organically arranged produce department

Fortunately, there’s a buffer period of about a day before people truly begin freaking out about the pricing oddities. Edgar’s mostly able to get through the opening shift before that timed explosive detonates. On the downside, come Saturday morning, everyone is besieging him at once, though these scenarios are going to take some time to iron out — and he also can’t seem to get through to the bosses why this is the case, also why this stuff is not his fault and he didn’t do anything wrong. These are the results of Todd’s instructions, to the letter, they were executed as well as anyone could expect.

He’s already heard complaints from a few different people about various product lines no longer being identically priced. This is due to MRI not offering every flavor of a product line, which means the missing ones still have the old retail. Though this is just about 100% the case — the only exception, really, is when MRI isn’t even adhering to line pricing within its own file — and seems like a relatively straightforward explanation, some of which he’s been walking a few of these people through for years, the general reaction is that he has just grown a second head or something. Of course, it’s not quite accurate to say that nobody gets this; it only appears that way because the ones who do get it (Dale, Vicky, Megan, et cetera) are obviously not complaining. Yet the ringleaders cracking the whip on this circus would not be among that group, and as he’s drifting down the pets aisle this early a.m. hour, he lucks into a two for one special in the form of Fred and Don both, stocking product along this stretch.

“Hey! What’s going on with these prices?” Fred says, accosting him as he attempts to pass. He hadn’t spotted these two before he had already entered this long aisle, with no escape hatches in the form of gaps, otherwise he might have chosen a different route.

“What do you mean?”

“Well like look at these cans of dog food,” he explains, pointing to one row of ten ounce Chophouse Masters brand mutt mix, “half of them have one price and half of them have another!”

“Pricing’s a mess,” Don grumbles, casting an empty box aside as he grabs the next one to work.

“Well, I’m sure it’s a case where MRI doesn’t carry the oddball ones. So they still have the Universal price.”

“Yeah but this is making us look really bad,” Fred continues, “like my wife was in here yesterday and even she was asking me, why do you guys have a bunch of different prices on the same stuff? I mean, I thought we had the capability to line price things?”

“Yes, we can. And we will. But first they have to be identified, you know. This is gonna take some time.”

“Okay….,” Fred says, in the manner of someone highly skeptical that such an explanation is legit.

First things first, forgetting for a moment that your president asked you to import a 36,000 item file just a few hours before opening the store, and that things were in phenomenally better shape before then, the MRI product spreadsheet is a nightmare. Much of this has to do with the seemingly innocuous lack of a brand name field. So this problem must be approached from multiple angles. It often takes walking the store in person, yes. He has done some of this, clipboard in hand, and begun taking notes. It also takes receiving information from Ashley and Amanda, what they’ve discovered in their travels, or in random encounters such as this.

As far as the master database file itself, updated to reflect all these changes, the lack of a brand name field means sorting by sequential UPC. Then going through them and hoping to pick out patterns. Even here, it’s not necessarily clear from the item description what an item is. They don’t always list the size. Many of brands do not keep all of their similar products in a row, as far as UPC sequence is concerned, and instead bounce all over the place. What they are showing as their department might differ from how S2TFWSM is categorizing something, although something like pets is generally sorted the same, and helps narrow a product list down (and actually, those 11,000 new items he had no choice but to dump in exactly as MRI showed them, department wise, because there was clearly zero time for going through those in any kind of reasonable manner, which will require a whole other wave of revision as far as moving them around down the road; he has already fielded gripes about this, too, for example a cheese that MRI has as grocery, though the rest of the product line is in the deli). So, yes, these scenarios all take a little time, to chip away at this problem. Items do not sort themselves, and thus far attempts to telepathically dial in what some boss thinks a price “should be” have not proven successful.

Otherwise, with the store open for business, the command center up front has been disassembled. Aside from some cosmetic kinks — a few barren areas, minor cleanup around the customer service area, a curious setup that has the shopping carts extending into the produce section to where it cuts that department in half — there is only one major undertaking left, from a visual standpoint, which is to get that cafe area built. Most of the employees who were helping out here are now kicked back to their own store. The Universal crew is still not quite finished hanging tags, however, and most merchandisers, as well as the three headed monster up top, they are all here just about every day, along with Felix, Edgar, and the occasional other helper such as Sharon.

