The Neverending Inventory

Day 75

This morning (at the ridiculously early hour of 7 am!!) my mom and I helped out with taking inventory at Jordan and Erin’s Sears store. Last year Mom and I helped out with the inventory at both stores, the “North” store (in Monument) and the “South” store (here in the Springs). This year there is just the “South” store, but there was still much to do!

This is a tag for the division
and a specific item number.

Here’s how it works: every part of the store is divided up into sections; a tag is placed in each section with a number (like 3025, then the next section would have the number 3026 and so on); a member of the inventory team (a 3rd party vendor assigned to tag and record all of the items in the store) takes a little machine with a bar code scanner and proceeds to tag every item in a particular section; eventually, the information in the machine is transmitted to a computer in the store, the information is printed off onto a checklist. And then this is where me and my mom come into the picture.



Both of us, as well as Jordan and Erin, each would take a checklist and go to that designated section of the store and basically cross-check the items and quantities on the list. Any mistakes (missing items, incorrect quantities) would be reported and then corrected on the computer.

Here I am, happy to help take inventory...

Sounds simple, right? Yes, to a point, it is true. When counting big items like fridges, freezers, lawn mowers, it is highly unlikely that the numbers won’t match up. (How can you mistake 2 lawn mowers for just 1?) But then there are the smaller items, like wrenches and bolts, or the multiple items (like vacuum cleaner bags) which can cause some confusion. Or an item number is duplicated and another item number is completely missed.

And here I am, less-than-thrilled to be making countless corrections!

And there were many mistakes made (not by me, Jordan, Erin, or Mom…naturally!!) and we had to catch them and see that they were corrected. At times this would be fun, but other times it is rather tedious. All of the counting, checking, re-counting, re-checking can take a toll on you, especially if you struggle with numbers (like I do!) It really felt like it would never end...

Jordan, the manager on the move!

Anyway, we finished after 10am - thank goodness! I am glad that I had the opportunity to help out at Jordan and Erin’s store. I’m very proud of them! But I am so grateful that there is just the one store now, and that inventory is taken just once a year!!