A list of only the most common barcode types

Though Todd admittedly got off to a somewhat hot start, with a few legitimately strong ideas, he’s been a lot more miss than hit ever since. Edgar still isn’t quite sure what to think about this guy. On one hand, he spews so much industry jargon that you almost have to conclude there must be some actual knowledge and experience buried in there. On the other hand, are they certain that this isn’t all there is? That he hasn’t just memorized the language and how to deploy it? Because much of what’s happened for the past few months has this strange off kilter slant to it. As if maybe the guy overheard some people talking about certain concepts, or perhaps glanced at the conversation in an online forum, and then decided to launch into something as a result — without actually knowing how it works.

A couple of weeks ago, he decided to shut down the juice and coffee bar at Arcadia, declaring it a waste of space. Which was probably justified — Vicky for example wasn’t shedding any tears over this decision — and even in converting that space to a customer service counter, they probably come out ahead. But that’s all very simple and relatively basic for anyone to grasp. Regarding anything more complex than this, however, the most common reaction to his decrees is an effective or actual huh?

For instance there’s the matter of these employee discount cards, a concept he allegedly researched and signed off on. While, despite the continuing complaints of various cashiers, the discount portion itself is working just fine, there are a whole host of other features that nobody has even gotten around to looking at, much less implementing. One major selling point of this program was that, since they have the shopper’s email address tied to the card number, it’s capable of not just targeting each customer with a unique newsletter, based upon their history, it’s also capable of generating various rewards based on such. All it really takes is to decide on a strategy, as far as what kind of rewards they wish to offer, for the coding stuff in the Slingshot program basically runs itself on that front.

In the meantime, though, the “points” continue to accumulate and display at the bottom of every receipt, although anytime a customer inquires as to what this means, the cashiers have nothing to tell these people. The handful of times Edgar has mentioned this to Todd, it’s gone nowhere. Which was itself maybe dismissed as mere inattention, although this has turned into something else entirely, of late, considering that’s he’s now picking the brain of Bellwether’s marketing guru, Carl, as they brainstorm on ways to…directly target Wholesome Shopper Market customers. Their latest concept, after a couple months of back and forth, is that they might generate, say, ten or twelve different flyers, to stick in with the daily newspaper, each one attenuated to the different neighborhood demographics Todd has personally come up with (or so he claims), visible on these snazzy charts he showed up at the office with this morning.

“Okay, but wait a second,” Vicky interjects, at this Monday morning meeting which is, if nothing else, at least more animated than most, “they’re gonna let you do this? Like The Chesboro Tribune lets you stick different ads in the paper, depending on what neighborhood it’s goin’ to? And how would that work, anyway, I mean, are they gonna stuff these ads in there themselves?”

“That’s a good question. That’s a very good question,” Todd agrees.

“Mmm. Nnnn,” Carl hesitates, “let me get back to you on that. I’ll have to look into it.”

“But…”

“Well, however it has to actually work, you know, we need…,” Todd starts.

“Exactly,” Carl agrees, raising his eyebrows to convey the profundity of this point, “we need some way to specifically target these people.”

“But we already have that,” Edgar eventually manages to inject. “I’ve been mentioning this for months. The loyalty card program has a function for that, all we need to do is decide on the rewards and turn it on. Then it emails everyone based on their history.”

“Well, they would have to agree to receive emails from us,” Carl says, dismissively, “we can’t just spam people with marketing emails.”

“They already did agree to it. They agreed to it when they signed the application, and gave us their email address.”

“Well, I would need to see those applications,” Carl sniffs.

Edgar agrees to send him a blank one, but can already tell how this is going to go. Carl has been a nice guy and everything up to this point, yet is clearly reveling in the additional power he’s recently gained, drafted into this side of the operation after all these years, and seems to already consider himself one of the management bigwigs or something. Then again, who knows, maybe Todd told him such. As for Todd himself, he remains dismissive of anything to do with Slingshot, will shoot a suggestion down at the mere mention of that word — even when there’s nothing better to readily replace it.

The next potential selection for a greatest hits album is cued up when Todd flies in yet another old St. Louis crony, some Josh guy, with this nifty gadget that sounds vaguely cool but not exactly essential. In fact it feels as though it might embody that old aphorism about a technology in search of a problem, that Todd is more just throwing a bone to one of his buddies, hooking him up with a project and a payday.

