mayhem for sale by the ounce

Getting a handle on this bulk madness is presumably one of the reasons Duane asked Harry to come up with a list of what each store is carrying. The results were evidently not quite what Duane had in mind, though, for he asks Corey to do it all over again. When Edgar hears about this, apart from considering it comical, his next thought is that he could come up with those lists in about five minutes, or at least lists of what each store is ordering, separate lists of what each store is selling. Could even combine them in an Excel sheet in some fashion to highlight what the differences are. But then considers that Duane surely knows this, and if he was interested in such, he would ask. So he must be looking for something else.

And any steps taken to improve this department are positive ones, anyway. When Edgar is told about the project, he says as much to Corey, mentions the paprika example as the kind of mayhem they could stand to clean up. And to his credit, Corey knocks out the project in three days to Harry’s five, although the end product is exactly the same: the names and PLUs written down on sheet after sheet of paper.

In related news, Tracy from Bellwether comes down to Edgar’s office, at Rob Drake’s behest, and they spend a day going line by line over bulk’s sales history. The project afoot here is that she’s taking this information back to Rob, along with what supplier HHM is using for each item, because he’s going to sign off on lowering prices to match these suppliers, for the top x number of movers. One of the issues they’re running into is that Bellwether’s non-organic offerings are often more expensive than even the organic ones elsewhere, which is why they don’t order a ton from their own parent company.

This all makes sense, and produces great results, although he’s not quite sure what’s going on with the other project. Things begin to take shape somewhat when he and Corey are chatting next, up in Palmyra’s front office…although the shape in question happens to be an amorphous cloud.

“We gotta do something about these prices,” Corey tells him, shaking his head, “they’re totally random!”

“Totally random?” Edgar questions.

“Well yeah I just mean, like, ending in 88 cents and 92 cents and 84 cents. Everything should end in .99.”

“Well the reason we do that is they want everything divisible by sixteen, because they swear that customers like to buy that stuff by the ounce.”

Whether this actually happens a ton, this is the claim, which applies only to bulk spices, medicinal herbs, and their liquid pump bottles over in vitamins/health & beauty. And might be yet another reason to debunk Zaire’s rants about the bulk soap, really. But whatever the case, as Dale and some others have said, listing the ounce price on the jars and bottles, even if the pound price is there also, often makes the item seem not quite as expensive. And is probably justifiable for that reason alone.

“Oh, that’s right,” Corey realizes. Ponders the matter a moment, arms crossed, before abruptly declaring, “well, hmm…let’s just make everything end in 90 cents, then. No, wait,” he says, correcting himself before Edgar has a chance to, though his mouth is already open to air an objection. Corey marches over to the nearest adding machine, begins punching various digits into the device, until confirming this masterful solution. “Eighty is divisible by 16. Let’s bump everything up to end in .80.”

“Yeah, eighty is, but like, a dollar eighty isn’t,” Edgar points out.

“Just go up a dollar on everything, then. Do that. Just go up a buck, right across the board.”

This pronouncement arrives out of left field, as Edgar didn’t realize this was the point of what they were working on, and actually can’t see how these two metaphorical terminals are even connected. Bulk’s margins are actually pretty solid, assuming the managers order what they’re supposed to.

“Uh…well…that wouldn’t really work, because that’s also not divisible by sixteen,” Edgar tells him, “I mean, we could go up…let’s see, 96 cents on everything, but…”

Corey continues to stand with arms crossed, shaking his head — not in refuting what Edgar’s saying, but rather as though he can’t quite believe the level of chaos involved with this department. “And the other thing is, we’ve got too much crap! We need to clean some of this up! There’s too many different versions of the same thing. I mean, like, we’ve got seven different kinds of paprika!”

“Yeah, I know. I was the one who pointed that out to you.”

“Well, we need to clean this up.”

“Yeah, I agree. But I mean, I don’t have any authority over these guys. It’s like, they’ve ordered this stuff, it’s already here, so now we have to make up a number for it. It’s either that or sell it as something it’s not, or try and send it back somehow. I think we need somebody regulating what these guys are actually allowed to order.”

“I don’t know,” Corey says, walking off at last, though continuing to shake his head, “let me think about it some more…”

Edgar never hears any more from Corey on this topic, although the store manager presumably has his hands full elsewhere. For example it soon moves beyond rumor stages, becoming confirmed fact, that Ashley is suing this company over that day he dared to tell her to get back to work.

