Some actual meat products in the meat department
The structure of the deli here is unique as far as grocery stores are concerned, and each of these stores in turn remains totally different from one another. It isn’t just that the meat department is rolled into it, a concept seen almost nowhere else beyond a tiny convenience store. Beyond pitching in a little to get Walnut up and running, for example, there’s almost no need for Christie to make that hour drive once a week, and she’s mostly exempted from the one-day-a-week edict. Southside continues to try and wrap the department manager and chef up into one individual, whereas Palmyra hasn’t even attempted this.
More to the point of Christie’s current visit, though, and this idea Edgar has, the deli is just one big department that’s expected to pull a 35% margin. But within this there are a whole slew of sub-departments, some of them, like the eyesore of a name Grab & Go, only recently added thanks to that whole tax code dust-up and the finer points it presented. These sub-departments all have different profit targets, too, ranging from anything made in house, which is expected to pull a 50, down to meat at only 25. Some of the unnecessary categories, like seafood, which was at a 30, they’ve dropped entirely, because it didn’t sell anyway and there was no real need to differentiate that trivial amount from meat.
All the Locke/Drake ownership team expects is that this entire ball of wax adds up to a 35%. There are some glances at the grand overview, like an occasional sideways eye on meat’s numbers, as they continue debating whether to even keep these shops open. But as far as item by item, line by line examination of the products therein, no. Which is what made this light bulb go off for Edgar, a while back, when he stopped to consider: we’re having trouble selling this packaged stuff at a 35, but if there’s nothing in this tax code specifying otherwise, do we have to keep this stuff in the packaged deli sub-department?
“I think we should move everything packaged over to the meat department,” he tells her now.
“Move everything packaged to the meat department?” she repeats, as though questioning this. But she’s nodding her head and he can see the gears turning, that she already understands just about every point of this. “What about desserts?”
“Even desserts,” he shrugs, “screw it. I mean, I know it sounds weird, but I think it actually makes sense. It’s worth a shot. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
“Okay…yeah…,” she continues nodding, on board with this concept immediately. “I mean, selling this stuff at 25% margin is better than throwing it out…”
“That’s what I’m saying. The stuff you’re making in house is still at a 50, and you sell more of that anyway. This will bring meat’s numbers up, and should hopefully help balance things out more overall.”
Despite the whispering and creeping around, Christie concludes she should probably ask Duane before they make this switch. When their president signs off on it, identifying these products and making the change in Orchestra only takes Edgar a couple of hours, after which he deploys and sends these reduced price changes to the stores. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of informing the deli staff why this mattered, and that they are to code this stuff to meat on their invoices from now on. Though there are a few stray grumbles that this is weird or stupid (the first of these is definitely true, but the equally weird company structure forced them to get creative, which means it takes all of a day, maybe two, to see that it’s definitely not stupid) but for the most part, they get it. Paradoxically, it’s at the two smaller locations that have no deli, where this becomes more of an abstract concept, that they struggle to remember that desserts and gourmet cheeses and the like should be charged to meat now.
Of course, sometimes it takes some serious gritting of one’s teeth to recognize that you are helping out somebody you can’t stand, in the name of the company good. This is a point that’s easily forgotten here in the corporate world, in both a negative and a positive sense: by default, it’s almost something you have to constantly remind yourself, that a person imparting information or telling you to do something doesn’t necessarily care about your individual results.
Edgar has been on both sides of this, too. Looking back at days much younger and much lower on the totem pole, at other places, and taking it as a personal affront when some random corporate guy would pass down an order. Or like a loss prevention guy or sanitation inspector or whatever, that they personally care about any of what they’re telling you, whether you do it or not.
Now he’s in a position where he’s supposed to go through the invoices every week, and pass along his findings via email, maybe copy some bosses in the process. While he hopes the company as a whole succeeds, whether this individual does anything with this information is out of his hands, and not something he loses a whole lot of sleep over anyway. He has done his job, identifying these points and passing the information along. The rest is up to them.
In fact you could argue that if someone is belligerent enough, he might hope that this person does not succeed, so that they could get someone else better into that post instead. This philosophical division rears its head every now and then, such as recently, when, having apparently already done a 180 from the time of his hiring, and declaring Edgar’s position a “great idea,” Chef Anthony takes issue with an email about cheaper places for sourcing seafood. He dials Edgar’s extension from his own in the deli, one floor down and across the store at Southside, shortly upon receiving this message.
“I don’t have time to be going through every single vendor, looking for the cheapest place to order salmon!” he barks.
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I do. That’s my job,” Edgar calmly replies.
“Oh…well…okay…,” Anthony stammers, suddenly understanding that he had played right into this point.
Granted, Edgar could have said, well, I keep telling you guys this same thing, and the preferred vendor is shown on the updated list I send out every so often, but you continue ordering from wherever at random. Yet he almost never makes this point, either. Again, this might tie into the whole bit about doing his job, and then washing his hands after that, particularly considering that it often appears as though half the merchandisers and store managers don’t care themselves. So he is certainly not working himself up into a lather, either.
For the most part, Anthony’s alright, anyway, Edgar doesn’t have an issue with the guy. But one unfortunate side effect of moving this deli product around is that while, yes, Edgar is helping his mom out, Jimmy Ray Calhoun is also downwind of this change. His numbers are suddenly going to look a lot better, too. Yet this is just the other side of the coin, if far less commonly landing heads up, in that you can’t really withhold positive developments from one of your enemies, either.
As is to be expected, though, quite naturally Jimmy Ray is taking credit for this sudden upswing in Palmyra’s meat performance. But what they hadn’t counted on is Duane diving headfirst into this cheering section as well. After all, he had given his blessing to moving all this product into that category, a change of such magnitude that he couldn’t have possibly have forgotten about it. And Jimmy Ray is obviously well aware because he latched immediately onto this opportunity, has been coding all this packaged product to meat without issue the instant they enacted this program.
“Another strong week for meat! Wow!” Duane marvels, at the latest meeting, and even shakes his head this time, to behold these numbers, “I can’t get over this turnaround!”
“Oh yeah. Sales are way up. I knew it was just a matter of time,” Jimmy Ray says, with a crafty, knowing smirk.
And yet they appear to be one hundred percent serious in their effusive gushing. As they have every meeting for a few weeks now. Christie can only glance over at Edgar with a perplexed expression, to which he just shrugs. Whatever the window dressing given and the weird slants taken, at least this has proven a positive for the company, which is really all that matters.
