Computer “glitch” or some hippie forgetting to have a new item added? Place your bets, folks!
The Hupp cash registers are set to start going live on the first Monday in December, at Arcadia only. Followed by Central on Tuesday, Palmyra Wednesday. This staggered activation is at Hupp’s insistence and, for once, everyone seems in agreement, from Rob and Todd on down, that staging it thus is a good idea.
A week prior is dedicated to training, with one day at each store, starting on the last Wednesday of November, the 27th. They’ve gotten past Thanksgiving with nary a blip — possibly because this is their 2nd consecutive holiday season with the exact same trio of stores, and sales are somewhat down at all of them — and are in that ever so brief lull before the Christmas madness, where squeezing something like this in is just barely feasible.
Their trainer is a no-nonsense middle-aged guy named Rick, whom Edgar instantly likes, because he comes across as neither a salesman nor a geek. He’s somewhat dry, but credible in everything he says, is patient and does a great job explaining everything to everyone. As was the case with Slingshot, Edgar will be programming the touch screens for their cash registers himself, beyond the initial configurations that they’re launching with. This he can do remotely, of course, and aside from the unfortunate pain of certain functions needing replicated at every location, his work in this regard is pretty straightforward. Not quite as nimble or intuitive as Slingshot, maybe, but it does have a more professional look about it, as far as the screen itself is concerned. So that’s a positive. And surely Hupp will add a central interface at some point, to make life even easier.
“It’s in development,” Rick tells him, when he mentions such — and again, seems very believable, just stating things as they are and not attempting to sell them on anything.
Then again, they’ve already bought the software, so there’s no need to. But it’s amazing to discover sometimes that salesmen can’t always turn off the cheese factor, even when there’s nothing to sell. Rick here is just stating the facts, explaining how everything works, and taking notes on any features that someone asks for, or questions that he can’t answer. With this training they are moving in reverse order of the installation, for whatever reason, and by day two here at Central, they’ve already knocked quite a bit out. He’s up front demonstrating how everything works on one register, while a pair of technicians continue down the line, installing their software. Day of, going live, it should be just a simple switch flip, as tests have already proven RU Data is communicating as expected with these registers. They’ve rung up countless items, to run through various scenarios, and it’s satisfying to see that all this behind the scenes work, months and months of it, is finally coming into play.
All in all, Edgar’s fairly satisfied with his and Jack’s decision at that conference, going with this system instead of the other one. He’s also impressed that Rick and crew have already tackled a few items on the fly, here in town, on the handwritten list of notes. Then again, if he’s really being honest, what really clinched his approval of this clan might have been the moment this morning when Rick openly shot down Todd’s latest extremely weird and nonsensical comment. Todd was of course not even remotely interested in this training session itself — why would he be? He already knows every facet of this industry, front to back, in the minutest detail — but only just breezing through, looking for and then waiting for Destiny to finish up something in the front office. During this stretch, one of the cashiers happened to raise her hand and ask about loyalty cards.
“No, unfortunately, your loyalty cards are not going to work,” Rick tells her.
“Yeah!” Todd pipes up, from clear across the store, over by the front office’s door, with an actual though quite mystifying chortle. “Hupp can’t process them!”
Rick turns his head and coolly regards Todd, insists, “oh no, we can process them just fine. It’s RU Data. They don’t have the capability.”
Todd doesn’t say anything in response, though his expression is a curious one. Somewhere between not believing the guy, and having already tuned him out in favor of whatever alternate reality his brain prefers to reside in. Rick simply takes it in stride, and turns back to the matter at hand, but Edgar personally thinks the exchange is a comical and possibly instructive one. Again, though Todd is the mastermind behind all of this, the person who came up with these major changes and signed off on them, it’s as though he’s already washed his hands of anything that might go wrong, mentally distancing himself as though he had nothing to do with it. Any successes, now, then clearly these would be his strokes of genius. But any complications? Not his problem, not his fault.