One broad problem many of them are running into here at the HHM amounts to the same thing, really, in that you’re saying no to somebody who is not used to hearing it. People with money, spoiled college kids, self-righteous hippies, the occasional beer hipster, or some combination of the above. The part about having a ton of money, clearly, would only apply to their customers, but otherwise it’s an equal factor with those who work and shop here.

Militant psychopaths, too. Or make that one militant psychopath, anyway. Though the staffing within Palmyra’s deli has stabilized, with Christie’s mom, Ruth, as a second person in meat, and this normal seeming guy, Brian, filling Ashley’s vacancy, some of the personalities on hand are turbulent enough to wipe out this gain. When Natasha puts in her notice, to pursue a better career opportunity, they even decide to splurge a little and hire a legitimate chef to replace her. He’s a highly skilled black kid named Joshua, freshly graduated from the culinary institute down in Chesboro, and he makes an immediate impact on sprucing up the menu.

But Jimmy Ray Calhoun’s crater sized impact threatens to wipe out these meager victories. Those who haven’t already had the privilege receive an early lesson in this when the first department manager’s meeting rolls around, during his tenure, held as always in the Southside conference room. The actual invitees aren’t sure what to make of this lanky, speedwalking figure in a camouflage ball cap, grabbing the last chair at the table as he arrives a few minutes late. One reason they are confused is that, aside from most having never met him, or heard of the guy, meat cutters are not considered department managers with this company, and he wasn’t even invited.

Not that this derails his efforts to dominate the discussion, attempting to steer the conversation back to meat every opportunity he has. Edgar thinks it’s certainly open for debate now as to who the most obnoxious figure is, in this regard, for Jake Gifford has been pulling this stunt himself for a couple of months now. Still, there’s little actual damage done, irritation aside — unless considering that, you know, he could be working up in Palmyra right now — although roughly half of those present will later admit they were either thinking, who is this lunatic? or else, do we have to deal with this every month, now? or both.

Edgar’s already settled back at his desk when Jimmy Ray flies into his office, with some sort of intricate, taped together chart that he drew up on plain white butcher paper. A chart so large that he has to kneel down and unfold it on the floor. Upon closer inspection, after he launches into a monologue explaining the purpose of his masterful creation, Edgar can see that Jimmy Ray’s got various meat cuts, mostly beef, in little boxes, with arrows drawn like a flow chart to still other boxes.

“See, now, a top round is the same as a London broil, okay? And, like, a beef tenderloin, I cut that into filet mignon, uh, and then…”

“Yeah, um…I already know all this. I was actually a meat cutter for about ten years, before coming here. What I was asking in my email is why you ordered these things, if Buckthorn was out of stock or discontinued or something. Because they’re a lot cheaper than Southern Hospitality on pretty much everything. That’s why we put together that order guide with the preferred vendors showing for…”

“Yeah, I don’t really look at that,” he says, standing as he folds up his chart. Launches into some other convoluted, mile a minute monologue that is difficult to follow, but summarizes as him playing the vague yet bulletproof quality card. Jimmy Ray has determined in his three weeks on the job that Southern Hospitality is far superior (sheer nonsense, incidentally, Edgar thinks, and often provable nonsense at that — like when you can crack open pork boxes from both vendors and see identical UBP brand wrappers on the primal cuts, assuming the case itself wasn’t also marked as such). Jimmy Ray is definitely not just talking out of his ass.

These interactions amount to child’s play, though, when compared against those who have to work in the department with Jimmy Ray. Arriving each morning in a truck with plates that are over a year expired, backing in against a row of hedges to avoid detection, he is already despised enough that at least one employee has anonymously contacted the Palmyra police about this vehicle. But the key law enforcement figures in this town seem to spend at least as much time drinking coffee in the cafe area of Healthy Hippie Market as they do working their beat, and nothing comes of this.

As if the department head meeting wasn’t signal enough, he’s making it clear that he intends to establish, by brute force if need be, that his mission is to break off the meat department from the deli simply by thumping his chest and declaring it so. Even if the financials don’t flow as such with this company and, well, that’s simply not how things work.

But one can only imagine what sort of things he’s whispering into Ruth’s ear whenever nobody is around. Which becomes clear one afternoon where Jimmy Ray’s off and Edgar’s mom asks Ruth to knock out a couple of tasks when she has a chance. This woman must almost immediately run to the phone and report this occurrence to Jimmy Ray, for not a half hour later, he is dialing the store and asking to speak to Edgar’s mom.

“Listen, I’m gonna tell you this, and I’m only gonna tell you it once: do not set foot in my department ever again. Got it?” he growls, and hangs up the phone.