In the still of the night
Inventory time: no one who has not worked in retail can know the dread packed into those two simple words.
That said, the ordinary consumer can know some confusion. In the weeks between the frenzy of Christmas and the nights allocated for inventory, staff in the store will grow increasingly weary -- only to be expected after the New Year sales -- and noticeably tetchy with special requests. This will be because their stockrooms are being cleared of anything and everything salable, crowding floors with merchandise of strange provenance. ("I'm afraid there's only the one size of that item, ma'am. Why? Because it was returned here after being purchased in Cincinnati.")
As inventory draws nigh, the stockrooms will be crowded in turn with people: they are charged with scanning every bar code in the place, wirelessly entering each item into the store's computer. Behind them trawl yet other people wielding scanners, spot-checking their work -- always a sure way to make folk nervous.
Eventually, whole stock rooms will be sealed, security codes changed on the door locks, and bright pink signs reading "Do NOT place damages here. HOLD all items in the department." The tide backs up onto the sales floor again.
Then it is inventory night -- the first of two consecutive nights at this particular store. ("It used to be worse: we used to do this twice a year. Other stores, it takes them three, maybe four, nights to get through the whole place. Murder, innit?") Tonight, it is all of ready-to-wear (representing almost half the store's floor area), cosemetics, home, luggage, and -- if they can get to it -- lingerie.
I've clocked in at 4pm and will work straight through till past 11, a kind concession to my temp status. I'm assigned to pull down every wall-mounted clothing display and all the fancy hangers showing outfits at the ends of rails: every item must be on a separate hanger unless it is a genuine two-piece set. Working my way steadily around the store (coats, sportswear, sleepwear, juniors, down to petites, designers, jeans, menswear), it takes me almost five hours.
At 8pm, I'm desperate for a tea break and nip out to the coffee shop across the way. A merchandiser in buying coffee exchanges a few words with a girl from the Clinique counter, and predicts he'll be there until dawn. He invites her to join the die-hards for breakfast at Denny's at 5am...
At 8:30, sales staff and merchandisers assigned to inventory start drifting in. The girls from Mac cosmetics are in full make-up, wearing their regulation black (did someone neglect to tell them the store would be closed?); most are in jeans and cosy sweaters. Customers look a little confused at so much buzz in the store. One couple manages to miss the two 'store closing' announcements and continues shopping until security discovers them at a register at 9:20 and escorts them out. The chatter is deafening, especially as the solid metal gates that cover the four ground floor entrances slide closed, and I can't even hear the insidious, pervasive Frank Sinatra that seems to permeate every molecule of auditory space.
Finally, someone in authority calls for quiet! "We can't hear the guns!" she cries, "Keep the noise down!" This paradoxical remark spreads across the store and up the now-silenced escalators: even the upper floor grows hushed. Someone else from Visual turns down the volume on Frankie, just as Bonnie Raitt cuts in. Now the metallic 'cheep' of the bar-code readers, the 'guns,' can be heard from every corner, turning the store into a 40,000-square-foot pond of peepers. My ears ring a little from the quiet; my boss and I speak in whispers, even in the Visuals shop where we can disturb no one but a horde of utterly silent mannequins.
There are no guns for the auditors yet, so we two keep busy by removing dozens of revolving racks of jewellery from the counters and stashing them upon rows of tables in the now cold, dimly lit loading dock. The next day, I'll join a team of merchandisers recording every single necklace, bangle, or earring on hundreds of cards. For now, it'll be just one more thing to confuse the customers tomorrow: scarcely any jewellery remains on the floor for them to play with.
Somewhere before midnight, I'm escorted to the exit by a security guard and released into the warm San Diego night. The door bangs heavily behind me, and I'm relieved I was able to park just steps from the building. Perhaps fifty cars cluster around mine, gathering dew for dawn. The waning moon, hanging low and pale in the dark sky, looks like a streetlight escaped from the rows down the otherwise empty lot. As I unlock the car door, I'm stopped, confused, by the sound of peeping. Someone with a gun, out here? But it's only a genuine cricket, chirping in the barely rustling palms.
I shake my head to clear my ears again, and point the car for home.
