One of Teri’s first key lessons for him concerns the addition of new items to their computer system. Months earlier, when they first began installing this Orchestra software, she arranged a blank Excel template twelve columns wide, sent this to all department managers, merchandisers, and store managers. It’s fairly self-explanatory, and she is adamant that if anyone wants a new item added to the system, they must email it via this form.
“If it comes in and it’s wrong, fire it right back at them,” she tells him with a chuckle, “sometimes I’ve sent it back to them two or three times, you know? But hey, it’s one of those things, it’s gotta be right.”
Well, yes and no. Edgar is on his own, off to the proverbial races, soon after learning the basics from her. And he is already a little less hardline about some of these stances than she. The first three columns in this spreadsheet are pretty much crucial, yes – UPC, department, product name. But even these, one could argue, were often art forms requiring a bit of nuance.
Preferably one would hope they were transcribing a UPC directly from the barcode itself. However, even these were not infallible. Some packages omitted the last digit, a complicated check number of sorts that, like the final number in a bank account, somehow verified that all the preceding ones were correct. Others, typically more low-budget type companies, omitted the final digit and the first number, somehow, either on their products or catalogs or both. Still others didn’t list the number underneath the barcode at all. These required scanning to snake charm and conjure the magical digits, which was often actually preferable to them unknowingly transcribing an incomplete one. Most UPCs were an even dozen digits, but the odd product line, books and wines chief among them, would have 13. Assuming you had the full number, when they in fact sent you one of these without the check digit, was often about impossible to pick up ahead of time.
From the beginning, he’s gotten in the habit of checking every item they sent him, to make sure it doesn’t already exist in the system. You really don’t have much choice. Aside from all the other reasons, doing so typically would at least pull up a similar item in the same product line (the first six digits, known colloquially as the family code, were usually identical, and some of the following ones as well), and therefore confirm that this was an intact, complete UPC. Assuming this wasn’t a completely new product line, of course.
But more importantly, checking every item first would also prevent you from adding something that had already been added. This was kind of crucial when dealing with multiple stores, particularly if the cost had recently changed. Otherwise you’d be adding a “new” item at one store, whereas it was already in the system, with a different price tag hanging at the other stores. Some of the more tech challenged managers and merchandisers had trouble grasping this point – even if they’d never worked the other locations and couldn’t possibly know such level of detail at those.
“But I know for a fact we’ve never had this here!”
“Well, maybe not at your store,” he would tell them, “but yeah, you might want to scan this stuff first, just to make sure it’s actually new.”
Of course, it was entirely possible some of this stuff had never been at any stores. Dale in particular is fond of sending a vendor’s complete catalog and having Edgar add the whole thing, rather than cherry-picking which new items were actually coming in. This is kind of a judgment call. On balance, Edgar would indeed for the most part prefer someone send him the total product line ahead of time, rather than missing new items, and those going out on the floor without scanning. So for self-contained vendors, i.e. such as most of these vitamin companies, or local ones, where the only products they carried were their own, this makes sense. However, when it came to gigantic conglomerates, like their biggest supplier, Universal Foods, this does not. Reason being that you would wind up doing reams of maintenance and printing untold shelf tags for items nobody had ever carried, every time the price or something else changed.
Moving further along the line on Teri’s new item spreadsheet, the department code is next. Many of these require little if no thought, because the person sending the item really only represents one department. Produce is cut and dried in this regard, ditto alcohol. And even when in doubt on some of the more complicated departments, a major supplier like Universal has sub-category numbers that clue a person in on important distinctions, for example the difference between grocery and housewares. These finer points often carry margin and, more crucially, tax implications with them. But this all becomes a little trickier when certain individuals continually send items that don’t even belong to them.
For the record, Edgar likes Harry Redcrow just fine. The grocery merchandiser is a pleasant enough chap and often quite funny. In his late fifties or early sixties, of at least partial Native American descent and given to wearing heavy flannel shirts, rugged blue jeans to go with his quite impressive and sturdy hair helmet. Harry brings with him considerable experience, and a long history with the likes of Duane and George. However, in many respects, the phrase old school doesn’t even begin to describe the guy.
