Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot

For some reason you simply cannot disabuse most upper managers of the notion that they know the finer points of your job better than you do, despite their having never done it before. This even with the obvious, glaring fact that they plainly don’t understand what you’re talking about most of the time, when you begin speaking about those finer points of your job. A notion also underscored when drilling down into the reason that gossips and other assorted complainers hold such sway over these types — it’s because the bosses have no idea what’s going on. They cling to this informational pipeline as one would a life raft. It’s enough to make most rational people say, or at least wish to say, do you believe that I do my job very well? Okay, then, leave me alone and let me do it as I see fit. Otherwise, let’s cut to the chase and get this over with. Just go ahead and replace me.

This concept also applies to officially sanctioned cronies who have the bosses’ ears. First thing Monday morning, as Edgar arrives in the equipment room and is unpacking his laptop bag, Ashley drifts in to give him a heads up on a breaking development.

“Bobby’s been in here showin his ass this mornin,” she says, “somethin about a couple yogurts have a different price.”

“Well I’m sure that’s just because MRI doesn’t carry those flavors,” Edgar theorizes.

Ashley nods as she agrees, “and that’s what I told him. But yeah, you might wanna go see what he’s goin on about.”

When Edgar tracks Bobby down, the husky, vaguely bug-eyed MRI rep is still patrolling the dairy section. After relating that Ashley had mentioned a pricing discrepancy, Bobby nods and with a perplexed smirk leads Edgar over to the Premium Harvest yogurt section, as he then waves a hand to indicate a two row stretch of their smallest sizes, these fourteen different 5oz containers.

“These are all $1.19, right? Except,” he says, and places an index finger on one shelf tag, “tell me why this one is $1.29, okay? And,” he continues, moving to a second flavor, further down the line, “tell me why this one is $1.29?”

“You guys don’t carry those two flavors. That’s why they still say Universal on the tag.”

“Yeah but they should still be all the same price.”

“Well yeah, I mean, I’m working on line pricing stuff like this,” Edgar shrugs, “but it takes time to identify these things. It’s not gonna happen overnight.”

“Just be sure that it does. Today, preferably,” Bobby tells him, nodding, but in the manner of someone pointedly trying to get you to nod along as well.

Edgar grabs the two shelf tags in question, and begins marching back to the equipment room. In so doing, he wonders if this is going to become the new normal. Not only with three actual bosses and one ceremonial figurehead type boss, Vince, who is about as clueless as they come, insisting that various prices are “wrong” and demanding they be changed to something else on the spot, but also now certain favored product reps as well. He also can’t help but wish he were quick thinking enough to have fired back a scathing, readymade rebuttal which has already occurred to him: you’re absolutely right, Bobby, these should all be the same price — $1.29. That’s what they would be if we were hoping to hit our margin, anyway. I think I will change them to that right now. It’s also reasonable to question why Bobby cares. Edgar could see the point if Universal were undercutting MRI, but those two flavors were higher priced. Regardless, they’ve never danced in the past to the tune of vendors dictating retails, and if they intend to start this policy now, things are going to get mighty annoying and even more chaotic around here.

But these relentless, fast arriving fireworks are nothing if not colorful and explosive. In the early afternoon, Ken calls him for their first chat since he arrived back in St. Louis.

“Hey I was thinking,” Ken says, “Moving forward…”

“Yeah?”

“…that I should take over entering the weekly sales batches. This would free you up to deal with RU Data on all the assorted issues.”

“Oh. Really?,” Edgar replies, his brain scrambling to sort this out. On one hand he’s not exactly surprised by this development, having assumed from the outset that, if he wasn’t at the bare minimum soon answering to this guy for his every move, that Ken would probably end up taking over his job. Just knowing the way that Todd operates, and the general trend around here. But on the other hand, as he mentions now, “that’s actually the complete opposite of what Todd said we should be doing. He said you would be dealing with RU Data, because you know a bunch of people there and would have an inside track.”

“Well, yeah, I know, that’s true, that’s true, but…I don’t know, I just think we should do it this way now. So yeah. I’ll take over entering the sale batches, you can communicate with RU Data on all the outstanding tickets.”