Edgar alone has been given a semi-permanent set up, in the form of a folding card table in the equipment room up front. It’s a tiny, drab, plain white space, stuffed with compressors, servers, that one old tag printer, and the like, which seems even smaller than it is thanks to a couple of sloping ceiling angles. However, it is quiet in here, apart from the piped in overhead Muzak, one which is set to a modern pop station 24/7. There’s just enough room on the table for his laptop and the piles of needed paperwork, although if one were under the impression that sitting this close to the servers and other gear might mean he has killer internet reception, then this person would be gravely mistaken. Edgar is as frustrated on this front as everyone else.

He has just finished entering these changes on that dog food line, to include with the next batch of updates. That whole edict about only changing retails every Monday has been blown out of the water for now, and he plans on doing so daily for the foreseeable future, until this line pricing hysteria has subsided. He exits the equipment room bound to check on something else, over in the dairy section, but instead only gets as far as breezing through one closed checkout line, before he bumps into Todd.

“Hey, Vince says the wine prices are all wrong,” Todd tell him.

“The wine prices are all wrong? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know but you better go talk to him,” Todd commands, then keeps moving off to wherever he is bound.

As demanded, Edgar detours over to the wine section, where he finds Vince in the middle of stocking and hanging those new tags concurrently. Much like the Don sighting over in grocery, Edgar is admittedly impressed just a smidgen to see this old man demonstrably doing some actual work today. At least it ever so slightly, fractionally redeems whatever eye-popping salary they are surely pulling down. Then again, how sad is that, to be impressed by so little? Whatever the case, this is easily the most extensive conversation that Edgar has had with Vince in years.

“Why are all of these prices different now?” Vince bellows, sweeping a hand across this expanse of bottles.

“Todd wants the MRI SRP on everything. That’s what these are.”

“I’m not ordering beer and wine from MRI.”

“Doesn’t matter. He wanted their SRP on everything, so that’s what we’re doing now.”

“Okay but for example Give Us This Daily Red,” Vince grumbles, jabbing an index finger over at a huge display of their best selling wine, “supposed to be $8.99. Not $10.99.”

Edgar chuckles, possibly because the absurdist nature of this entire situation only continues growing, and says, “well, about the only thing we can do is, I can put it at an ongoing sale price of $8.99. Otherwise…”

A sour faced Vince only nods once, with comment, before turning away to continue restocking. So apparently this conversation about “all” of the wine prices being “wrong” has concluded. Edgar continues onward to the dairy section, then returns to the equipment room to implement the results of this charming little discussion. As it pertains to what he told Vince, which is also true for line pricing quandaries like the one Fred mentioned, this workaround is all they’ve figured out so far. He and Ken have already shot Microsoft Team messages back and forth on the topic, with further input from Glen at RU Data, in an email chain with him.

Thanks to that Filezilla beast that Edgar has to bring to its feet every Tuesday, and Todd’s insistence on going with those SRPs instead of calculating a correct margin, there’s no other way to prevent this from continually happening. He sets the Give Us This Daily Red at a Temporary Price Reduction, the highest level, at $8.99, just like the entire Chophouse Masters 10oz dog food line is set at a Temporary Price Reduction (which is actually just the normal retail on the MRI varieties). All of these are set to last until January 1st of next year, and they get one of these snazzy ice blue bordered signs that Park recently designed, to visually distinguish them. Of course, like always, this does nothing to ensure that future additions to the product line will magically include themselves — he just has to be on the continual lookout for these scenarios. He does his level best to add things at the same price as existing products anyway, but it isn’t always clear what people are sending him.

Early in the afternoon, he’s exiting the equipment room once more, off on another such recon mission. Except once more he crosses paths with Fred Baldwin, who is now stocking an end cap of Mr. Banks’s apple cider vinegar, along with some other random grocery employee.

“Hey, why is this suddenly three dollars higher now?” Fred asks, extending the shelf tag for the most popular size of this product line.

“That’s just what MRI has as the retail,” Edgar explains, “I already checked. You’re actually the third person to ask me about that.”

“Okay but I thought MRI was supposed to be cheaper than Universal?”

“On a lot of stuff, yeah, but not everything.”

“Well then why does it have MRI listed as the supplier, then, if Universal’s cheaper?”

Edgar shrugs and explains yet again, “Todd wants MRI listed as the primary supplier on everything they carry. Of course, if people know Universal’s cheaper and still want to order from there…that’s up to them.”

“I’m so confused!” Fred blurts out.

