this store, if one existed, are met with a shrug. Actually even George and Bobby, their two primary contacts with MRI, deflect this question — one gets the feeling that they think there is some kind of top secret proprietary information being requested, when all Edgar or Ken or Vicky want to know is if anyone has a clue how these damn scales work, and if there is an existing master database anywhere that they might be able to reference.
Though Edgar and Ken both poke around a little online, they’re not finding out much information there, either. After a few minutes of this, such a predicament also turns into another of these judgment call situations: could I figure this out, and/or might there be a manual for these puppies out there somewhere in the internet wasteland? Probably so. But time is of the essence right now, and you therefore must weigh whether you have, say, two days at your disposal to research this crap, versus how much you could accomplish instead by muddling through it manually.
In the end, they decide to split the difference on this task, as Edgar does in fact begin muddling through this manually, while Ken says he’ll dig around a little more and try to figure out how the scales work. They know how to add items to them — even the deli personnel know this — and how to change prices or ingredients or shelf lives within, but as far as printing off a comprehensive file, no. So taking it item by item is the best that they can do for now.
Edgar walks the deli cases, looking for anything he knows for certain is new. Jots these numbers down on this clipboard, then strolls over to the nearest scale — assuming this item is in that particular scale — to print off some dummy tags. He decides to make this a daily quest, tackled first thing every morning, until he can no longer spot anything that needs changed. The deli itself is providing him with occasional lists, too, of course, for anything they can think of, as items somehow continue to surface even though he’s made photocopies of all the hanging lists.
Though the other employees mostly just keep their heads down, plowing through their own tasks, department manager Louise seems from the outset to regard Edgar as some kind of joke. He can’t seem to get through to her that none of this was his idea and that this is definitely not the normal procedure or the way he would have recommended going about it, if Todd ever bothered asking. Or that Todd in fact actually did ask for once, but then canceled the scale order anyway. So she’s not particularly happy when he takes these daily lists up front to his battle station, researches each of these numbers to see whether they can remain in use or not, then prints off new lists with the changes, takes these back and hangs them, tearing down the old ones, as he deletes the former number and adds the new one to these old scales. As they await the arrival of these new scales, which will then replace half the devices anyhow. The other options are either waiting and hoping that Ken figures out something better, or they bite the bullet and pay for a specialist to come in here, which everyone drags their feet on because, again, five of these scales are going away anyhow, and Todd continues to act like money’s tight despite blathering about all his sweet deals.
Or they could do absolutely nothing until the new scales arrive, and sort out the carnage then. The only issues with that scenario, though, are that the store would be open by then, putting them behind an even faster moving 8 ball, and many of these dilemmas would still exist regardless. What he’s been doing, then, is deleting the old numbers from all five scales, when necessary, but only adding the new ones to the two old scales that they are keeping in the deli. Some have been of a mind that the fresh arrivals will give them eight scales back here in the deli, but he’s quickly squashed that notion whenever it has aired — oh no, no, these other three are disappearing. We will stow them on a back shelf or something and only break them out in case of emergency, if one of these bites the dust. Of course, even with this scenario, workers are not necessarily pleased to find that the expected numbers are missing from the stations where they’ve been working. They typically don’t say anything to him directly, however. They complain to Louise who complains to Edgar. And continues to regard him as some sort of joke.
Well, she’s not alone in that regard. All you can say is there’s no pleasing everyone. The meat department team is a two man duo, both of which are distant and cantankerous — although such is their extreme disposition that, curiously enough, Edgar recognizes it is probably not personal, that they’re likely this standoffish and difficult with everyone. And the same might be said of the produce manager, Trevor, whose patented move is to stand with one hand on hip, watching Edgar approach from afar, cackling and at times even shaking his head. They are definitely well into good ol’ boy terrain up here, and for every low key rustic type like Shane, there are just as many like this, who plainly consider any male who doesn’t know how to lasso a bull to be a pampered wuss or something.
It’s possible that even Vince didn’t feel like dealing with the guy, however, and here Vince himself comes off as a somewhat menacing 1970s mafioso figurehead. Though reasons are never given, it’s with this Lorena project that Todd announces he’s hiring a produce merchandiser, Buddy, so that Vince is once again lessened of his burden, and can “focus” just on grocery, bulk, and wine instead. Buddy is a quite large country boy himself, as round as he is tall, and though affable enough, seemingly knowledgeable about produce, he too apparently sympathizes with Trevor and pitches his tent in the Edgar is a joke camp.
