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Extremely stressful week in work!

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  • Extremely stressful week in work!

    Just a quick post to apologise for the recent lack of posts, work pressures have meant a distinct lack of time recently, especially after returning to work 2 weeks ago (to find my store a complete tip - thanks to staff off sick, a messed up delivery schedule due to the new delivery center coming on line and some inexperienced new staff) and so I've been working really hard!

    We had a week to get it straight before we were due (this week) to do our annual stocktake (another large piece of work and high stress time for all, but especially for the manager.... me!), so its been a bit hectic, especially with one member of our (5 person) full time team off sick and another on holiday (leaving us with only 3 full time staff to cover 9000 sq foot of 2 floor store, each of which has 2 days off a week to take, so most days its 1 ft to open and 1 to close, with a couple of part time staff to support).

    We managed to get the store looking ok, and the major disaster of the wharehouse sorted out (couldnt move in there when I got back from my hols), then Friday I had to start doing the stocktake preparation, for us to count the whole store on Monday! Labelling the store and setting up the departments is a whole day job, which was done on Friday, then Saturday we concentrated on looking after customers, with a couple of extra part time staff in to get as much stock out from the wharehouse as possible.

    Sunday I had a team of 4 staff start counting the wharehouse and areas of stock (display items) that we dont sell from the displays), which went well and we left at normal time with the store ready to count!

    Monday I was in early, with a lot of my staff in extra to do the counting, and allegedly help from 9 nearby stores (who due to being short staffed themselves mainly didnt turn up, we had 4 helpers arrive out of an expected 9!)

    Everything seemed to be going really well, until 3 pm, when the hand held terminals (the scanner guns we use to count the stock) all crashed, and we lost the departments that were in the process of being counted! A pain that we could do without (that set us back about 16 staff hours, or about an hour and a half with the number of staff we had counting), but after deleting them and resetting up we resumed by counting them again. By 6pm the store was about finished, when we noticed a department that hadnt closed its count properly, so we had to delete that one and do it again, another pain, but with 2 staff working on it we had it all finished for 630pm.

    So, we then checked that every department was showing on the computer as being counted, that we had a print off for each count and that we were ready to complete, and after double checking we hit the GO button!

    45 mins later the results started to come off........... normally we expect to loose (through delivery errors, shoplifting and damages) about 1% of our yearly turnovers worth of stock, or in my store about 20K, last year our loss was good at 0.89%, so I was expecting something similar........ but was horrified to see £85K of stock missing (or about 2.5% loss)!

    As manager of the store, its my responsibility to ensure we dont loose too much stock, so I was mortified to see those figures, I've always prided myself on doing a good job, but I went home Monday night (after a 13 hour day) feeling a complete failure, stressed out and upset.

    Tuesday I got up after a very poor nights sleep and headed in to work to look at the results and try and work out what went wrong (as I know we didnt miss any stock, the count was very thorough and the backchecking proved we'd done a good job), only to receive a phone call from our systems people at 810am asking if we'd deleted 9 of the 119 count locations!

    It turned out that for some unknown reason, a systems glitch at the computer center had 'lost' almost 10% of our stocktake counts, so that was the main reason for the apparently high stock loss figure! Relief?? You bet!

    In order to sort it out we had to get the print offs of those locations and then enter them in line by line as a stock adjuctment (with reason of stocktake investigation), a total of 4500 lines of stock with 4 input fields per line that had to be manually entered! In addition to this we also had to check on some of the other losses to see whether any stock had been missed (no matter how good you think the count is and how good you know the backchecking is there will always be something thats gone wrong somewhere), so I had 600 pages of stocktake gains and losses to go through and backcheck........

    Well, I had to input the corrections as soon as possible (as our computer automatically reorders anything it thinks we havent got on a Wednesday night - and if it thought we had not got 4500 lines of stock it would order more of all of those lines for our next delivery, which we dont have room for and dont need), so I finished the majority of the investigations and entered them plus the 'lost' locations before I went home, but again it meant another 13 hour day!

    Mind you, I came home a lot happier than I did on Monday! No idea what the result is going to be, our system isnt able to give us immediate results, but I have a feeling its going to be a lot better than the £85K, I have a feeling its going to be much closer to £25K or about 1.2%, which is acceptable!

    We've still about 9 departments (that didnt have so bad a result) to backcheck, which I've left for my Sales Managers to do whilst I'm on my 2 days off), so there's a possibility that there will still be some more ammendments to make, but the majority of it is now sorted!