That said, the ordinary consumer can know some confusion. In the weeks between the frenzy of Christmas and the nights allocated for inventory, staff in the store will grow increasingly weary -- only to be expected after the New Year sales -- and noticeably tetchy with special requests. This will be because their stockrooms are being cleared of anything and everything salable, crowding floors with merchandise of strange provenance. ("I'm afraid there's only the one size of that item, ma'am. Why? Because it was returned here after being purchased in Cincinnati.")
As inventory draws nigh, the stockrooms will be crowded in turn with people: they are charged with scanning every bar code in the place, wirelessly entering each item into the store's computer. Behind them trawl yet other people wielding scanners, spot-checking their work -- always a sure way to make folk nervous.
Eventually, whole stock rooms will be sealed, security codes changed on the door locks, and bright pink signs reading "Do NOT place damages here. HOLD all items in the department." The tide backs up onto the sales floor again.
Then it is inventory night -- the first of two consecutive nights at this particular store. ("It used to be worse: we used to do this twice a year. Other stores, it takes them three, maybe four, nights to get through the whole place. Murder, innit?") Tonight, it is all of ready-to-wear (representing almost half the store's floor area), cosemetics, home, luggage, and -- if they can get to it -- lingerie.
I've clocked in at 4pm and will work straight through till past 11, a kind concession to my temp status. I'm assigned to pull down every wall-mounted clothing display and all the fancy hangers showing outfits at the ends of rails: every item must be on a separate hanger unless it is a genuine two-piece set. Working my way steadily around the store (coats, sportswear, sleepwear, juniors, down to petites, designers, jeans, menswear), it takes me almost five hours.
At 8pm, I'm desperate for a tea break and nip out to the coffee shop across the way. A merchandiser in buying coffee exchanges a few words with a girl from the Clinique counter, and predicts he'll be there until dawn. He invites her to join the die-hards for breakfast at Denny's at 5am...
At 8:30, sales staff and merchandisers assigned to inventory start drifting in. The girls from Mac cosmetics are in full make-up, wearing their regulation black (did someone neglect to tell them the store would be closed?); most are in jeans and cosy sweaters. Customers look a little confused at so much buzz in the store. One couple manages to miss the two 'store closing' announcements and continues shopping until security discovers them at a register at 9:20 and escorts them out. The chatter is deafening, especially as the solid metal gates that cover the four ground floor entrances slide closed, and I can't even hear the insidious, pervasive Frank Sinatra that seems to permeate every molecule of auditory space.
Finally, someone in authority calls for quiet! "We can't hear the guns!" she cries, "Keep the noise down!" This paradoxical remark spreads across the store and up the now-silenced escalators: even the upper floor grows hushed. Someone else from Visual turns down the volume on Frankie, just as Bonnie Raitt cuts in. Now the metallic 'cheep' of the bar-code readers, the 'guns,' can be heard from every corner, turning the store into a 40,000-square-foot pond of peepers. My ears ring a little from the quiet; my boss and I speak in whispers, even in the Visuals shop where we can disturb no one but a horde of utterly silent mannequins.
There are no guns for the auditors yet, so we two keep busy by removing dozens of revolving racks of jewellery from the counters and stashing them upon rows of tables in the now cold, dimly lit loading dock. The next day, I'll join a team of merchandisers recording every single necklace, bangle, or earring on hundreds of cards. For now, it'll be just one more thing to confuse the customers tomorrow: scarcely any jewellery remains on the floor for them to play with.
Somewhere before midnight, I'm escorted to the exit by a security guard and released into the warm San Diego night. The door bangs heavily behind me, and I'm relieved I was able to park just steps from the building. Perhaps fifty cars cluster around mine, gathering dew for dawn. The waning moon, hanging low and pale in the dark sky, looks like a streetlight escaped from the rows down the otherwise empty lot. As I unlock the car door, I'm stopped, confused, by the sound of peeping. Someone with a gun, out here? But it's only a genuine cricket, chirping in the barely rustling palms.
I shake my head to clear my ears again, and point the car for home.
posted by CatzEyes at 10:04 AM
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