It’s a memorable day all around. With maybe an hour or so to spare, at the end of the afternoon, Edgar walks across the parking lot to their offices, figuring he’ll see what projects he can knock out in the time remaining. Has only made it as far as Valerie’s desk, however, telling her how it went today, when a friendly, unexpected, though quite welcome figure drifts unannounced through the office door: Teri Barnette.
After the two of them and a couple of others shout out surprised, cheery hellos and ask Teri what brings her into this blighted land, she explains that Felix just rehired her on a part-time, paid consultant type basis. Edgar considers this grand enough news to dash over and give her a hearty hug. Truth is, he had kind of been wondering why Felix wasn’t around more during this Hupp installation, concluding that only one of two scenarios must apply: either he recognized he had nothing to contribute to the Hupp installation, or else he was assuming he wasn’t needed for the Hupp installation. With the results stemming from which one proved true would probably about as polarized as these things can possibly get. But Edgar has to admit, this move surprises and impresses him, that Felix would pick up the phone and personally ask Teri to return, in whatever capacity, to help ease this transition.
She will surely be needed, all the more when one considers the scheduling pileup. Three days earlier, on Monday, Todd broke out another baffling announcement when he informed Edgar and Sharon that Matt Abernathy from RU Data would be flying in this coming Monday, December 3rd, to train them on how to receive product with the program. In other words, the exact same day that Hupp is slated to go live. Todd won’t admit it, but they have the distinct impression he forgot that this was the day Hupp was going live at Arcadia, despite having scheduled it himself. In fact, once Edgar points this out to him, Todd is adamant that they conduct this training session over at Arcadia, even though these two projects are not the least bit related. A topic he revisits upon learning that Teri plans on being over at that store all day Monday.
“Couldn’t we just have the RU Data training here instead? I mean, they can always call me from Arcadia if it’s an absolute emergency. Teri’s gonna be over there anyway. Or maybe we can even do the training over here at Central, that way Sarah…”
Todd holds up a hand to cut him off, insisting, “just…sit with Matt over at Arcadia. That way you’re already there, just in case. Then one of you can teach Sarah later.”
Though Edgar remains upbeat — mostly because he figures he can always find a way to make things work, he has quite the track record in doing so around this place, and is not the least bit concerned — it sure feels as though this is turning into a mountain of convoluted nonsense. Part of the problem is that many, and management figures themselves are just as guilty, cannot seem to make the distinction between someone who is supplying the database for a machine (Edgar) versus somebody tasked with the hardware itself (Felix, Teri, that Josh guy in St. Louis, et cetera), i.e. getting the device to function, from installation to operation to repairs. Edgar has spent months uploading information to RU Data behind the scenes, which they’ve already tested and appears to be sending down to the Hupp cash registers as expected. When these puppies go live, either the machines themselves are working, or they are not, and whichever way this wind blows, that is not his field of expertise. Teri will be on site for that, and Rick as well. While Edgar anticipates some oddball predicaments that will require his intervention, for Todd to insist that they sit with the RU Data guy, on site, learning back dock receiving procedures because a totally different cash register system is going live up front, this would again imply that their president really doesn’t understand these distinctions himself. Even though these changes were 100% his doing.
But again, Edgar’s basically an optimistic guy, and enjoys the challenge of figuring things out — presuming they are capable of being figured out, that is. And there are just enough tantalizing carrots dangling out there to leave most of them feeling somewhat confident about this company’s future. Rumors have begun circulating that Todd has already lined up a different location for his next store, after Indian Lake fell through. This brand new, shiny silver and industrial sized printer is delivered and assembled in Edgar’s office, beside the existing one, for use in their soon to be deployed shelf tag printing program. A development which also means that eyesore of a shopping cart, mounded with the ancient PDAs which never worked, has been wheeled out into the main room, even though Todd still refuses to part with them. Which is even more puzzling in that they’ve just received something like fifty brand new tablets, which are modern and instantly connect to the internet without difficulty, and are meant to be used by everyone out there in the stores.
