Remind me to never volunteer...(vent and funny)

Abbey

Spork Queen
...to do inventory at a large store. It is BORING and frustrating. Back room hollars each time I bring a pallet of overstock back...my little ear piece thingy is buzzing, "We need to pick up the pace." Pick up the pace? I'm glad they didn't say it to my face or I would have given them the stack of children's clothing I found 2/3 of the way across in the store in the Halloween candy.:mad: Wait...I'll toss in the condoms found in the energy drinks. Or, maybe I should send all the customers to you that ask for help finding something. I know customer support is #1f on your list of lofty goals. Jerk wad. See if I volunteer for you again.

Ok. I'm cranky. I can hardly wait for my all nighter on Thursday.

One funny thing happened. I was on a 15 minute break with some teen boy and he was going to go punch back in when he spilled a whole glass of water on his...well nether regions. I looked and nearly fell out of my chair laughing. He was red as a beet. He's looking down and says, "Oh, man! Why couldn't it fall on my leg? Not there! It looks like I took 10 pees!! I can't go out there like this! I'm going to get fired." While still hurting from laughter I told him to go punch in and just sit down until it dried. They are not going to fire you for not wanting to walk throughout the store looking like you peed your pants. I offered to go get him some pants out of the used box and he says, "Look at me! I'm a giant! Those things wouldn't cover my knee caps." He's a good 6'6". I watched STILL laughing as he's blowing on that area. I said...you know there is video in this room. He nearly died.:tongue: At least there was some humor in the day.

I remember eons ago doing inventory at an old school plumbing warehouse. One screw, two screws, three screws endlessly. And, we didn't have the zappers that we have now. I should have learned my lesson then.

Abbey
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Condoms in the energy drinks? WHAT kind of store do you work at? :tongue:
The better question being in this case WHAT kind of energy drink is that store pushing?
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
We have to inventory our warehouse at work once a year but it's not too bad. It's very organized and a bunch of us descend on it like locusts and knock it out in a few hours.

When I was in college I once had a temporary Christmas job at a big deprtment store and they asked me to come in after the holidays to help with the year end inventory. I ended up in the baby's and children's department! :ashamed: OMG, it was awful! We counted hundreds and hundreds of pairs of little training pants! And we found dozens of packages that had been opened, like a 3-pack of baby socks that had been ripped open and one tiny little pair had been removed, or one little t-shirt taken out of a package! How the (bleep) do you count that! I feel your pain!
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
Abbey- I must be weird... I loved doing inventories. I must be a bean counter (or maybe a little Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)) at heart.

Star*- It sounds kinda like a fun place, lol! Maybe Abbey should get her co-worker Depends for Christmas. :rofl:

Donna- You keep a separate count of these items. They can be damaged out and donated. That way the company gets credit on their taxes and profit can be adjusted as a loss on these items.
 

Abbey

Spork Queen
Star - Redbull and condoms. I don't even want to go there. Maybe the guy went to the Viagra department instead. He should have taken his condoms with him.:tongue:

Donna - the baby area is my specialty. I could tell you where any size bottle nipple, formula, baby food (which there are hundreds of different kinds) little socks, sippy cups or baby bath toy among a thousand other things is because I stock it every day. by the way...do you know how many kinds of pacifiers there are these days? What happened to sticking a finger or cloth in your baby's mouth? My gosh. I probably stock a good 100 a day. I stock it well so inventory would be a breeze. PUT ME IN THAT AREA TO INVENTORY!! I'd be out of there like Speedy Gonzales.

I could write a whole post about the baby area, but I'll attempt to spare you. All I know is we're raising a population of extremely spoiled children and parents.

Don't even get me started on the diaper aisles. Yes, I said AISLES. :sad-very:

Abbey
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Ah, yes, I remember those wonderful days at the Big K, trying to keep ahead of the parents who opened the diaper packages because they needed to change their kid, or who opened the sock packages to hold them up to the little darling's feet, then took an unopened package instead...and the amazing places merchandise migrates to, like condoms in the Red Bull display, candy wrappers in the lingerie department...
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Yep. I remember them too at Meijers. Fortunately for me......I only got stuck with my own dept. Toys. I could tell you where every single toy was in the store, including the back room.

I'd rather not get into the acrobatics it took to inventory some of the overstock shelves.

