Blogger 365 Day 93 - Behind the curtain

     It was at the end of June last year that Ed promoted me at work, I was going to be a manager of Weiss Enterprises which operated two stores, one in the Oakland section of town called Gus Miller's News, the other in downtown Pittsburgh known as Smithfield News.  I say this even though people who frequent this page already know such things, as is my case from time to time, I like to reset the story from the very beginning.

     My promotion came at the expense of another manager, John, who was let go in a cost cutting move by the business, it was viewed by Ed that I could perform what John was doing (as well as other things) and even with an increase in my salary that would be more than offset by taking John's salary off of the books completely.  Because I was stepping into John's spot and because I already live in the Oakland section of town, most of my days would start by first dropping by Gus Miller's and doing the reports, the lottery and grabbing the sales and then heading down to Smithfield News where I would complete all of the daily sales paperwork for Gus Miller's and prepare the bank deposits, then I would do all of the ordering for Smithfield News as well as help out wherever I was needed, whether that be working on the floor, cleaning, catching trucks, etc.  My typical days would end with a trip back to Gus Miller's on the way home, where I would restock the lottery machine, double check to make sure the store was running relatively smoothly and then come home.  On any given ay these tasks could run anywhere from 8 to 11 hours, and for the most part I was doing this on a 6 days a week basis.

      It should be noted that while I was devoting a significant amount of my energies to Gus Miller's, the fact of the matter is that of the two stores, it had the least amount of business.  Not for lack of foot traffic mind you, plenty of people go in and out of that store on a daily basis, but because of the business it does.  While Smithfield News is more along the lines of a full fledged convenience store, Gus Miller's is more of a newsstand, just a few varieties of candy, snacks and beverages can be bought there, as well as newspapers, magazines and an assortment of odds and ends that sell, but not greatly.  The two things that Gus Miller's sells well are cigarettes and lottery tickets, but the problem with those two items is that the cigarettes are sold at state minimum pricing, a mere 9% profit item, and the lottery is even worse, where we only make 5%.  even respectable overall numbers, like the fact Gus Miller's does about $20,000 in lottery business in any given week, is somewhat diminished when we are only make $1000 on those sales.

      What also didn't help when I was first promoted was some of the people we had in place there.  While I will not come right out and call anyone a thief (it could have been incompetence after all) the fact of the matter was that many days I would run the report and on a couple thousand dollars in sales in a day, it was not uncommon to see the store be $20 short here, $30 short there.  That may seem like small potatoes to you, but I g back to my lottery example, if the lottery is short $20, in order for me to pay for that missing $20 I have to sell $400 in tickets.  Don't you just love math?

      So some moves were made, people were let go and the books started making more sense.  It wasn't always perfect, mistakes do happen after all, but more often than not the store went from being noticeably short to being within a couple of dollars of where it should be on a daily basis.  I take no credit for that, that falls on what I will call "my crew", I had 5 really good people there that I could rely on.  And it showed, the numbers for the store got better.  Not gigantic windfall better, but nonetheless sales were up on both the lottery and the general merchandise and shortages were down, way down. 

     There is a rule in business called the 80-20 rule.  The way that it applied to me and Weiss Enterprises was that I was expending 80% of my energy running between both stores for 20% of the revenue (the amount of sales Gus Miller's was generating) and that isn't a formula for success long term.  Ed knows this (though he would not have phrased it that way) and because of that he was looking to sell Gus Miller's.  Not along the lines of hanging a sign in the window saying "Business for Sale" or anything, but if someone were to inquire about the business and make a reasonable offer, he most certainly would have entertained that conversation.

     Meanwhile back at the ranch, Dee had made it known that she was getting ready to leave.  Dee is the manager at Smithfield News on a day to day basis, I assist her when I get done with my work with Gus Miller's but if there were a management flow chart on this page (there is not, and I refuse to draw one) it would have Ed and Brian at the top, Dee would be on the second line and I would put myself on the third line.  Dee made it known that Snithfield News was not her life's work and that at some point in the near future she was going to be leaving.  So late last year she put her house up for sale and found a buyer rather quickly, closing on the sale of her home in Feb so that her and her boyfriend can move to Florida this June to start a life together, a life that will not include Weiss Enterprises. 