In actuality, Edgar was planning on being at Arcadia on Monday morning anyway, before Todd dropped this bombshell about Matt flying in. But doing so while training with this RU Data guy feels like too much unnecessary mayhem. In part because he already has a feeling how this is going to go. The cashiers are going to be freaking, and anything that doesn’t work will generally be perceived as Edgar’s fault for some reason. Yet by and large, this Hupp installation has already proven itself to be a success — without even going live yet, they’ve tested enough, Edgar feels, to safely determine this.
One positive of being over here at their easternmost, slowest volume store this fine Monday morning, however, is that he at least gets to skip out on the dreadful weekly meetings, the various managers and merchandisers reciting on conference call the numbers they all have before them anyhow. Arriving a good hour before this show is set to kick off, though the tiny back dock is crammed chock full with bodies already, he also has an opportunity to play around some more with one of these new tablets.
The few available chairs already taken, he’s sitting on a short but sturdy box of product, and is hunched over the device when Teri enters, cracking up after taking one quick glance at him. His body language must readily give away what a contorted arrangement this is. For while these tablets seem modern enough and everything, and are at least connecting to the internet here, he’s already discovered one major feature he’s not too crazy about. They have no keyboards, of course, and when clicking the icon to pull up an on-screen one, it eats up half of the available real estate. Nothing below it readjusts, which means a user often can’t see what he or she is typing. Perhaps not a problem for someone who took typing in high school or whatever, such as he, yet how many employees did not? And even for him, when you’re trying to tab through multiple boxes without seeing your work, this turns into a concentration sapping exercise in mentally counting your moves.
Peering over his shoulder, Teri giggles again and says, “umm…I’ve got an extra little external keyboard in my truck, that you can just have.”
“Do you seriously? Man, that would be awesome!” he tells her.
This will have to wait, however, as this battlefield soon explodes into action, on two separate fronts. When Matt Abernathy arrives, he and Sharon and Edgar are able to claim one of the tall round tables, and three chairs, which they drag over by the back door, to stay out of the fray as much as possible. Meanwhile, Rick, Teri, Diane, Candace and the other cashiers are all standing at attention, ready to march out and begin this transition proper. They’ve already logged into their registers, but it’s still a minute or two shy of eight.
For years to follow, this will stick in Edgar’s head as one of the top five strangest days spent working for this company — which is no small feat, indeed. At this point, a month shy of a decade, you’d really have to twist some things around in serious fashion to crack that list. Among the odder occurrences relates to Candace, with whom Edgar has not exchanged a cross word or experienced any problems in their many years working together. Yet in these few spare moments this morning, before anything has even yet happened, their relationship seems to have undergone a complete reversal somehow.
“You need to be out there!” she tells him, flinging an index finger in the direction of the sales floor, like an umpire ejecting someone from the game, “not sitting back here.”
“Todd wants me training with RU Data today,” he tells her with a shrug, “so that’s what I’m doing.”
Turning to Teri now, Candace insists, “he needs to be out there. For anything that goes wrong with this.”
Teri chuckles softly and tells her, “that’s what I’m here for, to make sure everything’s goin’ okay. It’ll be alright.”
“He still needs to be out there.”
The root of what’s transpiring here, Edgar believes, is exactly what he’d halfway joked about to Sharon months ago, and expected would be the case. These people that were whining about Slingshot, all this netted them was a completely different system to learn now, and they are pissed. It also probably doesn’t help that Todd, rumor has it, already fielding complaints about this change, is known to flippantly retort, “talk to Edgar about it, he’s the one who said let’s switch to Hupp.” Which is omitting some huge, pertinent facts about this situation. That this whole thing is Todd’s baby, that Edgar and Jack were told to choose from one of two options, end of story.