Then there’s Nancy, this old woman in vitamins who is basically Lorena’s version of Marian, i.e. moseying around the department to the tune of three days a week, antiquated with her methods, though nonetheless quite openly considering him ridiculous and his job a royal cakewalk. Twice she has already shuffled over to him with an item in hand and croaked out an explanation that, as they’re attempting to get their shelf tags in order, she has stumbled across something that didn’t scan. Both times his answer has been virtually verbatim — as he suspects it will in the future when she continues acting out this ritual — with the exception that this second one is extended outward slightly.
“These eyedrops are not in the system,” she explains, attempting to hand him the item.
He throws up his hands and says, “yeah, just give that to Katie. Like I said yesterday, she’s coming up with a list. Then she’ll send it to me on this new items form that we have.”
Nancy dips her head slightly to peer over her glasses on him (ah, so here we detect traces of Ralph Hedges! Edgar thinks) and twists her mouth into a quizzical, disbelieving smirk. “Why won’t you just take this? I’m working on that section. I’d like to have it finished before I leave.”
“Well, yeah, I understand that, but this is just the procedure we have. It’s a lot more efficient. If everyone came up and handed me every item they’re finding that doesn’t scan, I mean…I would basically never leave this spot.”
Shaking her head in weary resignation, Nancy shuffles away. Yet, even with those who are failing to see what he brings to the table, Edgar wouldn’t say these are bad employees, necessarily. In fact, though he has a hard time imagining that Nancy herself is setting the industry on fire, most of these people are plainly doing a great job as well. It’s the kind of phenomenon that makes one wonder how far along this company would be right now if you took every employee at this store, years ago, and replaced their most problematic counterpart, at one of the existing locations. Or, as in the instance of the scan girls Amanda and Ashley, deployed them in places where no corollary position existed at all.
Destiny? Bye-bye. Laurie? Bye-bye. The most amusing aspect about this concept is to fantasize, across the board, about who would have went where. Because in all fairness, for example, putting all personal preferences aside, the real move would be to actually slide Laurie over to Arcadia, demote Walter to her minion, with Megan taking Central’s grocery over and getting that house in order. What else? Let’s see…Arcadia could have had their own dedicated receiver all these years, in the form of Leslie. Trevor could have stabilized that revolving door in produce down in Palmyra. These meat and deli crews could have been piecemealed into various locations, swapping out various drunkards and slackers and other assorted reprobates. The most contentious battle he can think of, really, would have been where to deploy Katie — although in this instance, painful as it may be, he thinks that Sondra and Ralph both manage to hang onto their jobs by a whisker, as she takes over for their Palmyra counterpart, that absurd old woman who fights Edgar on everything. Hilariously enough, even with all of these transactions, Vince freaking Brancatto still gets to keep his job, but only because MRI didn’t give them any merchandisers. Then again, it isn’t a huge stretch to consider this Buddy guy could assume that role and represent an immediate marked improvement.
Of course, this brings with it some counterbalances on that scale, contemplating the inverse. If this Lorena store’s personnel were on par with the average hippie still clogging up their payroll elsewhere, or even worse, if they were taking actual existing employees and moving them up here, then this store would be doomed before it ever opened. Also, perhaps the most inevitable, depressing thought, contemplating whether you would have been one of those getting the axe. On this score, Edgar feels like he has a realistic grasp on things, and can honestly state that he is one of their most indispensable employees. The problem is, however, that he’s not sure people realize this, management included. Some of the reactions he’s already gotten here further nail this point home. There’s just a lot of confusion and misguided intelligence floating around out there about how he’s performing and for that matter what his job even entails. And if people don’t realize you’re doing a killer job, then your job is no more secure than a person who’s not doing a killer job.
“Dude, if there’s one person here whose job is safe, I would think that has to be you,” Dale has recently said, a slight reiteration of a point he’s made many times over the years. In the most current instance, he chortled and added, “I mean, seriously, what would they do without you? You’ll be the last one left, shutting the lights off when this goes down…”
“Yeah, I don’t know…,” Edgar usually mumbles, deflecting this with a shrug. However, he does happen to believe this is true — not just from a knowledge-housing standpoint, but also his performance itself. Yet he can’t quite seem to get through to people on a number of various topics, and winds up repeating himself over and over again until the point that they then start complaining that he has an “attitude” about it.
