“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 68

One cool aspect about his taking the AP position, is that it makes him realize how beneficial it can be to bounce people around in various roles. Not just for a person’s own experience, but how if someone has performed two specific functions with a company, they might be able to make certain connections that nobody else has up to this point. From a workflow standpoint, or just generating new ideas, period, either of which might prove highly beneficial to the company.

In this instance, nobody has ever held his data coordinator role before, not truly. Teri was the only one ever performing some of those tasks, though, and she moved on from there to IT. So he’s been the first person to work as data coordinator and also accounts payable, though in the future, if they were smart, they might wish to always make this a natural progression. Reason being that, unless an invoice came in that was only ever coded to one particular department, yet showed up on her desk coded to an entirely different one, Kathy would never have known the difference. She basically had to accept these at face value, which is what made Edgar’s former function, intercepting and correcting them, so vital. Particularly as the larger vendors were typically the ones with were all the more likely to have hundred if not thousands of items on them, all jumbled together. Something like a Universal Foods would of course dole out a few different account numbers for ordering, yet you were still frequently left with bulk squeezing theirs onto grocery or produce onto deli or countless other variations thereof.

Now that he has this background, though, not to mention the ability still to remotely connect into the Orchestra database, he can hold onto this sliver of his former job. If not already knowing on sight which items were incorrectly coded, he can pop into there and double-check. And, having apparently recognized that there is no way on earth that Pierre is going to trifle with this, nor that he would have the time to do so, at his plodding pace, even if he did, this is exactly what happens. They don’t even bother with this step of the process now, allowing Pierre to make copies, as the invoices instead come straight to Edgar.

This is but one function which has already changed, at or very near the outset of Pierre’s reign as data coordinator. Not even a week goes by before he throws his hands up and squawks that he can’t possibly keep up with entering deli recipes in to the ScaleMaster program, not on top of everything else. Partially this is because he has trouble grasping the copy-and-paste scheme Edgar has shown him, whereby things like ranch dressing and bread and barbecue sauce and so on have been added as their own separate PLUs on that archaic program, which is the only method he ever found to avoid typing them up over and over again. At any rate, Valerie has been handed the keys for this, and seems to enjoy this uncomplicated but time consuming and often quite tedious task. After Edgar gives her a not even half hour tutorial over the phone, VNC’d into that merchandisers’ office computer, she is off and running with very few problems.

A degree or two removed from the action now, word often only trickles down to him slowly, however. One of these, a tremendous positive, is the hiring of an actual graphic designer, this Asian fellow named Park. Slotted into the lone empty desk at Southside’s merchandisers’ office, Park is able to bring his creative skills to bear in creating more consistent signage, instead of countless random employees at each store whipping up their own on the fly. Also, they appear to have finally grasped what Edgar’s been harping on for years, that you have to put the ending dates on these sale signs. If it means someone decides to extend the sale and you have to create new ones, so be it. Park is able to email identical signs to everyone involved, which is a tremendous time saver as well — although as he is not connected into their Orchestra database in any fashion, he is relying on people to bring him accurate information. One issue he and Pierre both run into, as Edgar also had, is that there is on average probably one item per monthly flyer which is shown at a “sale” price higher than the original retail. Also, that certain employees, almost always the same notorious handful, will not extend much beyond a cursory glance at the flyer, fail to order in certain new products from said flyer, but then slap the sale sign on something similar that they do have. Will commonly play dumb and advance the patented argument to start with, that the sale price “isn’t working,” hereby creating additional frustrations and wasted time. And the merchandisers and/or managers, instead of reprimanding these repeat offenders, will just tell Pierre and Park to put those items on sale as well.

Not even a month after Corey’s wagon circling standoff at the Bellwether Pass, Duane has taken a look at the numbers and concluded that they need to raise the bulk margin substantially. Nobody asks Edgar — and why would they, as this is no longer his job? — but one factor surely playing into this is all the five to ten percents that are coming back on the Bellwether stuff. Duane tells Pierre to jack that department up from a 45% to 48%, across the board. One hilarious if predictable offshoot of this is that, having already completely ignored and obliterated the Excel master sheet that Edgar was maintaining, with its cross-references and notes, Pierre ends up inputting a mountain of non-organic prices from Bellwether which are higher than the organic retails now. Which they have to stumble upon and spend months backtracking to correct.

As far as continuing to train Pierre, the daily if not hourly phone calls and emails continue, if ever so slightly slackening across the weeks. Spiking again around expected major events, like updating the five major vendors, which Edgar’s been dreading even though it’s no longer on him. After Pierre complains for weeks that the highly detailed three ring binder was too confusing, Edgar spends his free time chopping it down to a condensed version. Pierre’s slant on this is that he doesn’t care why he’s supposed to be doing something, he doesn’t need to know the reasons it makes sense, or the ramifications if he doesn’t. He just wants lists of the steps. Which were already all right there, too, and he feels like telling the guy he should take a fifteen minute tutorial on editing in Word, but whatever. At least no one can say he didn’t try every trick in the book to get Pierre up to speed.