I nearly dropped husband's laptop over the boy and the spilt water. :rofl: At least you got one major laugh out of the day.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
That's too funny KTMom. I was a front-end supervisor in K-Mart back in the heyday when they were the new thing and were opening stores all over the Chicago area. I did a lot of inventories and a lot of new store setups.

I managed to avoid the infants' section but I sure do remember the stealing socks and underclothing from the adult clothing depts.

I got caught up on this when I rushed into Kohl's on my way to an appointment. I needed some socks and t-shirts.

Got nailed on BOTH items because the bulk packs had been opened and one pair of each item stolen!

I felt like a total idiot because I think that's the first time since my retirement from K-Mart nearly 35 years ago that I haven't checked the packages before leaving the store.

I was lucky, I think, that I live in a small town and in general the customer service people are pretty reasonable.

For all they knew, I could've taken the items out of the pkgs myself and then tried to exchange them.

I got my new pkgs without any problem at all.
 

Abbey

Spork Queen
Ugh. I think the toy department was the WORST to do. 99% of the kids who go in that dept. will pick something up...run and find mom who says no and PUT IT DOWN. Well, that's exactly what the little rippers do. They put it down right where they stand.:mad:

We also have this dept. called Dollar Spot. I chuckled as I found a package of 4 little rubber rats where someone had taken just one. Come on, people...it's a dollar!!! You could have had all 4 rats!

GN - we also have a 'no question' policy on returns. Theory is you might get burned a time or two but in the long run it makes for loyal customers.

Abbey
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
When I was doing that baby dept. inventory it was years and years ago. I was just temp holiday help in the store and had no earthly idea what I was doing with an inventory! They would just drop us in a department, give very vague instructions, and then disappear!

Baby items were a lot more generic in those days, weren't they! Do they even sell training pants any more? All you see now is 'Pull-Ups" which add up to a lot of $$$! And how does that feel any different than a diaper to the kid? I have a great-nephew who still wears Pull-Ups and he's 3-1/2! They have stuff now that we never dreamed of when ours were babies! My daughter has a few things for my grandson that I didn't even know what they were - had to ask like a big dummy! Some of it is completely unnecessary but I would have killed to have one of those 'Boppy' things when mine were little! Such a simple idea but soooo helpful! It's just a big "C" shaped cushion. You put it around you when you're feeding or holding an infant and it's a soft place to rest your elbow - no more aching arms from trying to hold your elbow up when you're feeding them. And when they're too little to sit alone you plunk them down in that thing and it supports them in a sitting position! Neat!
 

Abbey

Spork Queen
Oh, yeah...they have Pull Ups to age 5!

I do the same thing when I'm stocking that dept. I look at all this really cool, yet expensive stuff that somehow we survived with not having. My kids survived without having brain and eye development baby food. They didn't need 4 different developmental ages of rubber spoons to eat. Sippy cups? haha...I had one that probably had sand in the bottom so it wouldn't tip over. Now there are probably a good 30 different kinds. Bottle nipples? Hey kid...if you don't eat, you'll go hungry. Maybe you'll take the nipple the next time.

Abbey
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
OMG! I remember the sippy cups! My daughter did great with it but didn't use it very long and practically went right from the bottle to a regular cup. Her brother resisted the sippy cup because he had one little plastic bottle in the shape of Barney Rubble that he insisted on drinking out of. When we finally got him using the sippy cup, he discovered that he could lay it down in the tray of his high chair, give it a good spin, and it would spray the whole dining room like an oscilating lawn sprinkler! Kind of defeated the purpose ... ;)
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Abbey

The infant dept puts my jaw on the floor. Those pull ups that go up to age 5 are for idiots like Nichole's husband who refuses to be consistant with Aubrey so she'll finally be completely broke. I told Nichole to put the child in panties and be done with it already. Need to go somewhere? Take two sets of spare clothes and some wallie world bags to keep soiled ones in. Really, it's not that hard. ugh

Disposable bibs for eating. How lazy can you get? Those plastic bibs for eating wipe off easily and won't break your wallet. easy child finally learned. lol Yep, seen that stages with the silverware. I just handed Aubrey and Darrin spoons and let them go at it. lol Had to cuz Nichole had bought Aubrey one of those silverware sets.....and the spoon was so flat she couldn't get the food to stay on it long enough to get it into her mouth.

How about the specialized packages of cheerios? lol Ok Moms, haven't you heard of the economy size and a plastic baggie? lmao Oh, and those toddler entrees. Gimme a break. By 12 mos my kids were eating from the table. It's just not that difficult to cut food up for toddler mouths. sheesh!

