So we start the day with the news that Dr. Jack Kevorkian has passed away, and somewhere in the John Edward's camp someone was thinking "well, there goes our plan B".
Yeah, my mind is there right now. Because I am basically dreading the day tomorrow, when what should have been my easy day has instead turned into a pain in the ass day, and it hasn't even started yet. Because of the holiday on Monday, some things at work got pushed back a day for the week, including our grocery orders. Not that it was a problem for me, I could easily have gotten through the week with two deliveries as opposed to three, but Ed started taking cigarette orders for some people that buy through us on Thursday afternoon and called them in, so whether I wanted a truck or not on Saturday, now I am definitely getting one. Add to that, our Bob Marley rep Mark has decided that Saturday would be a great day to deliver a cooler, so there is more work. And I still have my own orders to worry about. All I can say is "Ugh!"
The planned redesigning of the store is set for this coming week, Wednesday through Friday to be precise, though I have already started that process all on my own. I have been moving coolers and freezers around into what I would deem is a more logical arrangement, and fixing what I would call some "design flaws" in our layout right now. Since Ed was looking for companies to buy space in the store, he was basically just selling blocks of square footage, with little regard for how that footage was layed out. So he roped the Herr's Potato Chip people into paying $600 a year for the right to have a couple of racks in our store, then the racks ended up going in what I would argue is one of the worst places for them, in the back across from the dairy cooler. Now, I don't presume to know your eating habits at home, maybe you like potato chips, maybe you don't. But would you want to wash them down with a glass of milk? Really? So part of my job in this whole redesign is going to be making sure logical shit goes together. I may post pics when I am done, if Multiply ever gets around to fixing the picture nonsense. But we shall see.
Today was my first day to work with Belinda since the whole incident with her son last week. Because I have been of the notion that I am not really getting involved in anything outside of work with the people I work with, I tried to keep what I said to her pretty simple, which is how I have been treating everyone there. As luck would have it, both of the people she was supposed to be working with this morning were late, so I got stuck on register with her for about an hour. And it wasn't bad, I mean we didn't yell at each other or anything like that, but I just didn't bother with a lot of idle chatter either. I know there were some people trying to boost her spirits regarding how soon her son may get out of jail, I wasn't one of those guys, in part because I just don't see it that way. You point a gun at two people and pull the trigger repeatedly and the only thing that spares their lives is not something you did, but the sheer luck of the gun jamming, let's just say nobody at work would want me on that jury cause that has serious time written all over it in my book. Especially when there was a warrant out for you to begin with. Maybe I will be wrong and the judicial system will be lenient, I just can't see it though.
Anyway, after I get through work tomorrow at least part of my weekend is mapped out. There is another hockey game tomorrow night (dare I say Stanley Cup glog 2, Electric Boogaloo?) and Sunday starts Cinema in the Park, weather permitting, with The Dark Knight. And at some point I should do some cleaning, if for no other reason that when I start cleaning I get up the urge to start cooking as well and I am in the mood for brownies again. No, I will not be modeling the Speedo swimwear collection in your local catalog. But I am hearing that there is a catalog that features tarps, and I just might be able to pull that off.
Okay, enough prattle, I have some other blogs and message boards I have been meaning to comment on, so my writing here is done, but not my writing overall.
you are right chips at the dairy case is dumb. Take from someone who goes in a grocery store all the time. I hate the WFT? moments in the store. One local store has baby food and rat poison in the same isle. Noooooo! It also seems to have some things in 3 different places, none of which makes a hell of a lot of sense. Chips, cookies, soda and candy - one isle. When I want junk food I don't want to go all over the store. Give me my PMS craving so I can get the hell out and get to my car to open something. Really it's safer for everyone. Also both ice cream and ready made hot food need to be near the register. I want to put it in my cart and check out. Not have to walk half way around the store. You hit one of my pet peeves. Well that and the people who check out and only after being told how much it cost do they open their wallet to decide how they are paying. Those people should be banned from the store. Just saying
ReplyDeleteWell we are a small store, I get our space is limited, but we had ice cream freezers in two different locations, that needs to be rectified. And the chips I was talking about? I actually moved them next to the 2 liter soda bottles, because they make more sense there. In very short term thinking, I get that Ed tries to get the vendors to pay to be in the store, those monies often help to recoup some bills that we would rather not pass onto customers (like the fact our electric bill runs about $2300 a month). But for those vendors to invest long term they need to be making money too, it odes no one any good to have chips in a place no one buys them from, we make nothing in sales and the vendor isn't going to pay for space next year in a location where they get no money back. Ed gets to be the hard ass when dealing with the vendors, I am more the guy that wants everyone to make money. It is a sickly little game of good cop bad cop we have going on. Unless the vendor has breasts, then Ed gets distracted quite easily, lol.