     What that meant for me was that I would now be doing not only my work, but hers as well, so while the company could get by with me doing that 80-20 nonsense while she was there, I was already dreading what my life would be like when she was gone, because while Gus Miller's was at the point where it was functioning as a pretty smooth operation, the same could not be said for Smithfield News, where problems are many including excessive calling off/lateness from the crew, theft (by both employees and customers), and employees getting drunk and/or high on duty just to name a few.  It is not a functional atmosphere, and while I can claim to be a manager, I can't just go and hire and fire people without the approval of Ed or Brian (that flow chart thing again).  In essence at Smithfield there is a different 80-20 rule taking place, where 20% of the employees are doing 80% of the work.  It was not a problem that I was looking forward to tackling while at the same time trying to keep the one functioning store afloat financially, I just couldn't see where there would be enough hours in the day to fight all of the battles I would have to just to make things work.  I am already putting in 50 and sometimes 60 hour weeks, what else could I do?

      A few weeks ago fate came calling.  I don't know how or why, but a few gentlemen came into Gus Miller's and started asking questions of the manager there, Bobby.  Things like, who owned the business, would he be willing to sell; things of that nature.  I am sure Bobby made very little of the conversation, but it ended up being a big conversation, because immediately thereafter they contacted Brian and asked him if he would be willing to sell.  While I can not get into specific numbers here (I did not see the final sales agreement) I do know that there offer was over twice what Ed had told me months before he would take to be rid of the business and just focus on Smithfield News.

      Thus began a three week whirlwind of events and planning and phone calls and meetings that resulted in us selling Gus Miller's News, effective April 3rd, 2014.  While these events were taking place, it became my job to keep those who might get slightly suspicious as to what was taking place completely unaware.  So when mail started arriving at Gus Millers with someone else's name on it, I quickly said that it was mail for one of Ed's friends that he wanted delivered there and that I would take it and see he got it, I convinced Bobby to cut back on ordering by creating a lie and saying we were cutting back for tax purposes, the business was going to be audited and extra inventory would raise the value of the business and therefore increase our tax burden, when Western Union money order services were shut off I said it was because of the amount of money we made from them (a mere .75 a money order) versus the paperwork and legal requirements we had to jump through just to carry the service (which is true by the way, Western Union is a big pain in the ass that way), when Gus Miller's sent us a list of things they needed to restock their inventory that we keep as backstock, I would always say it was boxed u and ready to go but Brian must have forgotten to pick it up.

      Meanwhile I am thinking to myself that if I pull this off, it is going to be a huge coup for me.  On one hand, when Dee leaves I will no longer be running two stores, just one.  Plus I will not need to go out and find good people to work at Smithfield, I will already have some that are more than capable, if anything, I might be able to rid myself of the ones that suck at Smithfield and replace them with better ones from Gus Miller's.  And just as I had devised a system to determine where my shortages were coming from at Gus Miller's, I was already thinking in my head how I could bring that system of checks and balances to bear at Smithfield, spending time on our new register system there, learning the ropes and what reports do what things and what types of information I can and should be looking for when doing the paperwork. 

     As an added bonus, whether it be because of the pending sale of Gus Miller's or because Dee is leaving in just a couple of months, I got another added bonus when Brian decided to jump back into the fray and become more actively involved in his business.  Over the last few weeks he has been as hands on as I have ever seen him when it comes to running Weiss Enterprises, including addressing some concerns he had about the way things had been running there and meting with all of the employees individually telling them exactly what he expects in the future.  A couple of people have already tried Brian on that, and they are now looking for work elsewhere. 

     So the last few weeks have been pretty god for me, I have managed to keep the sale of Gus Miller's mum to all of the employees of Weiss Enterprises, my owner is laying down and enforces some basic standards that he expects his employees to follow which is long overdue and we do not have to go hire new employees to solve our existing problems, we have a handful of trained employees who are capable of stepping in so we can cut our dead weight loose without missing a beat.  Yeah, it's been a pretty good day.