Information on these stickers? Data guy’s problem. Equipment used to print them and contents within containers?
Not so much.
Melissa quits as the company driver after about one month. But then a few weeks later, she is hired back in the grocery department at Southside. Though this seems like a strange development — and objectively is — everyone keeps referencing the “favor” Duane is doing for her dad, the former president of this company, who is not even connected with this industry any longer. And whatever the case, it’s no more strange than any other development around here, or just the average day.
Edgar likens it to driving a car, at exactly the speed limit, down one lane of the interstate. Meanwhile, in the other lane, car after car continues getting involved in a series of gruesome accidents, most of it due to fluke, inexplicable mishaps. And then on his other side, buildings continue to collapse, explode, have meteors crash through their roofs. Somehow he continues to make it to his destination, on time and without incident, at the end of each shift. Yet in many respects to do so feels more bizarre, and twice as outlandish, than the crazier happenings surrounding him in every direction.
Already bored at Walnut, Johnny requests to become the official company driver. This makes his third position in approximately six months with Healthy Shopper Market, but unlike Melissa, he never quit. And he appears to genuinely love this role, therefore may stick at it awhile. Even as the box truck continually breaks down, like for example one instance of doing so in just about the most inopportune spot imaginable, the side entrance at South.
Corey is by chance on hand this afternoon, and runs around the store rustling up every able bodied male, plus Melissa. Johnny was in the process of leaving the parking lot, and it’s a narrow slot, requiring a tight turn, downhill through the entrance/exit itself, which bottoms out in a culvert before rising slightly again into the actual road. Yeah, the truck had died with its front wheels in the dip, i.e. requiring an uphill push for them in either direction, though the vehicle isn’t entirely straightened out and blocks access for any other vehicle. Oh, and it happens to be loaded down with refrigerated product as well, bound for Palmyra.
Edgar is among those Corey calls to duty, along with Johnny, Melissa, Craig, and some random new guy from the deli. Pushing the truck forward would be easier from an effort standpoint. Problem is, the road too is mighty tight, with parked cars lining its opposite side. If it were running, this would be unremarkable, totally manageable, but in this state? They could maybe get the nose out into the road, and then what? Pray that someone can sit inside and crank the wheel in time, once this push job gets some momentum behind it, without plowing into that row of parked cars? With hopefully no traffic coming, either?
However reluctantly, they concede that pushing it backwards up the larger hill is the superior choice. And as soon as they do so, getting the truck out of the way enough to permit patrons use of this entrance again, this merely throws them up against the next obstacle, and major judgment call. As in, the amount of time reasonably remaining before they are forced to unload all this refrigerated product, from the box truck that, um, hasn’t exactly been brought up to code in that respect, as in not at all, versus whenever the repairman arrives at here. This is a battle the repairman wins, but only slightly, a handful of hours later.
Despite the turmoil, and symbolism inherent in backwards uphill pushes, there remains a definite sense that things are moving forward here, though. It could be that the time for this concept has come. Despite the challenges — and challengers — they remain on the upswing anyway, in part because this sector of the market is hot, with gluten free products currently trending through the roof, and people in general more conscious about supporting small time local businesses. So the prevailing sentiment here is a feeling of moving two steps forward, one step… sideways, maybe, a diagonal shuffle essentially in the correct direction. Half inevitable because the time is right, half the result of some good decisions.
With plenty others still debatable. When Arnie approaches Duane about password protecting the produce button on the register, requiring a manager override, Duane nixes it on the possibly accurate grounds that the cashiers would probably just click on a different department instead, and produce would lose the sale entirely. Yet even if true, this answer feels like a hot potato handoff that is just enforcing bad behavior.
So then the next inevitable question becomes, why don’t we just lock down the generic keys for all departments? This concept Duane actually signs off on, provided that everyone else involved is fine with it. But what predictably happens is that all manner of holy hell is raised over this concept, with Destiny the lead, most vocal opponent, complaining that she doesn’t “want to be running to the register all the time.”
It is never quite explained why this would be the case, however. Gliding past the easy wisecrack that she wouldn’t have to run to the register because she is already working a cash register all the time, when pressed for an explanation as to why there are so many generic punches across the board, everybody avoids getting pinned down on this topic. Some want to hint that there are reams of items not in the system because Edgar is holding up that process, although none press this point with too much pressure, probably because they suspect he can prove this is nonsense. He adds a new item file at the end of every day — seriously, there hasn’t existed a single day where he avoided adding any new items — and more often than that, even, if there is a pressing product line that someone forgot to send until the very last minute. If this is a battle of people not sending him the new items versus the time it takes him to add them, it’s pretty clear which direction this is going to tilt.
But what other explanations remain? Apart from that still fairly rampant issue, a handful of notorious employees slinging new product out first and maybe only sort of worrying about adding them at some intersection down the road, a sizable throng of others want to rally around the whole hot-case-sticker-warping issue in the deli, and use that as a blanket explanation as to why they can’t lock down all the keys. This they initially attempt to solve by first requesting some brand new deli scales (from Felix, in the end, although there remains much confusion on this concept — people complaining to Edgar about the equipment, when as he explains he has nothing to do with the equipment, only the data contained inside of it), which hasn’t gone anywhere to date. But then by placing the stickers on the bottom of the hot deli containers instead. Except then the customers are bitching about this, with a strong sidecar of employees grousing that it’s messing up their beautiful concoctions when people flip these over to look at the prices on the bottom. Which then ultimately leads to the current clunky workaround of placing two stickers on every hot deli item, one up top for the customers, one underneath for scanning.
And yet despite this cacophonous song and dance, what Arnie, and Edgar, and Dale and a small clutch of others suspect is really the culprit here, far and away, is that people are making up their own prices, at an epidemic level. But nobody wants to admit this — primarily because they’re either doing so themselves, or are terrified that to correct this might create them more work. Or, in Destiny’s case, a little bit of both.
The problem is, though, that sometimes these stances have consequences. It could just be a coincidence, or, more likely, a culmination of various factors, but this is the last significant conversation he has with Arnie at the workplace. All he knows is that one afternoon, though the door is shut, he can hear Duane and Arnie arguing with each other in the next room over. Followed by an immediate announcement, sent via email, that their produce/bulk merchandiser has been terminated.
