“Psst…. Store inspection tomorrow.” That was a status response from my friend and co-worker Heather on Myspace from last night. I didn’t give it much thought, since I really haven’t had to deal with inspections working in the middle of the night. This time, however, would be a different case.
When I got to work, I was greeted with a sizable stack of boxes, cases and totes left untouched from the morning shipment from our grocery vender. Mind you, I helped receive that shipment some 15 hours earlier. A good deal of the order was taken care of, but there was still a lot left. I guess day shift got busy and couldn’t finish, and I wouldn’t expect swing shift to have time to do anything. Ok, no big deal. I go into the office to clock in, and there is a new note from the boss to 3rd shift.
Our boss, for that matter our store, likes to leave notes to us on a semi-regular basis giving us tasks to do. This note was basically a carbon copy of the checklists we already work by, but it had a few extras as well. Most notably, finishing the grocery order, scrubbing all the cabinetry inside and out, and that our boss’ boss’ boss would be inspecting the store in the morning. It said that if the store wasn’t perfect, then we would receive disciplinary action. Kinda annoying to be honest. I feel like if I just do my job, and do it right, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. It is rather irritating to have people down your back, worrying about things to the point of making you nervous to. I don’t care about the inspection because I know that if we just work like we should we will be just fine. At any rate, we had what had become a rather long list of tasks to accomplish during the night.
Erick, my partner in crime for the better part of the last three months showed up, and we started to rock and roll. By the time he showed up for his shift, I already had a large chunk of my tasks either done or started. About 1 am, a man showed came into the store and headed toward the bathroom. I said hello and turned my head down. I then realized that it was my boss, in street clothes and he was headed straight for my register. Of course. At the time he choose to count down mine, I hadn’t dropped any money in a while. Opps. I got a write-up for having way too much money in my drawer, mostly due to the 70 bucks in ones I didn’t realize I had.
So we spent the majority of the night working our tails off with the boss there too. Every so often our paths would cross and something would be added to the list of things to do, making for a long night. Our night got even longer when three customers decided that they wanted to smell our selection of fragrances and put a scent cloud in the store. Erick and I both have allergies. The smell burned my eyes a little, but I had taken Clariton before work so I was okay. Erick, other the other hand, was a mess. Blood shot red eyes, trouble breathing, dizziness. He ended up being out of it for about 2 and half hours. That back logged the whole night, and put a rush on us getting our tasks done in time. We pulled it together and by the time I left, I felt like the store was in awesome shape. I think the inspection will go just fine, at least on our end.
Wow, what a night. They aren’t usually that busy. We got a lot done, and did a good job at what we did, distractions and all. I felt good about what we had accomplished. Life is Good.