Yet Fred then returns to stocking this end cap, which Edgar takes as his cue to high tail it away from here. He continues onward to the vitamins department, to check out this line of soaps. Days like this, one could certainly make the case that, while management finds it very reassuring indeed to have their staff on hand, it is far less productive for an office person such as Edgar. These constant interruptions pretty much annihilate any gains, such as the convenience in strolling out to look at something. It seems like staying back at HQ and making lists of everything that needs examining, then venturing up here every other day or maybe even once a week would accomplish far more.

His is a desk job, after all, though the bosses seem extremely confused on this matter. He wonders how Park has pulled that off, getting this point across. He’s not exactly the most vocal guy in the world, either, yet they apparently comprehend that his role as the signage dude means he needs to be left alone at his desk. Edgar likes being here and all, in the middle of the action, but something in the neighborhood of a 50/50 split feels far more efficient. Todd says he wants him here every day for who knows how long, though, so here he is.

All this might be manageable, too, except that on top of it, he still has people coming up to him constantly with their internet beefs as well. He’s not sure why so many employees continue to think of him as an equipment repairman — well, except for the obvious fact that Todd, Fred, and Don obviously believe he is the equipment repairman. This despite Edgar’s best efforts to continually shoot this notion down. He wants to be helpful, and doesn’t mind attempting to figure something simple out on that front, particularly if Felix isn’t here. But that’s just it, Felix is here today, he is here most days.

Of course, he has begun to suspect that Felix is one of the people telling everyone to ask Edgar about the equipment. This would not in the least bit surprise him. He’s pleasant enough and everything, yet there are countless situations — like updating the chip readers at checkout, which was a state law that went into effect in October — where Felix cites “being behind” as the culprit, why he hasn’t handled this yet, when in fact it seems more likely that his knowledge is lacking.

Not that Edgar mentions this to anyone. He has no proof, and is not a gossip besides. Felix’s easygoing nature inclines him to be friendly in return — although this is another of those knotted work dynamics which can only drive you insane, unless you make an active effort to drive all such thoughts from your mind. In other words, the extent to which your hands are tied when you suspect someone is selling you out, groundless though it might be, but you have no evidence of that, either. And as you are not even remotely interested in playing politics, you’re actually at somewhat of a major disadvantage by not selling these people out in return, by keeping your mouth shut. You think you’re taking the high road, but it’s actually a non-existent road. It’s an invisible road that nobody else can even see.

Maybe it’s not that Edgar is particularly approachable, but that certain people at least appreciate getting some sort of concrete answer, whatever that entails. Whereas specifics are often lacking if bringing their problems to Felix. Whatever the case, he’s returning to the equipment room yet again when Megan intercepts him, ruefully grinning as she holds one of these damn tag scanners aloft. She doesn’t even have to say anything, because Edgar has already received reams of complaints on this topic, and experienced such himself: the internet here is miserable and these things don’t want to stay connected.

“Uhh…heh heh, can you maybe help me figure something out with these? I get one item scanned and it disconnects again. Another item, it disconnects again. Over and over and over…,” Megan says.

“Yeah…,” Edgar chuckles and shakes his head, “I don’t know, I think it’s just a really bad internet signal they’ve got here…”

“Or is it these devices? I mean, we don’t seem to have quite as many problems, like, with our computers staying connected.”

Neither is aware that anyone else has overheard any of this, until Todd unexpectedly butts in from over by the customer service desk. Megan has her back to him, but Edgar possesses a clear shot over there. Todd, who is half leaning against the counter, as he flips through a stapled together packet of papers. Diagonal to them, his face only visible in profile as he doesn’t even turn to look this way.

“It’s not the device. User. Error,” Todd grumbles.

“Huh!?” Megan and Edgar both say, as she whips the top half of her body around to get a better look.

“I said it’s not the device!” Todd bellows, fully facing them now, right before he stomps away.

Straightening up in Edgar’s direction again, Megan raises one eyebrow, while simultaneously lowering the opposite side of her mouth in a vaguely queasy grimace. In between, her eyes bug out with incredulity, the sum total of which is the universal wordless expression for what the fuck?

“I would say…just put that thing away. Don’t even bother with it. I’ve got a different idea,” he tells her.