The real kicker here is that’s all a stall tactic anyway. Because one of the more frustrating aspects of working with Pierre is that he will call up, insisting that Edgar hasn’t told him how to do such-and-such. Edgar’s fairly certain he has, and if not it’s in the freaking binder anyway, but okay, he’s game enough to play along again. The only request he has, which is more of a helpful suggestion, is that Pierre write this stuff down, as they are going through it here, so he has a reference for the future.

“Oh yeah, mmm hmm, I got it, yeah,” Pierre will say. But Edgar can tell he isn’t jotting down a single word of this, and so the cycle repeats. Actually this is close to or verbatim to many of his responses when they were training side-by-side in the same room, and Edgar was thinking, he’s tuning me out, because he’s already decided he’s not going to do this.

Searching for discontinued items and switching vendors accordingly isn’t happening now, either, unless somebody happens to just stumble upon something and point it out to Pierre. The days of breaking apart the major updates by department are also history, it would seem. The first time through, Pierre emails him asking for advice, and Edgar explains that he should break these out, one department per day, and run this first thing in the morning if possible. He also copies Duane and Corey on this email. Instead of doing so, however, Pierre uploads the entire Universal Foods file all at once, which clocks in at nearly 50,000 items now, and does so mid-afternoon. Coincidentally or otherwise, the main Orchestra server soon crashes. Not to mention that the shelf tags batch generated — which is larger than usual considering that Pierre didn’t bother trifling with the markup formulas, instead just went with the vendor’s own SRP on everything — is an unholy jumbled up mess of every department jammed together. And wrong, anyway, thanks to his decision not to apply the correct margins.

Naturally he is able to spin this into being not his fault, to claim that Edgar hasn’t shown him how to do anything. Assorted ears on the ground have related this not so surprising tidbit to him. He could infer as much anyway from just knowing Pierre, how he operates, but also that Corey and even Duane to some extent seem pissed off about this situation. Whatever the case, all he knows that one afternoon he’s toiling away in his cubicle, and from the next row over, can hear the unmistakable sequence of Teri’s phone ringing, as she then answers…and begins coaching Pierre on how to upload an update file into Orchestra.

So this becomes the next inevitable cycle. Pierre has now moved on, possibly at Corey’s or even Duane’s suggestion, into dialing Teri’s number for questions on how to execute even the most simple tasks. Which is fine, whatever, if it means he will finally get a handle on that role. But Edgar is certain that this is just more stall tactic nonsense, added ammunition for this calculated ploy to continue grousing, “he is just not teaching me anything!” Will continue emailing Edgar and occasionally even calling, of course, without ever mentioning that he’s also pestering Teri constantly now.

But he doesn’t have time to worry about these petty politics. His job is not difficult, from a knowledge standpoint, though it requires an attention to detail, speed, and a predictable if routine set of tasks that require completion every week. The store’s invoices arrive somewhere between mid-afternoon Tuesday and late afternoon Wednesday. These he begins entering right away, firing off emails if he spots anything coded incorrectly — or other oddball developments, like noticing that the Wholesome Beverages vendor was charging them tax, and had been for months. Of course, once he points this out to the stores, all the ever ungrateful Corey wants to know is how did Edgar not notice this sooner. To which he feels like replying, how did nobody else at any of the stores not notice this sooner, before it ever reached this desk? If you must speak at all, how about a little thanks that I did in fact spot this incorrect charge?

All of the invoices have been entered by Friday at the very latest, leaving him at least a handful of hours to get caught up on anything else that might be simmering on the back burner. Emailing people, mainly, be it for lost invoices, or else responding to the vendors who are looking for such. And it’s funny to observe, as if he couldn’t have guessed from his previous role, that a person either seems to be highly organized, or highly disorganized, with nothing in between. The likes of Craig, Karen, and Dale are seriously never missing a single invoice, whereas Pat’s total dwarfs everyone’s else’s combined.