Edgar envisions the end result with this stuff as being a finish line. And they have their ideal methods that they are trying to push on as many people as possible, as with Teri’s new item spreadsheet. However, with everybody else who is not on board with the ideal, you have to try and figure out how to get them across that finish line anyway. And some of these ideals collapse at the outset with Harry. True, Edgar mentions the new items spreadsheet a few times to the old man, as tactfully as he can. And presumably, before that, Teri was able to get him to cooperate without bringing a shopping cart full of tact. Whatever the case, though, Harry soon begins a pattern of piling up Edgar’s desk with the items themselves. On occasions, especially if he just sat through some presentation from a product rep, he might bring in some really nifty, colorful brochures with the barcodes circled, the ones he hopes to add. And this is a slight improvement, sure. But mostly it’s the mountains of piled up product.
It’s true that Edgar’s a bit too timid to make much of a stink about this. Being a clear instance of eyeing the finish line and all, concluding that the intentions and the end result are right on point, at least. Other situations are not open for debate, however. Their deli for example receives a couple different lines of gourmet breads, twice a week, and for months, Harry somehow manages to code just about every invoice to grocery. Edgar keeps patiently reminding him that these belong to the deli, and they need to be corrected, but this doesn’t really seem to sink in. Meanwhile, however, he’s up in Edgar’s office, completely obsessed with a price change on some random can of dog food.
“Why did this just go up ten cents? This shouldn’t have gone up any. We sell a ton of it.”
“Okay, so…the cost on that product line went up two cents…and that was just enough to raise the retail…,” Edgar explains, checking out the latest Universal file, “but hey, listen, uh, it looks like grocery paid for the entire Bread Artisan shipment.”
“Bread Artisan?”
“Yeah, it actually belongs to deli.”
“Oh. Okay, okay.”
And so on. And on a similar note, he is constantly giving Edgar new candy items to add to the system. While it’s easy to joke that these moves are made to circumvent Pierre O’Brien from ranting and raving about the candy situation, the reality is that, for whatever reason, the bosses – Duane and the Bellwether Snacks ownership team – had long ago decided that they wanted all candy coded to the bulk department, packaged or not. Bulk has a higher margin and, considering that this category is basically the entirety of Bellwether’s wheelhouse within the stores, they probably have these items together for simplicity’s sake.
So aside from these two points, Harry’s frequent introduction of product lines that he doesn’t even have a say in creates all sorts of other problems. This is without even getting into the finer points of time wasted on projects outside one’s purview, etc. He’s pissing off the bulk people by eating up space that belongs to them, introducing entire sets without even so much as a heads up. And the product is often already here, it’s already been paid for, so it must go somewhere, regardless. Sometimes Edgar is able to catch these in time – and in this situation if no other, he’s kind of thankful for being brought the actual item – but not always. This is especially true if Harry’s at one of the other two stores and has the grocery manager there email a new item spreadsheet to Edgar.
If the description isn’t extremely explicit, these shots might pass through the ol’ croquet wickets without interference. And it’s by no means uncommon for someone to send Edgar a list of six new items, say, about which the only names given are Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, Peanut Butter, and so on. Situations like these would require a correction down the road, because when you’re sitting in some distant office, you haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell they’re sending you. Often this would take either Edgar visiting the store, and spotting the item or else catching it on one of his monthly scan audits, or maybe one of the bulk managers complaining. Then a subsequent department change and a jacking up of the retail. Things finally reach a head, of sorts, one afternoon when Harry’s in his office, and Edgar mentions yet again that he can’t add candy bars to the grocery department.
“Yeah but I thought we would just pile these by the register, and then,” Harry explains, making little shooing motions with his hands, to suggest blowing these out the door.
“Well, but there’s nowhere for me to put them. I mean we could theoretically put candy in housewares, I guess, because the margin’s the same. But then the tax rate would be wrong.”
Of course, one other pertinent point is that by the time this is caught, the ship has long since sailed on this being coded to the correct department. Grocery has already paid for the stuff. Once the invoice gets past Edgar, it’s kicked up to accounts payable at the Bellwether HQ and that’s that. If only the quaint little local vendors had obvious names like Candy, Inc. or something, then this might be easier to spot. However, nearly all of them either went the inscrutable and/or esoteric route (347 Foods) or else incorporated yet another in the endless permutations on the word “nature” (Natural Goodness). In these instances grocery is if nothing else able to balance things out somewhat by enjoying a few weeks’ worth of sales before the items switch departments. But, alas, Edgar is finally able to score one small victory, following this final discussion on the topic – Harry must grasp the nature of this predicament at last, for he finally, blessedly, stops bringing Edgar candy items to add.