“Um…okay…I guess…?”

As they hang up, part of him wonders if this is secretly coming from Todd now. If despite the extensive email chain passed around, with him copied on everything, if Todd is still convinced like always that it’s a “user error” and not RU Data’s fault that the MRI sales batch file doesn’t want to behave properly. And that he thinks his boy here from St. Lou is magically going to turn the correct combination on that lock. But in the next blink Edgar recognizes that even if asking for clarification on this matter, he wouldn’t be sure it was an accurate answer anyway: even if Ken’s idea entirely, he might say it came from Todd, or vice versa. So there’s no point in wasting his time asking.

At least some of the others are starting to wise up to the fact that their commander in chief is a well disguised lunatic. He feels like even Don Evans might be coming around on this front. By the time Tuesday evening rolls around, Edgar has logged another pair of back-to-back, nearly twelve hour days here, ones which have passed in the bat of an eyelash. During this time, Todd has seemingly-offhandedly-yet-actually-pointedly suggested that Edgar might wish to spend every day at this store, perhaps even move his base of operations up here. This is somewhat of an academic point at present considering that he hasn’t seen his own theoretical actual office in a week and a half now. Come six p.m. on Tuesday, having just texted his wife to announce he’s packing up his laptop bag and will be on his way home in a moment, Don suddenly calls his cell phone. Edgar has not yet left the equipment room, otherwise might have ignored it.

“Hey, I hate to call you this late,” Don says, obviously driving home himself, from the sounds of things, “but have you done anything with the Lorena flyer, by chance?”

“You mean the sales flyer that starts tomorrow? For Lorena and Palmyra? Ken actually called me yesterday and said he’s taking over entering those.”

“Well, no, this is for Lorena only. This is something extra that Todd did on his own, it’s coming out in the paper tomorrow.”

“What!? I never heard anything about that.”

“Well, I hadn’t either, until just now. So I guess you need to have this sent to you?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay. I’ll call Todd back and tell him to send you that. Just hang on a minute.”

Edgar has nothing to do but flop back in his chair and wait. The file doesn’t exactly land in a minute, but more like five, which feels like an eternity and is just enough to make one wonder how much time is reasonable before saying screw this, I’m going home. Also to recognize he’s not even going to bother contacting Ken and explaining all this, will just handle this one himself. Also another text to Elizabeth, telling her he won’t exactly be home in an hour after all.

When a copy of this flyer arrives in his inbox, wordlessly, lacking any explanation or apology from Todd, he begins entering the information into a file for uploading, before it occurs to him that he has to cross-check against the normal weekly MRI file anyway, which Ken should have hopefully already entered into RU Data. And he has. Because it’s technically possible that a higher priority level (“TPR”) sale might be in there at a higher price, which would negate this one. Fortunately, however, none of those scenarios come to pass.

After flying through this and wrapping up at just about seven on the dot, he packs his bags again and sails out the door. It’s another fast food dinner, grabbed from a drive through along the state route leading down to Walnut, and a laughing, incredulous call to Elizabeth to explain what just happened. Yet after he hangs up and continues the rest of this heinous drive alone, he has as chance to ruminate, in silence, on what this situation, the overall direction this company is headed, his dingy little plain white equipment room, all collectively indicates. It reminds him of something, he just can’t remember what. Until he suddenly does.

He’s arrived home and is just pacing back and forth, amped up despite the long day. Elizabeth is sitting on the couch, laughing as she says she’s never seen him this stressed out before. To which he replies that, no, he’s not exactly stressed out, because it’s mostly somewhat comical. It’s just that he can’t quite wrap his mind around this mountain of bizarre occurrences. All of which, despite the endless bluster from certain high ranking individuals, feels quite a bit less advanced than where Wholesome Shopper Market had been not so long ago.

“I’m beginning to suspect…that I’m actually working for…the Michael Scott Paper Company…,” Edgar croaks. They all have their own pop culture reference points, he supposes, and this is the one that leapt into his head during the drive home.