The most comical aspect of dealing with Pat is that he wishes to argue constantly about virtually every point presented to him. Not just that he is missing invoices and credits, but also other random mindbending discussions, like his occasional argument, whenever Edgar sends his obligatory emails about a few things that were coded incorrectly, of no, I corrected that before I sent it to you. It’s like, well, how did I know it was wrong to start with, then, and not only that but the specific things that were wrong, which you’re claiming you allegedly changed before sending? Am I just an astronomically lucky guesser, you suppose? But at least this makes some sort of warped sense, if you’re talking about attempting to refute point A with point B. Sometimes the exchanges run more along these lines, however, which to attempt deciphering would make Edgar’s head hurt, and so he doesn’t even bother:

Pat: I have a couple discrepancies to point out to you in case you want to seek credit for them. On 1/21 Palmyra was charged $18.63 per case of organic guacamole (item #57839) from Atlantic Foods, while on the same date Southside only paid $14.91. It looks like in the future you have negotiated a cost of $13.78 on this item, but even so, maybe you can hit them up for an adjustment. Also, on 1/20, Liberty paid $5.04lb for both the breast tenders and the boneless skinless breast from Atlantic. The cost on these is supposed to be $4.69lb, so I thought I would point this out to you.

Okay, that’s it for now sir. Naturally I have the invoices if you need copies of them. Thanks.

To which he replies, though quite helpfully (or so it was intended) copying Corey on this exchange as well:

and thats why were getting rid of innland sick of holding there hand

This is the extent of his response. Punctuation and spelling hilarities aside, there are numerous different angles from which to attack these thirteen words. Seemingly one simple sentence, but containing multitudes! For starters, Edgar does mention on a pair of separate occasions here that the vendor in question is Atlantic, not “Innland.” Which, okay, a minor brain fart, that’s not necessarily a big deal. However, concerning the actual pressing points here, these being a credit of some sorts — which are often more beneficial beyond the pure dollar amounts involved, in that if nothing else it also clues a vendor into the fact that you’re paying attention — he suspects Pat won’t even bother following up on them (and he does not). Furthermore, whether this bit about “getting rid of innland” was in fact already in the works, or a bit of Corey-esque improvisation, is hard to say for certain (although Edgar does get a kick out of another implied point, that Pat is suggesting these people are a joke, not him), but Edgar suspects it is never going to happen, either way. And it does not, as they will continue using Inland and Atlantic and every other supplier they’ve been known to order from.

Though he’s already had a somewhat extensive history with Teri and Rob, and at least something of a history with many of the others, occasional cameo walk-ins from the Healthy Shopper cast remain a random, mostly unexpected treat. Duane rolls through and stops at his cubicle about once a week, chats for a couple minutes before moving on. Corey, far less frequently, does stick his head in every once in a while, asks how it’s going, nods his head a few times and that’s about the extent of it. Dale, during his first visit to the place since Edgar made the switch, stopped by to cuss under his breath, shake his head and offer his appraisal of the freak scene back there at the stores, in particular the Pierre experience.

“I’ll say one thing for the guy, though, he’s at least sitting at that desk all day now. I have to admit I didn’t even believe that was possible. But I think that’s only because he basically has no choice,” Dale says.

Edgar does miss his cozy old office, with that one coffee splash high along the nearest wall, which he still insists was a frame job — that had to be either Valerie, acting alone, or either snickering back at Dale, possibly Craig. For some reason he can totally see this scenario, she and one of those two guys looking for him, during an occasion he was out of the office, her dipping a hand into his nearest cold, half full mug, and splashing it along that wall. Because it was so high up there, he just can’t fathom any legitimate set of circumstances where that would have happened, even for someone as slob-tastic as him.

He will miss that surprisingly comfy blue cloth chair, which wasn’t his, but is rather notorious for this large brown stain in the middle of the seat. Commonly referred to as the doodie chair, it has this inexplicable tendency to show up in curious places, all over the second floor over there at Southside, though its technical resting place was at the Orchestra computer. He will miss Pablo in produce and his relentless cheer, shouting out hellos halfway across the store as he hustles through building the latest impressive display. He will miss Willie’s unpredictable, often riotous antics, like the day he somehow crashed into the row of departmental mailboxes in the merchandisers’ office, knocking half of their supporting screws out of the wall.

“Oh, snap,” is all Willie had to say, glancing back at them, as he just kept moving on.

Edgar’s current digs are far more subdued, though this isn’t without its perks. And anyway the background swell of ringing phones, cubicle-to-cubicle conversation, clacking keyboards, clicking mouses, footsteps on carpet and salesmen pitching their wares to unheard parties on the other end, this is a symphony all to its own. Even though Edgar doesn’t have much in common with the remainder of this accounting wing — he is the only male, and younger than the other six women by anywhere from fifteen to thirty years — they are mostly pleasant, whenever they do interact. Once in a great while, he even accompanies them on their near daily lunch outings, although not a fan of sitting at a desk all afternoon following a large meal, a lethal combination that all the coffee in the world cannot alleviate. The new HR lady, Carla, is affable, approachable, and even kind of hot, though right on her heels she has hired an assistant who is none of these things. He has begun to think of them as Friendly HR and Unfriendly HR. Actually, Unfriendly HR is agreeable enough in person, although even then she always moves her eyes back and forth, scanning Edgar’s, studying him intently, slow to respond as she wears this weird perplexed smirk on her face, brows furrowed, like she would really wish to ask him, are you for real, dude? He isn’t sure if this is a response reserved for him and a few select others, or if she does this with everyone. Whatever the case, though, on almost all matters, they are instructed to email both HR representatives, and whomever actually responds to you seems to be a toss-up. You pray for the one, and kind of dread the other, because Unfriendly’s emails are about as hostile as they come.