Explaining the situation now, Todd’s latest outrage involves customers writing PLU numbers themselves, he says, on the packages, when buying bulk items. For whatever reason, it’s determined that this Josh guy will mail the parts to his device here first, then fly in a few days later to get the program up and running. Once this package arrives, the assembly of its few components — basically a bunch of metal pieces and one tablet sized computer screen, all of them black — seems simple enough. And yet Todd asks Edgar to take the parts over there and set up this unit himself. He’s not in the habit or arguing with his bosses, when asked to do something, and this does appear pretty straightforward, so he marches over there with the box, begins examining the situation.

Craig’s involvement is required soon enough, however, at least in an advisory capacity. Bulk takes up two aisles, yet they have just the one device, which means the store manager here will have to sign off on its ideal placement. This thing was designed to clip to a pole, with an adjustable clamp, which already limits their options. It’s eventually determined that the only place this will really fit is over on a metal support beam near the spices. Only problem is, there’s no power source anywhere near here.

After analyzing the situation, they conclude that their sole feasible option, apart from running an extension cord across the floor, which would look tacky even with a rug covering it and require going around an aisle besides, is to bring it up through the drop tile ceiling, then over to the far wall, down to an outlet over there. As they rummage around in the office and the back dock area and come up empty handed, on a long enough extension cord, and for that matter don’t seem to have an adequate ladder on hand, they traipse down to a discount store, just a few shops down in the strip mall, and acquire both, charging them to Central. Then return to get cracking on the installation.

With the ladder near the wall outlet, they remove the ceiling tile directly above, then do the same over by the pole. Snaking the extension cord up through this one, within a few lasso-esque attempts at throwing it, Craig eventually lands a shot within reaching distance of the other. Repeating these steps in reverse, more or less, they yank the cord down and plug it in. From here they are able to mount the device to the pole and screw it in tightly against it, and they are now in business, awaiting only this Josh’s imminent arrival.

Or maybe not so much. On the plus side of the ledger, this Josh guy does seem like a nice enough guy, anyway. This has become their consolation prize so often that it’s turning into the WSM battle cry. He’s kind of a shambling dork, in thick glasses and somewhat wrinkly, outdated business attire. But perfectly affable and down to earth, despite having developed this software company on his lonesome.

He and Todd will both insist that this isn’t even Josh’s first contract, that other grocery stores have installed the software and therefore they aren’t this dude’s first litter of guinea pigs. This claim is a difficult one to accept, however, in light of how this all goes down. After Josh works his magic getting the device up and running, it doesn’t take long before a pair of major problems surface.

The first of these concerns the display screen itself, as far as what transpires when the customers punch in their digits. Though quite naturally an issue that Todd dismisses as trivial, it is truly anything but. In essence, the filtering function is wack and basically a total reverse of what’s expected from most modern applications. Typing in a more substantial series of digits like 3003 will work just fine, because there is only one PLU number that this would ever apply to. However, at the opposite end of the spectrum, a single digit such as 3 produces a nightmarish scenario severe enough to keep all but the sturdiest souls awake at night: it lists every single PLU number that begins with a 3, and in seemingly nonsensical order, too. A customer would have to scroll through screen after screen until hitting the jackpot and able to select the correct one.

Edgar already has a couple other concerns, too, though these are considered minor by comparison. For one, though Josh had him email a bulk database days ago, he insisted he wanted all of the numbers, not just those carried only at Central — which means there are reams of options on here that this store doesn’t even carry. Had Edgar known how this was going to play out, he’s thinking, he would have only sent Josh the database for Central alone, and told him it was the entire thing. Because as it stands now, there are hundreds of items coming up on the screen which are unavailable here.

Assuming Josh ever did figure out a way to filter by store, however, how would this work down the road, when new numbers are added, or old ones are deleted, or prices fluctuate? In its current configuration, Edgar will have to email all of these changes to Josh, who insists he can at least update those remotely himself.

Fair enough, maybe, yet even beyond the obstacle of this display screen madness, there’s another larger issue looming on the back end. To wit, these barcodes that his machine is cranking out, they don’t scan at the register. After examining the situation, Josh declares this a real stumper. He takes some examples with him, of the printed out stickers that won’t scan, as well as photos of his display screen, along with notes about what needs fixed, and flies back to St. Louis, promising to resolve these issues pronto.

In the meantime, though, does Todd wish to unplug the machine? No, he does insist for a spell upon leaving it up and running. He instructs Edgar to show the cashiers how to decipher the numbers printed underneath the barcodes, so that they might punch these in themselves. Only when a number of people complain, Edgar and the cashiers among them, that this makes no sense and is no better than the customers just writing the PLU numbers on there as they have been all along, does Todd reluctantly agree to shut this down for the time being.