Not that Hupp itself is even remotely a problem. Edgar is in fact mighty impressed with this company and its POS product. As the day rolls on, however, he does receive reports of various freakouts, most of which technically have nothing to do with the new system. It’s true that in the early going they identify a glitch where the scanners don’t seem to want to pick up the barcodes from their deli scale labels, although Rick and his team are swiftly able to remedy this one. Otherwise, most of the other scan errors are the kind of humdrum stuff that will require continual sorting out and may never go away.
For example, it’s also true that the identical UPC dilemma, mostly when single bottles or cans have the same barcode as their six packs, is a bit of a hassle, a store-level thing that Edgar has to add for now, an either/or prompt asking the cashier which one this is. He’s already created a ton of these, prior to today, but will have to continue doing so whenever new products are brought in. At least until Hupp devises some central solution for sending the info down. So that’s one scenario the cashiers are somewhat agitated by, though he can’t seem to get through to them that there’s basically no way to handle these in advance outside of manually adding every six pack in the known universe. Which still wouldn’t address any new items that come into existence later. Either that, or they can go back to creating and printing out unique barcodes for all the singles, which is what they used to do, in a much more primitive era. Mysteriously enough, nobody quite takes the bait on that scenario, however.
Another concerns the NIS items, not-in-system, although as he and Teri both are continually pointing out, chances are, this is no “glitch.” If you switched on Slingshot right now, there’s a real strong possibility that this item would not scan in that system, either. Has Edgar missed uploading a file or two, here and there, after months of doing this? Or for that matter, is it possible RU Data failed to communicate one to Hupp somehow? Probably so. But 99.9% of these cases are going to wind up being the same old story — the item went on a shelf before being sent to him.
He already knows this, therefore doesn’t dedicate a ton of mental horsepower to these complaints. This is what Teri’s here for, anyway, which she keeps telling them. Though aware that Candace remains curiously heated the entire day, these other spinning plates occupy most of his attention, sitting here with Matt from RU Data, and the attendant madness this entails. He doesn’t have time to fret over whose feelings might be hurt because they were forced to learn something new.
It’s a very strange business model this RU Data has, for starters. Because while there is a core product there, how these installations proceed is by sending their various coders, of which Matt is one, out into the world, to make custom modifications on site. Which sounds great and all, that they’re so flexible, and the software malleable…although this is also its Achilles heel. The only person who can tell you what happened and what code was added or changed is the specific person sent to your location. This becomes unavoidably obvious early on, when the same familiar bugaboo rears its head: ordering.
Though Edgar mentioned this during their first ever conference call, clear back in March, when it was downplayed and dismissed as a triviality, though he’s mentioned it on at least five separate occasions since, during which time figures as disparate as Sharon and Dale and even apparently Todd (during that patio conversation at Bayville, although Matt also claims Todd said don’t worry about it for another year) have also done so at least once, nine months have passed and nothing whatsoever has been done to set up product ordering for RU Data. Today, however, Matt finally wishes to get cracking on this project. Except right away he launches into about four different scenarios, telling them what they could maybe do to potentially order product.
“Wait a second,” Edgar says, waving his hands to interrupt, “Jungle Jim’s is the largest grocery store in the world, and they’re using RU Data. What are they doing for ordering, and why can’t we just do that, whatever it is?”
To which Matt merely shoots him that same googly-eyed, deer in headlights, Tim-Duncan-after-an-unbelievable-call expression from that restaurant patio on Long Island. Because he has no idea what Jungle Jim’s is doing for ordering. To discover that, he would have to track down the coder sent to that site, and follow some kind of digital crumb trail to decipher that person’s work.
“I don’t know. But, I mean, like, what are you guys doing now?” Matt questions, “you’re mostly sending orders via EDI, right?”
“Well, no, we actually only have 12…no, 13 now…13 true EDI vendors, with, you know, different account numbers for each of the stores or the departments here or whatever…”
“Right…,” Matt nods.