    So, Im on 2 days off now, we're hoping to get to the plot today - even though the weather isnt looking particularly good - and I'm hoping to get some harvests (and piccies) plus do a bit of weeding, then tomorrow (with a better weather forecast) we will be doing the bee inspections, and hopefully have some more honey to process!

    Thankfully I've only got another 3 weeks to go in this store now, then I'm off to my new store for a rest! Lol!

    Hope your plots are growing well, the harvests are big ones and your working week has been a bit less stressful than mine!
    Blessings
    Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

    'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

    The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - an Allotment & Beekeeping blogspot!
    Last updated 16th April - Video intro to our very messy allotment!
    Dobby's Dog's - a Doggy Blog of pics n posts - RIP Bella gone but never forgotten xx
    On Dark Ravens Wing - a pagan blog of musings and experiences

  • #2
    Where on earth do you get all that energy from???


    ( my OH used to put in so much extra time at work before and after his hols that it might as well have been taken as time in lieu!)

    Glad you are finally on top of things gal!
    ...and nice to see you on here!....how's Dobby?- we don't seem to hear much from him these days?
    "Nicos, Queen of Gooooogle" and... GYO's own Miss Marple

    Location....Normandy France

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Nicos View Post
      Where on earth do you get all that energy from???
      Lol, I so dont have the energy, I've been running on sheer determination and bloody mindedness! I'm the sort of person who is too stubborn to let a mere thing like being completely cream crackered stop me from doing what I have to get done! Lol! (Then I completely crash when I get home!)

      Originally posted by Nicos View Post
      ( my OH used to put in so much extra time at work before and after his hols that it might as well have been taken as time in lieu!)
      Sounds all too familiar Nicos, but having said that, I've been trying to be good recently, going home on time and not working too many hours, but its not always possible!

      Originally posted by Nicos View Post
      Glad you are finally on top of things gal!
      ...and nice to see you on here!....how's Dobby?- we don't seem to hear much from him these days?
      Wouldnt say I was on top of things, more like they are a bit more under control..... Lol!

      Dobby is fine, his foot is healed now and he's enjoying the beekeeping and the allotment, but isnt too happy about the state of play with housework! With work, the allotment and the beekeeping the house isnt anywhere near how I;d like it to be, not at all tidy, but I'm sure Ill get it sorted once the growing season is over! Lol!
      Blessings
      Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

      'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

      The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - an Allotment & Beekeeping blogspot!
      Last updated 16th April - Video intro to our very messy allotment!
      Dobby's Dog's - a Doggy Blog of pics n posts - RIP Bella gone but never forgotten xx
      On Dark Ravens Wing - a pagan blog of musings and experiences

      Comment


      • #4
        Not to worry Su., my house is in a state of chaos too, and I've got no stocktake to blame it on, just a 10 year old's birthday

        Comment


        • #5
          Sounds like you need another Holiday Mrs. D! Well done for turning it all round, and fingers crossed for the figures you want. I'm sooooooo glad I don't have to do any of that!
          All the best - Glutton 4 Punishment
          Freelance shrub butcher and weed removal operative.

          Comment


          • #6
            You have my sympathy. I spent 12 years as a retail manager! you don't even get to have you're day off too yourself because inevitably you get bothered by phone calls, staff going off sick etc unless you have a massive team or turn your phones off. Labour budget reductions are a killer leaving you with not enough staff hours to be able to do your own job properly, an you get treated like a donkey into the bargain too. After 12 years i now have a non management job where i just do my job and go home again, then my time is my own. I have a life now an when all the sh1t hit's the fan, it is no longer my problem...bliss

            Wren
            Last edited by Wren; 01-08-2010, 10:03 PM.

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            • #7
              Hi Guys,

              Well, we got the results, on the day loss was at 20K, due to the puter problems, but entering in the 10% of the counts that they 'lost' gave me back £17500, so the toal loss at stocktake was 2.5K, and with the rest of the year added it was £7200, or 0.57%, a fantastic result! Last year we did well with a result of 0.89%, but the year before it was at 1.7% and the year before that at 3.1%, so it seems in my 2 1/2 years at the branch that we've nailed a lot of the stockloss issues!

              Sounds like a good move you made there Wren, any jobs going? Lol! Actually, things should improve a bit when I get my new branch in a couple of weeks, being smaller square foot will mean the staff will appear more as they are covering less of the floor each, IYSWIM!
              Blessings
              Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

              'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

              The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - an Allotment & Beekeeping blogspot!
              Last updated 16th April - Video intro to our very messy allotment!
              Dobby's Dog's - a Doggy Blog of pics n posts - RIP Bella gone but never forgotten xx
              On Dark Ravens Wing - a pagan blog of musings and experiences

              Comment

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