Interactions with Mr. Locke remain the highlight. For that matter, just looking at his spread of framed, black and white photographs he has mounted, both inside his office and along the perimeter wall just outside of it. As everyone is to pay 25 cents a cup for ultra convenient Keurig machine located mid-floor up here — not just far closer but way better than the regular old coffee pots down in the ground floor’s gigantic break room — this extends to even the owner himself, who is no stranger to those machines. Here, but also at any juncture where their paths might cross, he is regaling Edgar with tales about the glory days, like how he got his start in this business, more than sixty years ago, driving a peanut truck on a route from Columbus to Lima, Ohio and back, before deciding he knew enough about this business to branch out on his own.

Even though just working two days a week now, they are full days, and Mr. Locke is on the phone quite a bit, actively going through paperwork, you name it. At one point he’s raising mild hell with Edgar about the cost of produce, wondering why every store seems to order from somewhere different. Yet, though quite active, as it turns out Walter and Beatrice Locke are in the process of transferring ownership to their two daughters. This means that Caroline is getting 48% of Bellwether Snacks/Healthy Shopper Market, Janis and Rob 48% also, while the Lockes are holding onto the remaining 4% as a “tie-breaker” in the case of any disputes, as to the future direction of the company.

Whether they are even consulted about the latest major personnel shakeup remains in question, however, although the evidence suggests no. Edgar likes the lady heading up this accounting department, their controller, Carmen, who is friendly and seems to be doing a competent job. She is helpful and good at explaining any questions that ever arise. She has been with the company for twenty-three years herself and seems to be well liked. Nonetheless, as of the time he clocks out at 4pm on a Friday, she is still his boss…not so when he arrives on Monday.

Specifics are never given, though many are alluding to some “questionable” decisions she was making. Apparently the dismissal comes as a tremendous surprise to her, too, however, as Rob and Duane descended upon her office at about 4:30 Friday to deliver the news. They had evidently been mulling this over for about a solid month, before deciding to pull the plug.

Which means they didn’t exactly rush into the decision, and even so, the execution is fairly baffling. This is surely one of the situations which would find Dale closing his eyes and shaking his head, remarking yet again, “I really don’t get this place.” It would seem that, barring some four alarm emergency, if you are thinking about canning someone, you would have some wheels in motion for a replacement. Also that, just perhaps, you might poke around and try to figure out what this job actually entails, so you can ensure these tasks are adequately covered.

And some of this doesn’t exactly require a specialized knowledge to grasp. The handling of this particular personnel change could rank up there as among the most bungled of all-time, the equivalent of attempting to fill snack mix trays while wearing a catcher’s mitt. Mere days have gone by, in fact it’s exactly a week since her firing, when Edgar begins receiving notice from a handful of vendors that their latest checks have bounced.

By the time he arrives on Monday, this has grown into a full-blown chorus. He was among the first to hear about any returned checks, and forwarded that information to the appropriate parties on Friday, but it isn’t until this morning that the entire company, including him, learns the source of this wildfire disaster: Carmen was the one making the bank deposits. Nobody had thought to look into this before she was canned.

On one hand, it does kind of eliminate any kind of monetary impropriety allegations concerning Carmen, which the rumor mill has been whispering about. The bosses obviously have no clue who’s handling the money. In the wake of this finding, in fact, Edgar is stuck driving to the bank himself for a short while. But this is not only a total disaster, it also drags on for way longer that one might suppose.

A full month goes by before things are back to normal. As far as his job is concerned, a handful of vendors halt deliveries until they are caught up on payments that actually clear. This also impacts the kind of things that nobody thinks about, like for example child support. The company issued child support checks are bouncing, which also affects him on a personal level, as the fun times are additionally compounded in that Unfriendly HR is the one fielding this issue, and Edgar hears that she is a real joy to work with in this matter.

Yet far and away the most hilarious development of this entire saga concerns Mr. Locke. As part of the ownership transfer deal, Walter and Beatrice are now receiving a salary instead from the company they have founded. These checks are also rebounding to the ceiling. The first time it happens, Mr. Locke strolls over to Edgar’s desk, his check with the ink stamped NSF designation in hand, and thrusts it forward for examination.

“What the hell do I have to do to get paid around this place!? Step into the bathroom and say Shazam!?” he grouses, at maximum volume.