“But the vast majority, they’re getting sent via PDF, to whatever email address those vendors specify on their end. When our people click Send it automatically fires off a PDF via email. It looks the same either way to everyone out on the floor, you know, sending an order, but that’s the way it works. And that’s probably…95% or so of our vendors?”
“Okay, but your biggest vendors, those are probably mostly EDI, right?”
“Yeah, for the most part.”
“So see, I think we should start with those today, get the ball rolling. Then we can worry about these emailed vendors.”
“Really? Are you sure? I mean, like I was saying, probably about 95% of our vendors are set up with the email method. I feel like we should start there, knock those out.”
Though Sharon is familiar enough with how this all works, she doesn’t have much to contribute to this aspect that Edgar wouldn’t, and has thus far remained mostly silent. Now she offers her most substantial comment, though, echoing his sentiments. “Yeah, I agree. That seems to make the most sense to me, too. Since like Edgar said, we have far, far more vendors getting their orders that way.”
“Nnnn, I hear you and all, but I think we should start with the big ones first, the EDI orders. This might take some time to set up anyway,” Matt tells them, and asks for the contact person at Universal Foods, Edgar’s phone number for whomever he was dealing with there. Though Edgar’s thinking, you know, if this were even tackled as late as September, during that conference call where the two of us told you it was urgent, it would probably already be set up, that’s all some seriously backed up, sewage tainted water under the drawbridge at this point, and wouldn’t really help. So he looks up the digits for that Danielle woman who had worked with Felix and Slingshot to get EDI ordering assembled here for Slingshot, and gives that number to Matt.
Upon reaching Danielle at her desk, with Matt’s own phone broadcasting via speaker, their assigned tech wizard here is astounded to hear her immediate verdict. “This isn’t gonna happen overnight. I usually tell people to expect…about eight to ten weeks.”
“Eight to ten weeks?” Matt gasps.
“Yes. These things take awhile to set up, plus we already have others in the pipeline ahead of you. If everything goes perfectly — meaning not just you but all the others ahead of you — then you might be looking at six weeks. But I would say, realistically, plan on eight to ten.”
Well, at least they theoretically have this slow moving craft in motion now. And while this development may appear to support Matt’s theory, that they needed to tackle these EDI vendors today, Edgar’s not sure it really does. Okay, considering that Matt had done nothing with this project up until this morning, then sure, it probably does make more sense to get all of those started, right now. But then tomorrow, move on to the emailed vendors list, the remaining 95% or so, because how long could that possibly take to knock out? One day? For a high flying coding professional such as he? Except this isn’t what happens, not at all.
And meanwhile Edgar’s got angry cashiers flying at him, mostly Candace. Clocking out for lunch she shoots daggers his way and declares again, “you need to be out there on the floor!”
“Well, I’m working on this today,” he says, pointing down at the table, “this is what I was told to do.”
“You still need to be out there.”
And it isn’t just Edgar she’s spouting off to about this topic, but also Fred, who drifts through in the afternoon, to check on the project before heading home, and primarily Teri, stuck sorting out the handful of issues, which in actuality, considering everything that could potentially go wrong with an entire system overhaul such as this, are not bad at all. The final occasion that he’s aware of occurs around three, as Candace and Teri encounter one another face to face, near where the hallway empties into this back dock area, around the corner from the office.
“He should be out there at the registers! This is ridiculous!” she bellows to Teri, jabbing a finger in the direction of Edgar’s table.
Yet even the extremely mild mannered Teri is taken aback by this sudden hotheaded turn from Candace. Teri who does the whole bit whereby someone recoils slightly, tucking their chin toward their chest, while fixing the speaker with a puzzled expression, as if to say whoa! What is your deal today, lady? Explaining yet again that this is what she’s here for, today, to address any dilemmas, and asking once more, what are the crises you’re referring to, exactly, anyway?