But, they do all have their eye on this theoretical prize of RU Data, which Todd is adamant will prove far, far better than this Slingshot experience. So this is the light at the end of the tunnel, to keep their eyes steadily intent upon, the carrot at the end of the stick compelling them to move forward. To that end, Todd and Edgar have a second conference call with Matt and Greg out in Long Island, to discuss how this database transition is going. Those two admit that they’re still working on some automated method for piping the information directly from Slingshot to RU Data, but haven’t figured that out just yet and it might be months down the road before they do. Though Edgar’s actually not a “techie guy,” despite Todd’s continued introductions as such, and he might blow his cover once and for all by proposing this — then again, would it be a bad thing, if said “cover” was blown? Edgar feels like he’s been attempting to dynamite this “cover” into shreds for years now — he thinks he actually has a solution to that dilemma, which these guys have apparently not considered. It might be an outlandish, rookie type suggestion, that they may laugh out of the water, but there’s only one way to determine this.

“Couldn’t I just upload my CSV files to both places, for the time being?” he proposes.

“Upload your CSV files to both places?” Matt Abernathy echoes, though from his tone it sounds like he already gets it.

“Yeah, since I’m uploading them to Slingshot anyway, it couldn’t be that much more work to upload them to your program also, right? It would get the ball rolling, at least, until you figured out this connection thing.”

“Mmm, that might work…,” Greg Talbot says.

“Well, we would have to map the fields,” Matt points out. Although Edgar’s thinking, you’re going to have to do this at some point, anyway, this is just speeding up the process.

“Yeah, we’ll have to map the fields, but…”

“That should work. Go ahead and send your database to us again.”

It is by now the middle of June, which means three months have passed since their initial phone conversation. So they would have needed an updated master file all over again regardless. They haven’t experienced many changes — if any, actually — to their vendor list in this time, though, which leads him to ask about ordering. This also seems like a relatively easy project to knock out, for them to set this up, and he’s wondering what progress they’ve made.

“Uh…,” Greg says.

“Send us those email addresses again,” Matt tells him.

“Yeah, send those again.”

And he does, emailing both files to the duo as soon as they’re off the phone. As for the product database situation, Edgar admittedly feels kind of cool for coming up with that simple workaround, one which should help speed up the transition phase. It once again highlights how the true dynamic here, as far as this master Excel file is concerned, is really completely flipped around from how most people perceive it — even those who deal with these programs every day. It all started with Teri, who in turn impressed this notion upon Edgar. And he agrees: this Excel file is the database. What you are calling the database, be it Orchestra or Slingshot or RU Data, or even ChefAssist or ScaleMonster or any of the lesser programs, those are interfaces.

Because he makes all his changes in this file first. It is way more flexible and comprehensive than any of the other programs. If attempting to dispense with this, the first inevitable snag you run into is that no single report has quite the same information, in its entirety. Meaning you must run multiple reports, then combine them, and almost always have to rearrange or reformat certain fields on top of it.

This has become all the more true thanks to some recent enhancements he’s been able to make, after John Arthur from Slingshot coached him through them. John’s expertise extends far beyond merely the company that employs him, as he’s simply one of the most knowledgeable people Edgar has ever met when it comes to office applications and the retail industry as a whole. Even Dale, who by chance happened to attend some random conference where John was speaking, and sat in for one of his sessions, has returned raving about the guy.

“That dude is the man!” Dale enthuses, in Edgar’s office, his first day back, “I’ve already got a ton of ideas, just from listening to him talk.”

Edgar knows exactly what he means. That two day session Arthur spent here went by in rapid-fire fashion, as Edgar and many of the others took a flurry of notes. He’s only recently had a chance to implement one of the points he’d circled back then, this being how to connect an Excel file to a SQL database, to where the spreadsheet is actually “live.” Upon emailing John about this, the latter almost instantly replied with a series of steps on how to implement it. With this connection in place, all he has to do is hit this Refresh button, and it automatically updates the fields he wants. This has proven especially useful when it comes to inventory, which is one of the few exceptions that has always required downloading multiple reports. Now there’s no need for that, at least not for him. He has an inventory column for each of the three stores and simply hits the Refresh button in Excel, at which point it drops in the latest numbers for every item in the database.

Another issue, as evidenced by even the RU Data team and their inability to translate directly from Slingshot, is that these programs don’t necessarily speak to each other. It is maybe not as big a deal for something like this, which is intended as a one-time handoff, or at least a very brief one, in switching operating systems. But for those who are expected to continually communicate, in ongoing fashion, this can prove a huge problem indeed. The greatest concern right now is that all the work they’ve put into getting these supplies and recipes right, in ChefAssist, might be for naught. It has already occurred to him to ask Todd, and, without even mentioning as much to Vicky, she’s in the Palmyra break room right now, having thought of the same potential roadblock. By chance they are both in this store today, and she paused after seeing him in here, making a slight detour from wherever she was headed.

