Monday, February 05, 2007

the "I" in team

The new position at the works is doing well. Going on a good start anyways. Now for some [re: all] of you peeps that don't know what I do, I'll explain.

So the place that I work at has this policy that I can't give out certain information about the company in web logs. I know! It's like they saw me coming and quickly wised up to all my internet doings. So I can't tell you guys everything that goes down, but I can give ya'll the basics.

I am part of a team. We are called IPT, which stands for Inventory Process Team. Now, remember this cause it's going to be important later. Basically we, as a collective unit, are in charge of everything that comes in and out of the store product and merchandizing wise.

Here are just a few of our duties:
If a pallet of books is brought in, we sign and process each box/item into the store inventory system. Making sure that we have all the items we ordered and are supposed to get at that specific time. Then we start sorting through the materials. Having a system of carts for each area of reference makes things a whole lot easier. While sorting, we have to keep track of which items need security devices such as with CDs or higher priced books. Then we finally take each cart and shelve the items into their respective sections.

Say some customer special-orders some obsure title. We have to research that title for stock approval. If not, we have to call the publisher and see if we can't get a request to send a copy to us.

Our company does do mail outs to residential, commerical and correctional facilities. We mail items or special request the items to be mailed.

Inventory mantainence. Ever wonder how we don't have books from the 70s crammed everywhere? Yeah, we RPL (return to publisher) ancient items.

We also have keys to places normal employees do not have. Shiny, shiny keys... that jingle.

We normally keep the same full time hours. No competing for hours. All the team works together. All other positions can function independantly...

This brings me to my point...

Who's on the team? How many people are on the team currently? How many people are left after the mass excidus over the last few weeks?

Umm, lemme see. There's me and then there's...

Only me!!!

Just call me IPF (Inventory Processor Frank). Yeah, I'm trying not to freak out. It's not so bad now, but I would hate to see it when things start to pick up like they do. Right now, I have to rely on other people (in other positions) to pick up the slack. I mean, it's not their job, they just have to do it. It is kinda fun bossing people around though. My favorite thing to do is to leave a whole library cart of Manga (crappy asian fiction that we get thousand of titles every week, but we have no room in section for them) in the elevator and tell the Upstairs Seller that I have a gift for them to shelve coming up. They will hate me eventually, but it's not my fault.

So anyways, yeah. That's what I do. Sometimes I feel like I work at FedEx or something. UGH. I keep telling myself AT LEAST I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE MUCH ANYMORE.

Labels: crisis, work

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