Elizabeth busts forth with some wild laughter of her own and questions, “not Dunder Mifflin?”

“No, it’s been Dunder Mifflin. Dunder Mifflin I’m okay with. I can handle Dunder Mifflin. But yeah…it’s totally turning into the Michael Scott Paper Company instead.”

Edgar arrives back at the equipment room all too soon on Wednesday morning. Has once again just barely unpacked the laptop and some papers, is preparing to sit down, when his cell phone rings. He can see that it’s someone calling from Central, which means this is surely related to the latest edition of the sales flyer. Is totally expecting that this will be Destiny, complaining about something found within — and isn’t entirely wrong. But at least the voice on the other end is a pleasantly unexpected one.

“Willie!” Edgar cheers.

“Yeah…uh…uh…yeah…,” Willie begins, then gathers his thoughts and blurts out in a much higher pitch, “hey I think there might be something wrong with the flyer! The prices, uh, uh, they don’t seem to be…I think there’s something wrong…”

“Okay, actually…I’m not handling the sales flyers now. Ken is.”

“Oh,” a defeated sounding Willie utters, before the next, inevitable thought soon kicks in. “Who’s Ken?”

Though giving Willie a quick, accurate and quite serious explanation, it’s true that Edgar also chuckles at the outset, upon receiving this question. For is this not a ridiculous arrangement that seems all the more so when voiced out loud? Yes, he supposes it is. While it’s true that much of this work can be done from anywhere — a frequent rallying cry of his, over the years — he is nonetheless now answering to some part time consultant in St. Louis, whom half the employees have never met. But Edgar gives Willie Ken’s number, and wishes him the best of luck before sending him on his way.

As far as dealing with the current predicament, though, he’s torn as to whether he should connect into RU Data and/or Hupp, and see what the situation is. Well, in fact, he does this anyway, but draws the line at fixing the predicament himself. Regardless of where this decision came from, as far as Ken handling the weekly sales batch, it’s nonetheless probably a good idea for Ken to connect in and witness the breakage personally. For his own knowledge, yet also as a form of backup, vouching, as if any confirmation were needed, that what Edgar has been saying is true. Well, actually, confirmation apparently is needed, thought it shouldn’t be. Because regardless of the messages sent back and forth and the replies from RU Data itself, Todd and Don, if not Ken as well, are obviously still under the impression that these sales batch misfires are “user error” on Edgar’s part. So yes, it’s best to leave this glitch, whatever it is, suspended in ice, exactly as is for the moment.

Before he even connects into their pair of software programs, Edgar considers that there are only three scenarios in play here. Maybe some combination of them, but only three different ones that might apply, all or in part. It’s possible that Ken doesn’t know what he’s doing, and entered the information wrong. That theory has potential, yet this seems unlikely — as far as Edgar can tell, Ken does in fact know his stuff, and anyway there’s just not a ton involved with uploading these CSV files. Otherwise, it’s either the same old cases of a file getting hung up and kicking out to that folder in between RU Data and Hupp.

As it so happens, considering how late Don was apparently working last night, he probably was not in at the break of dawn on this particular fine Wednesday, tracking Edgar down to vaguely insinuate yet again that the kicked out overnight file was Edgar’s fault somehow. Therefore there’s nothing to glean from this lack of a development. Yet even so, in checking out this scenario, it seems this is not the case, either. Which really leaves just one likely culprit, that the levels on that MRI file were not behaving. In a way, though, despite being the most serious, it’s also the one that makes him happiest at this moment, because it validates further still the troubles that this arrangement is giving them.

He also receives another form of validation, much later in the day. By this point, he and Ken have figured out how to cobble together some workarounds, using a patchwork quilt of methods, most of which involves just taking the problem children and uploading a new file with those earmarked as TPRs. Although this begs the question of why they would even bother with the MRI file to begin with — and yet, Todd won’t hear of it, he insists upon adhering to this thing. It’s been a week since the first time this happened, though, and Glen figured out nothing, then it happened again this morning with Ken uploading the file. Glen has therefore passed the ball to some Aziz character at RU Data, who can hopefully piece together a viable solution. At the conclusion of all this, Ken calls Edgar, which is the first they’ve verbally communicated all day. Here, he doesn’t have anything more to add concerning that predicament, but rather wishes to discuss what’s happening on the back end, i.e. putting together the various files everyone is sending him in the first place.