He can understand that Todd is fully committed to these various companies he’s gone into bed with. RU Data supplied these tag scanners, and he has a complete inability to admit they have any shortcomings whatsoever. But it isn’t just the internet connection, it’s also weird things like how they flat out will not read a shortened barcode, for example the UPC-E or EAN-8 type, six or eight digit ones that you might find on a pack of gum. They don’t have that capability. For these the employees must come get Edgar and have him add it to a print batch manually in order for it to kick out a tag. But of course Todd doesn’t want to hear this, either.

These situations all offer fascinating, additional glimpses into the managerial mindset. It might even be useful for shoppers, to know what they are seeing, when they are in a store and witness, say, two managers standing in their favorite spot, somewhere in the front perimeter between the aisles and the checkout lines. If said shopper is at all curious about the inner workings of a retail establishment such as this. As the managers stand with their arms crossed, murmuring in low voices, it’s important to understand that anything said in such an atmosphere is automatically a fact. Like for example, a conversation similar to this, which is obviously transpiring on a regular basis now if not in actuality verbatim:

Don: Edgar’s got the pricing all screwed up

Vince: The wine prices are all wrong

Don: (meaningful sidelong glance, sage nod) Oh, I’ll bet, I’ll bet

Todd: (strutting past on this continual mission to make sure every person in the store is aware that he’s in charge; as a result, speaking much louder than the others) Yeah, it’s because he doesn’t know what he’s doing!

Yes, the nuggets of wisdom relayed during these powwows are ironclad, irrefutable facts — no further substantiation is needed. A manager said it, therefore it is true. Nothing here is even remotely anecdotal. Whereas, see, now, if a manager then approaches an employee, demanding an explanation, anything the employee says, or if he even shows them tangible proof of what he has done and why, this is known as making excuses. Whatever the employee offers in response is automatically anecdotal nonsense.

They don’t want to hear that you did exactly what Todd told you to do, with a 36,000 item price file, even though you attempted to talk him out of it. That it was done 100% correctly, and these are the results, sorry about your bad day. They don’t want to see plain, out in the open evidence like how the prices stamped on the Little Debbie boxes are lower than the MRI file Todd had you jam the gears with at the last second. You did it, and we don’t like it, which means you suck.

On the flipside, they also don’t want to hear about the legitimately great ideas you’ve had, or even the desperation moves which have bailed out a ton of water. Because this is known as showboating. Just keep your head down and shut the hell up. Unless you want to complain about another employee, in which case you have our attention. But yeah, he doesn’t even waste his breath explaining to the trio of managers — and Vince — how his workaround for these tag scanners in Lorena might potentially save everyone’s bacon.

The first step is, as Edgar instructed Megan, to just put the damn things away. Next is to break out one of those tablets instead, which, as an added bonus, they also happen to have about three times as many of. All they need on these tablets is a blank spreadsheet. Todd has already shot down any notion of paying for Microsoft Office on all of these (once again citing the expense, the latest curious penny pinching move for someone constantly boasting about his sweet deals and all the money they’re allegedly banking), but just to make sure, Edgar approaches Felix instead, requesting such again. Felix runs it by Todd, who once more refuses to pull the strings on this purchase, although that’s really no matter.

As far as alternatives go, Edgar feels like it’s probably a bad idea to instruct people to log into their Gmail and use Google Sheets instead — some might not even have Gmail, and the ones who do could potentially leave themselves logged in. Instead, he goes and downloads the totally free Open Office program onto all 19 tablets. It turns out that Edgar was able to convince Felix to buy a few of those really cheap, plug and play, USB powered barcode readers, which require no internet connection. All they need to do is walk around, with one of those babies plugged into a tablet, and scan away. It drops the barcode into the spreadsheet. When finished, as soon as they are able to establish an internet connection with this tablet, they can email the entire file to Edgar and he will print the tags out for them. This is what Marla has been doing and so too will all the employees here, now. Hilariously enough, these cheaper barcode readers even read the six and eight digit ones just fine.

He feels like it would be far more advantageous for the bosses to simply put their people in place, and let them rip, without this constant meddling. It has often been said that this place would make for a great TV show, and if so, Edgar feels like he knows the perfect title for it: Let Me Do My Thing. This is what it boils down to. If you just hired capable specialists and let them worry about the details of their own roles, you actually wouldn’t even have a TV show, you would have a pilot that lasts fifteen seconds, with a dialog consisting of just those five words. A specialist waving off management’s kooky schemes and telling them, “let me do my thing.”