There must be something wrong with me lately, as I have actually been working hard. I really got a lot accomplished today. I'm thinking that it may have something to do with the fact that I recently saw my doctor and got a refill on my happy pills. Holy shit, life would be so much easier if everyone were medicated all the time.
The real reason though, is that my annual full-store inventory is tomorrow. I am most decidedly not looking forward to it. I like doing inventory on my own. The narrowing of one's focus into counting and following numerical order is strangely calming, and sometimes can be almost zen-like. Sometimes I take the phone off the hook and inventory a product line when I'm stressed out. It seems like busywork, but I really do enjoy it sometimes. When the numbers and letters all line up, there's a certain sense of beauty to it all.
This is very different, though. This one counts (no pun intended), so it almost feels like I'm preparing for a final exam. I'm just not sure what it counts for, since my final numbers were a bit off last year, and I have yet to feel the wrath of any of the implied repercussions. My boss takes these annual inventories very seriously. He makes is seem as if the process is a life or death matter. I can only imagine that there's some sort of bragging rights that occur farther up the corporate ladder that I am not privy to.
All the managers are required to attend and help out at inventories for all the other stores in our group. Since we are salary, it's really more like forced volunteering than "helping out". I think that the general idea is to shame us into working towards a good result so that we aren't embarrassed in front of our fellow store managers. I think that's supposed to be my motivation. I think I'm supposed to be embarrassed if I don't do well. However, we as managers have developed this unspoken brotherhood where we don't allow our bosses to browbeat us with their corporate bullshit. We know what matters, and we stick together. We all do our jobs exceptionally well, so to hell with what the bean counters think. There is a whole forest out there, even if some people can only see the trees.
Tomorrow I'm going to be a good little manager and play the game like I'm expected to do. I'll play the corporate game and act like it's the end of the world when my final numbers don't quite add up. I'll take my lectures and scoldings, because when it's all said and done, I'll probably still have a job on Monday.
I'm going to be wrong no matter how it turns out, that's just the way it works for us corporate slaves. We make their world spin, but we also take the blame for everything that goes wrong, no matter how trivial. The trick is to just accept that sometimes you have to take your lumps, for better or for worse. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, but I've been through it before. As one of my drivers likes to say, "you win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you dress for every occasion". I'm on the spot tomorrow, so wish me luck. Failing that, I have my happy pills.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
juggling
I have entirely too much shit to do lately.
The thing that I like the least about the auto parts supply business is that it never ends. As long as people are driving cars, those cars will wear down and eventually need to have some pieces of them replaced. This should seem like a good thing, since it means job security for me, but some days (of which today happened to be one) it seems like a bottomless pit. That combined with the fact that cars are constantly being re-designed means that we are perpetually updating inventory.
I don't mind all the inventory duties. In fact, I actually kind of like it. I think it really appeals to my puzzle solving nature. The problem with it is that I simply can't focus on it to the point where I can really accomplish anything. I start checking in parts and the phone rings, or a big online order comes in, or a retail customer with an agenda and a shopping list needs help finding obscure parts for an '83 Ford one-ton dump truck that has suffered through three decades of half-assed mechanics, mismatched parts, and an owner who doesn't know an oil filter from a hole in the ground.
Some days I feel like one of those plate spinners you see at the circus, or bad late night TV shows. Just when I get everything spinning smoothly, something starts to wobble. While I'm fixing the wobble, the plate at the other end slows down. I spend all day running back and forth and sometimes I just barely manage to keep it all spinning.
This is my job, minus the applause of course.
Actually, it's more like plate spinning combined with juggling combined with babysitting, but I couldn't find a video on YouTube for that. I'm not even kidding about the babysitting. That's a big part of what I do. Somehow I am the mature, responsible one out of all the people that work at my store, even though I am the youngest.
Some of my guys are literally twice my age and I am somehow in charge of them. It's a very strange feeling to be giving instructions to someone who is old enough to be your parent. I almost feel like I'm being disrespectful. When we got our first snowstorm a few months back, one of my drivers who shall remain nameless wasn't taking the road conditions into account and wrecked his van. I subsequently gathered everyone together and had a team meeting (corporate speak for "I yelled at everyone"). Almost all of my drivers have been driving since before I was born, yet they sat there and listened to me speechify on vehicular safety in winter. At one point, I almost broke into laughter as I remembered myself as a sixteen year old, taking my dad's old Cadillac into an empty, snow filled parking lot and spinning donuts until the gas tank was almost empty.
I had a conference call today during which I had to account for a slight drop in sales for this month compared to last. I was somewhat caught off my guard when it was my turn to talk, but I managed (on the spur of the moment) to sufficiently talk my boss and my boss's boss right out of their shoes. I don't even remember what I said. I just started rambling about sales, returns, customers, percentages, and random numbers until they were impressed enough to tell me to keep up the good work.