I did feel better when easy child and I went shopping for her a breast pump for Brandon. It was't just me that looked at all the varieties and was overwhelmed. :rofl:
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I'm not sure if I agree with the whole idea of Pull-Ups. How does that feel any different to the kid than a diaper? The training pants were a real adventure and required a lot of work and attention by the parent (and the day care didn't like them) but they worked! My kids were both trained at a very early age. I had this discussion with my daughter when she was expecting. The Pull-Ups apparently are to make it easier on the parents and to spare the child the discomfort of being wet or messy ... same as a diaper! With my kids, I think that the discomfort of being wet or messy in the training pants was one big reason they started to prefer using the toilet! It was more work for the parents but it did work and it was waaaay less expensive to launder training pants than to keep buying 'diapers' until they're ready to start kindergarten!
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Donna

Pull ups didn't come out until right before Nichole was ready to potty train. I'd already trained easy child and Travis using training pants with those rubber pants over them. Fortunately for me, Nichole trained herself. And she only used a pull up when we went somewhere when she first started.

Pull ups being so diaper like is the whole problem with Aubrey. Nichole's boyfriend is so darned lazy about taking her to the potty........and for so long they just let her go potty in them, she thinks of it as a diaper, not underwear.

Can't believe I referred to Nichole's boyfriend in my last reply as her husband....ACK! :faint: God forbid.

easy child, myself, Nichole and her boyfriend, plus all the kids went to the outlet mall a while back. When we had went to the food court for lunch, Darrin decided he needed to potty and asked me if I'd take him. Aubrey jumped up and wanted to go too. (she adores Darrin and it's mutual) So I took them both even though both Nichole and the boyfriend told me she'd refuse to go.

Funny, but she zoomed right into a stall and started pulling down her pants! So I helped her. Told her how big she was. She though washing her hands was awesome. lol Then when we got back to the table I gave her a peppermint lifesaver as a reward. (I was lucky to have one in my purse)

Nichole and boyfriend were astonished that she actually pottied! This drives me crazy. Nichole watched me help easy child break Darrin since I was sitting him at the time. It's not like she hasn't a clue on how's it's done. ugh And the boyfriend, I just want to smack him upside the head. (although that's not unusual lol)
 

Mattsmom277

Active Member
I'd have gone postal!!

I several times did inventory at the military base mess. Days spent inventory the liquor supply. Honest to goodness, the bottles that were opened in the actual bar itself? We had to measure the remaining contents by one ounce shooter glass full! Can you imagine? God forbid the bottle was an ounce shorter than it should be (spillage during use probably!). And it had to be DOUBLE COUNTED. So I'd pour, then someone else would pour. And each OUNCE had to written down after each double pour. I remember that we were told that the job should have taken x amount of time. Umm hello!!! We are pouring liquor through a funnel into a freaking THIMBLE. TWICE. And of course, a pox on us if we spill a DROP. Throw the count of, ya know? Then we'd be blamed for drinking the liquor while we inventoried! OMG! I had enough after my third time doing the job. I walked out half way through.

I love the pee pants story!
 

Abbey

Spork Queen
OMG. I totally forgot about those rubber pants you'd put over a diaper. Did that, too. No Pull Ups for them. Wet yourself in your undies within a plastic diaper on top...you'd prefer to use the potty real quick.

Seriously, if you are ever bored with time on your hands, you should stroll down the aisles of what is out there in the baby area. Probably one of the most funny is some cream that is literally called...B.U.T.T. Stuff (without the periods). We used to call it Desitin, but I guess the marketing genious for this company couldn't come up with something better.:tongue:

I never bought baby food other than the rice or oatmeal cereal. I had an old fashioned grinder. Whatever we ate...I'd grind up and that is what the baby ate on a cheap Goodwill spoon. I can't imagine spending $1.79 on a tiny jar of mushed up mac and cheese.

I guess I'm getting old.

Abbey
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Lisa, I think that's one reason why my daughter was trained so very young - ridiculously early. She stayed with a baby sitter who also cared for two other little girls, both about six months older than Allison. They were in the middle of potty training and Allison wanted to do what they were doing. So just to humor her, the sitter put her on the potty too and she used it! And it was all down hill from there! It wasn't long before she was in training pants all day long and just a diaper at night, and before long she didn't need that either. :D

PS - Of course, after they're trained, then comes the stage where they can't go past a public restroom without having to try it out! Remember that?
 
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