ReplyDeleteYou have to deal with people like me who are not shoppers. I want to go in and get what I want and leave. I think it's great that he sells floor space to help keep costs down. I appreciate that but you are right ice cream needs to be in one place and like I said make it so I don't have to wander the store with it. I hate the stores that put ice cream in the back of the store. On hot days by the time you make it through the rest of the store and home you have a box of milk shake. Oh and the damn store never has the freezer bags to help keep the ice cream from becoming a milk shake in the freezer section. For some reason they are in households. Yes, they are a household good but I want them in the freezer when I decide it's 90 degrees outside and the ice cream will melt.
ReplyDeleteWell, we are about the size of a decent sized 7-11, so I doubt you ice cream would melt making it through the store, getting it home is another matter. That would be on you. Most retailers do either get the vendors to pay, or are offered some form of kickback from their major suppliers. The big ones, like WalMart, have all kind of pull in that regard, the fact we have any is all to the credit of Ed and his business savvy. Not that we are doing small numbers, despite our size are probably the largest Pepsi account in downtown Pittsburgh (I think we are on pace to spend about $180,000 with them this year) and we currently have the largest account for an independent store with our grocery provider (they do bigger accounts, but usually with chains like 7-11) and will probably spend a few hundred thousand with them this year as well, so we do have some leverage when it comes to negotiating kickback monies for space, but usually that money is spent on things like utilities or to cover losses to theft, so it really doens't add anything to our overall bottom line.
ReplyDelete: ) Speedos, I will never forget my first encounter with a man in a Speedo. Let's just say some things are better left to the imagination. (If only he got that concept ha ha!!). :D You're a funny, chatty type. I love your stories.
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven't reached the size where little kids look at their moms and say "Should we push him back into the ocean", i do recognize the fact that some people most likely have just eaten and would rather not see that. I only wish everyone had such awareness. I remember standing outside work one day, smoking a cigarette and talking to Wayne, a guy I was working with at the time. Across the street we saw a female who probably went at least 250 lbs and opted for her attire black and white checked spandex shorts. I was so frightened by the visual that I looked at Wayne and said, "You know, if you cross your eyes, I think you can see a sailboat in her ass."
ReplyDeleteLool yeah gotta love that whole objectifying women thing.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm an ass. I feel I must warn you about this if we're going to build any meaningful rapport. : )
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge difference between objectifying someone and making note of a completely bad wardrobe choice, unless by suggesting i shouldn't be wearing Speedos I am thus objectifying myself as well.
ReplyDelete:) Teasing, teasing, don't get your Speedo wadded up lmao!!
ReplyDeleteI believe the drag n drop function for placing photos in blog entries still works okay using IE. Not that I'm a huge user of IE, about the only thing I bother using it for is pogo.
ReplyDeleteSorry, had just wokenup and hadn't had my coffee yet. Not that ligfe is any better after working for 8 hiours on an alleged day off.
ReplyDeleteI run IE still, at least for some things. The thing was, before yopu could carry the photo over to the scroll bar to the down arrow and blow through a bunch of text to drop the photo where you wanted it. Maybe it is just me, but now you have to literally drag photos through the text, one screen full at a time, which can be problematic if you are going to drag one photo past another, as I sadly learned on my last little walkabout.
seeing as I haven't blogged, let alone tried a picture one lately it's quite possible it has changed since I last did one.
ReplyDeleteThe way I tend to do it anyway is upload the pic's to an album & then when I get to a place where I want to add a pic I just copy the picture URL into the blog using the edit html function.