Sometimes I think about that shy, quiet kid I used to be back in high school. The one who always sat in the back of every class with his head down, waiting for each class...day...semester to be over. Sometimes I wonder how in the hell that kid ever got to the point where he's overseeing six people and thousands of dollars worth of transactions every day. Somewhere between then and now, and despite my best efforts to the contrary, I think I may have grown up.
Then I remember that I've been at it for nearly ten years, and I can't help but think of those plate spinners and how many hours...days...years of practice they have put into a three minute routine. I get the feeling that they don't really know how they got there, either. Shit, who wants to grow up and spin plates for a living?
I think the best part about growing up is that nobody knows what's around the next corner. We just find something that we're sort of good at, and give it hell until someone pays us for it. I never knew what I wanted to be when I "grew up", but I knew it would involve cars in some form. Now here I am supplying replacement parts for a large percentage of auto repair shops in the area. With the importance of the automobile in today's world, that feels like a pretty big responsibility. It's terrifying to the kid I used to be, and a delicious challenge to the adult I have reluctantly become.
It might not be the most glamorous job ever, but I take pride in what I do. It's long hours, lots of resistance and many a complication, but I haven't lost a plate yet.
The thing that I like the least about the auto parts supply business is that it never ends. As long as people are driving cars, those cars will wear down and eventually need to have some pieces of them replaced. This should seem like a good thing, since it means job security for me, but some days (of which today happened to be one) it seems like a bottomless pit. That combined with the fact that cars are constantly being re-designed means that we are perpetually updating inventory.
I don't mind all the inventory duties. In fact, I actually kind of like it. I think it really appeals to my puzzle solving nature. The problem with it is that I simply can't focus on it to the point where I can really accomplish anything. I start checking in parts and the phone rings, or a big online order comes in, or a retail customer with an agenda and a shopping list needs help finding obscure parts for an '83 Ford one-ton dump truck that has suffered through three decades of half-assed mechanics, mismatched parts, and an owner who doesn't know an oil filter from a hole in the ground.
Some days I feel like one of those plate spinners you see at the circus, or bad late night TV shows. Just when I get everything spinning smoothly, something starts to wobble. While I'm fixing the wobble, the plate at the other end slows down. I spend all day running back and forth and sometimes I just barely manage to keep it all spinning.
This is my job, minus the applause of course.
Actually, it's more like plate spinning combined with juggling combined with babysitting, but I couldn't find a video on YouTube for that. I'm not even kidding about the babysitting. That's a big part of what I do. Somehow I am the mature, responsible one out of all the people that work at my store, even though I am the youngest.
Some of my guys are literally twice my age and I am somehow in charge of them. It's a very strange feeling to be giving instructions to someone who is old enough to be your parent. I almost feel like I'm being disrespectful. When we got our first snowstorm a few months back, one of my drivers who shall remain nameless wasn't taking the road conditions into account and wrecked his van. I subsequently gathered everyone together and had a team meeting (corporate speak for "I yelled at everyone"). Almost all of my drivers have been driving since before I was born, yet they sat there and listened to me speechify on vehicular safety in winter. At one point, I almost broke into laughter as I remembered myself as a sixteen year old, taking my dad's old Cadillac into an empty, snow filled parking lot and spinning donuts until the gas tank was almost empty.
I had a conference call today during which I had to account for a slight drop in sales for this month compared to last. I was somewhat caught off my guard when it was my turn to talk, but I managed (on the spur of the moment) to sufficiently talk my boss and my boss's boss right out of their shoes. I don't even remember what I said. I just started rambling about sales, returns, customers, percentages, and random numbers until they were impressed enough to tell me to keep up the good work.
Sometimes I think about that shy, quiet kid I used to be back in high school. The one who always sat in the back of every class with his head down, waiting for each class...day...semester to be over. Sometimes I wonder how in the hell that kid ever got to the point where he's overseeing six people and thousands of dollars worth of transactions every day. Somewhere between then and now, and despite my best efforts to the contrary, I think I may have grown up.
Then I remember that I've been at it for nearly ten years, and I can't help but think of those plate spinners and how many hours...days...years of practice they have put into a three minute routine. I get the feeling that they don't really know how they got there, either. Shit, who wants to grow up and spin plates for a living?
I think the best part about growing up is that nobody knows what's around the next corner. We just find something that we're sort of good at, and give it hell until someone pays us for it. I never knew what I wanted to be when I "grew up", but I knew it would involve cars in some form. Now here I am supplying replacement parts for a large percentage of auto repair shops in the area. With the importance of the automobile in today's world, that feels like a pretty big responsibility. It's terrifying to the kid I used to be, and a delicious challenge to the adult I have reluctantly become.
It might not be the most glamorous job ever, but I take pride in what I do. It's long hours, lots of resistance and many a complication, but I haven't lost a plate yet.
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