And many of these same old arguments must be waged anew, up here. So no, despite what you may have heard from the guy running the entire company, as well as his top two right hand men, Edgar is not the “techie” guy. He has never been the “techie” guy. The sign on his office door says PRICING and, while his job more accurately extends to maintaining all data, nonetheless, his paychecks have always been charged to the accounting department’s budget. Which Todd of all people should theoretically know.
The internet thus far leaves much to be desired, to put it mildly, and of course he is receiving an earful about that, despite Felix’s constant presence in the building, and often Teri’s as well; yes this scale situation is beyond stupid, but that wasn’t his call, and as a result both and Edgar and Ken, who is Todd’s cherry picked specialist flown in for the occasion, agree that what they’re doing is the best course of action; the IT team hasn’t even begun to tackle the HSX printer, which would be another hotly contested topic if anyone had a spare moment to even think about it; they do have a pair of tag printing machines here from their earlier incarnation as an MRI store, but so far, Felix has only been able to get one of them working.
It only prints out white shelf tags in black ink, with the retail in a field of yellow, in other words the same old format as what they were using here before — but if nothing else, it feeds off of the Hupp system, which thus far has been blessedly about as glitch free as they come. Hupp is the last stop in the line, too, so to speak, so whatever retail has reached this point stands a strong chance of being correct. Also, visually speaking, this will give Edgar and the tagging girls an excellent way to reference, at a glance, what’s new versus what’s old. Especially whenever the HSX system is actually up and running at Lorena, and they can print out the snazzy modern ones that Park designed. Edgar can currently crank these out himself, of course, but only down in his Chesboro office thus far.
Employees can’t complain about that which they aren’t even aware exists, however, which is pretty much what this last topic falls into. All they know of the HSX printer is it’s a shiny silver machine sitting up front, which has yet to find its way into battle. Not so the other brand new gadgets ordered for this store, such as these wholly unique handheld tag scanners and then more of those tablets, which were ordered in the curious proportions of seven and twenty, respectively.
Though Lorena is their first store with this particular model, these portable tag scanners are pretty basic from a functional standpoint, there’s really not much to learn about them — although they do require an internet connection. As for the tablets, these are more of the same ones Todd ordered everywhere, although it’s puzzling as to why he thought they’d need three times as many of these, and what he expected the employees would be doing upon them. Granted, the presence of these would theoretically wipe out the type of complaint Shelly was attempting to propagate weeks ago down in Palmyra, the truly nonsensical one about “not everyone” having access to a computer. Which was preposterous without even considering these devices, as in fact even Edgar had kind of forgotten about them but still handily swatted her argument away.
So maybe Todd was thinking something similar, too, in saturating Lorena with these tablets. The only drawbacks are that these also require an internet connection, and that most uses of said tablets require pulling up that on screen keyboard, which still eats up half the available acreage. Very few dorks beyond the likes of Edgar and Stephen and maybe Teri are carrying external keyboards in their laptop bags everywhere they go, so yeah, this is a major nuisance. It could be the employees consider him more approachable than the others, but whatever their reasoning, he’s receiving an earful of gripes about these bad boys as well.
There’s also one gigantic glitch which somehow only surfaced on this very morning, even though they’ve used these devices elsewhere for over a month. As with the on screen keyboard madness, considering that these are Windows devices — or very competent looking forgeries — it’s incredible to think that such a huge bug exists. Yet here they are. As it turns out, while the log-in credentials are the same for every single device, and Felix has frozen anyone from changing those…there’s nothing to prevent someone from adding themselves as a user.
Which is done innocently enough, they determine, in reconstructing this glitch. Because for whatever reason, when somebody pulls up their Outlook on these devices, it asks them to sign in with their own credentials — at which point it switches the device’s current user to this profile. Except then, if it goes to sleep or restarts, this is now the identity needed to log back into the thing. So as of this morning, one of the twenty devices is out of commission for this very reason. Felix has already taken a crack at solving it, to no avail, and has passed the torch to a befuddled Stephen. Otherwise, they are stuck asking around, if anyone knows who this slammer2020 account belongs to and if so what the password might be. Thus far, no saviors are found on this front, either.