“Is ChefAssist even gonna work with this RU Data program?” she asks, “I mean, what do you think?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that myself. I have no idea. I’m gonna have to ask the RU Data guys when I see them. I mean, I actually asked Todd about this last week, but…”

“Oh really,” she chuckles, “and what did he say?”

This is one of those situations where office politics, and concerns about professionalism, get a little dicey. He hates slinging rumors around, creating hysteria, and would rather the person in question were just here, so they could all discuss this as a team. Talking behind someone’s back like this always feels a little childish, too, on a personal level. Yet at the same time, he’s not going around spreading gossip about Todd. This is someone coming to him with a specific, somewhat confidential question about what he really thinks. And in instances like these, it seems more correct and useful to simply tell them, instead of couching his answers in politically correct officespeak.

“I don’t know…,” he sighs, leaning back in the chair, “anytime I have a question for him, I feel like he gets off on some weird tangent that has nothing to do with what I asked.”

“Yeah…,” she croaks, nodding first but then shaking her head, as she exits the room.

In regards to what he just said, though, Edgar feels like there’s a definite purpose behind this phenomenon, and it isn’t what most of them initially thought. In the early going they were all inclined to chalk this up as, “oh, Todd’s mind works a million miles an hour! He’s bursting at the seams with all these ideas!” at one end of the spectrum, to “man, this dude has some series ADHD issues,” at the other. And there is probably some of this going on, sure. Yet Edgar has begun to suspect that the reason Todd talks so much, particularly prone to spinning off a massive, rambling rant when you ask him something, is that…he has no idea what you are talking about. And doesn’t want to admit it. Yet for you to sit there and make repeated attempts to drill down into this question will only eat up more time, increasing the frustration exponentially, which eventually leaves the questioner throwing up his hands and concluding, screw this, I’ll just figure it out myself.

Well, Todd either takes that tack, or its polar opposite, whereby he simply insinuates or even confidently declares that he has something much better in the works, and they therefore don’t even need to question these things, even though he has not provided any specifics. They’ve received this response quite a bit as well, especially concerning anything to do whatsoever with RU Data.

A great deal of this should become clearer, however, by this summer, with a scheduled conference at RU Data’s headquarters on Long Island. Todd has already booked plane tickets and hotel rooms for himself, Edgar, and Jack, which is admittedly the kind of development that makes them think, okay, well it seems like he at least halfway gets what’s going on, anyway. You’ve got your database guy and your dedicated tech person attending with you, which makes total sense. In the past the likes of Vince, Harry, Corey, in some combination, would have probably been included, for who knows what reason. Maybe Destiny and her husband, too. While the database and tech guys were most likely left at home, knowing this place.

Yet it’s still unclear whether all these moves represent the proverbial shuffling of deck chairs on a sinking ship, or if there’s a substantial plan in place which will help right it. The latest addition finds yet another old crony joining them, in the form of Don Evans’ wife, Diane, who is hired as a cashier at Arcadia. As far as subtractions, though, right around this time it’s announced that accounting overlord Reece Leibovitz has been relieved of her duties.

“So Reece is gone, huh?” Craig’s asking Edgar one day, during a rare pitstop at HQ, drifting through his office to say hello. He shakes his head and chuckles in disbelief, asks, “what’s up with that?”

“I have no idea,” Edgar tells him. All he’s received on this topic is the same terse email as everyone, and knows nothing else.

“There was a whole lot goin’ on there that shouldn’t have been!” Todd shouts, from his own office halfway across the building. The fact that he feels the need to interject in this manner is odd, mostly unprecedented, although nothing at this point really surprises them all that much. “And that’s all I’m gonna say about that,” he concludes.

Edgar finds the notion that Reece was doing something inappropriate to be extreeeeeeeeeemely unlikely, but whatever. Though Todd is hinting at something darker, maybe it’s just a case that her performance wasn’t up to snuff. No immediate replacement is announced, though Wanda Robinson is given Wholesale Shopper Market to handle on her lonesome, for the known future. Of course, Todd keeps making these cryptic comments about how, “a year from now, we’ll be totally on our own,” which nobody really questions. Not because they believe it, rather that they don’t even want to hear what kind of kooky plot he thinks he has in the works.