“That was…hoo! Heh heh…,” Ken says. He never completes this thought, but doesn’t really have to. “So…yeah…ha ha…I’m thinking maybe you should keep doing the sales batches. I’ll deal with RU Data.”

In other words, Ken is tapping out after doing this just once. He has gotten a taste of this internal chaos, and said no thanks. This is coming from a guy who actually does know quite a bit about this job, too. He is seeing first-hand what Edgar is up against with some of these people, with Todd’s specials (arriving typed up in the body of an email every week, yes, despite all the threats about everyone only using Slack), then the files from the merchandisers in the shared drive, which are so riddled with holes from Vince and now Buddy that it’s far more efficient to hunt down and enter the information himself, only using theirs for patching in anything that he might have missed, to then this MRI monster which doesn’t want to behave anyway. And is Todd’s “extra” sales flyer for Lorena going to become a regular thing, too? They are already featuring two different circulars between the four stores.

Or make that three circulars, now, even without the Lorena bonus round. Someone observes this morning that for the past two weeks, the Chesboro edition has featured for the deli nothing but items that Arcadia doesn’t even carry, most of them hot foods. That store has never had a deli and nothing even remotely resembling a hot case. Thus on top of everything else, Todd has barged into the equipment room today and explained that moving forward, it’s one flyer for the Stable 2 Table stores, a different one for Central, and a third edition for Arcadia. But hey, at least this extra Lorena pressing was a one time only deal!

But Edgar is not a complainer, and is definitely not throwing himself a pity party. At this point — if not always — he considers every additional outlandish wrinkle to be a surreal hilarity. Which also applies to people’s reaction to his own responses. This is no less bizarre. It’s kind of like back when they were ironing out how to replace a bunch of bulk bins labels. Two of the four bulk managers, who had both originated this discussion themselves, were nonetheless all but coming right out and declaring, over a series of months, that they were not going to pick up a phone and order replacements; the in-house signage guy, whose email address has the word signage in it, whether right or wrong, justified or not, said he did not have the time to crank those out himself; the bulk merchandiser was not involved in any fashion, either; one of the store managers said nothing, while the other pointedly declined comment until after Edgar eventually volunteered to make these himself, after which she waited until half the department was done before complaining about the color; yet this was all brushed aside as perfectly normal and understandable. However, for him to remark that he found any of the above hilarious, now, this meant that he had crossed the line and was kind of being a dick about the situation. So yeah, it’s more of the same now, particularly if he compares this place out loud to the Michael Scott Paper Company.

Todd’s recent announcements aren’t limited to Edgar working up here for the next little while, either, or having three sales flyers between the four stores. Is it a good thing that their president represents something of a constantly moving rock, permitting no moss to gather? Presumably, so long as this doesn’t become a runaway boulder, obliterating every object in its path. If inclined, jokes about how said boulder is surely moving “downhill” might apply as well. But yes, as far as specifics, Todd Cashner has also come forth and declared that a complete revamping of Palmyra is up next, fast followed by a relocation of their company headquarters, from that quaint office in Central clear out to a warehouse type building in Waxoff.

Given all this, a person could reasonably forget that today does also mark the official grand opening of their biggest store. The mayor of Lorena is even on site, for a ribbon cutting ceremony, and while traffic isn’t quite insane, it’s somewhat robust, certainly much better than they’d seen over any of the previous five days. On a minor down note, however, the mayor unfortunately does not mark their only special guest. In what is obviously not a coincidence, an event that he plainly had circled on his calendar for weeks, the county’s weights and measures guy visits this location, early into the morning of this grand opening. Their scales all check out as being calibrated properly, and he doesn’t find any violations with the ingredients being listed anywhere. In an audit of 50 randomly selected shelf tags and sale signs, however, he finds 4 that are incorrect, which means they have failed.