“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 97

The meeting to hash out their loyalty card program kicks off at 10am on a Wednesday. Gathered around the conference table at Central HQ are all three store managers, assistant managers, anyone else who is considered to be a “key” front end figure — such as Shelly up in Palmyra, or this middle aged woman, Jessie, who was recently moved up front from Central’s grocery department — along with Todd, Edgar, Valerie, and for some reason Tosha, their new-hire onboarding person. She remains as sunny and upbeat as ever, and may have volunteered to attend in the spirit of staying engaged and informed…although Edgar half suspects that Todd earmarked her as “important,” without necessarily learning her role yet, either, and extended the invite himself.

Edgar has experienced a great deal of this bizarre behavior first hand. Well, on any rational level it should be thought of as bizarre, but the truth is, in his experience this has not been all that uncommon in the business world: Todd has thus far asked him approximately zero questions about anything, either. He has issued some directives, sure, for Edgar to figure various things out, though these have ranged from everything directly in his wheelhouse (data, inventory, reporting, pricing related concerns) to those safely outside of it (anything equipment related in the office whatsoever). In the early going he was even telling Edgar to investigate the train-related internet outages, until finally apparently discovering who Felix and Jack were.

This meeting, though, this is a little more like it. Todd told him to put together various proposals on how to pull of this loyalty card business, and he has. As far as Edgar can determine, there are only really 3 feasible options for how they might roll this out — which isn’t to say he likes all of them:

1. They have a dedicated person or persons at each store who will enter the information on site whenever someone wishes to sign up. The shopper would then have a card that could be activated on the spot, even, with relevant discounts (military, senior) instantly functioning, if applicable. This is by far the most popular option at other retail chains, as far as Edgar is aware. One potential drawback is that they don’t have customer service desks at two of the three locations. At Arcadia you could utilize the smoothie bar for such, however. At Central, he supposes you’d have to add this program at one if not all the cash registers, or else bring customers in the manager’s office. Another downside is that you theoretically wouldn’t eliminate the “buddy ring” type hookup discounts, if the same notorious characters were the ones setting up loyalty cards at the stores. However, this would theoretically be traceable, far more so than with their current nonexistent methods for tracking such. On balance, he thinks this is the overwhelmingly best option.
2. The cashiers fill out a short application, while the shoppers are in line. And then hand that customer the correlated discount card. When time permits — preferably at the end of every shift — they scan over the latest sheets to Edgar (or another person, if they perhaps care to designate someone else for handling all of these), so he can enter the information and relevant discounts. One major drawback here is the customer will have to wait until their next visit to use the card, particularly if they have any discounts applied. Another is that with this method, there’s not really any means of proving who wrote what on which sheet, i.e. determining if these discounts are legit or not and holding someone accountable for bogus entries. So you’re right back at square one on that front. Additionally, there’s another whole layer of friction here in passing the information along; take your pick as to which side you believe is more likely to forget something, but Edgar feels like you might as well consider the complaints as having already been lofted airborne, even though this haven’t even begun — the store team is going to claim they sent the sheet and he never entered it, he is going to insist he never received the damn thing. Again, without getting into likelihood percentages as far as who’s at fault, this scenario is definitely going to play out if choosing this option.
3. One slight variation of option #1 exists as well. Or maybe it exists somewhere in between the first two. Anyway, if the store is lacking time and/or personnel for entering the information in real time, they can just set a stack of applications out on some table. Have the customer fill these out, then bring them up to receive a card. Someone on site can enter the information en masse at a later point, preferably by the end of the shift. This one sounds feasible until you think about it a little more, and realize it has many of the same drawbacks as the other two, without any of the benefits. If lost applications were going to be a problem with #2, so too here; you would also have to count on someone writing the card number on the application before handing it over, and verifying discounts. Both are probably going to be a hit-and-miss proposition, heavy on the misses. It’s easy to envision customers checkmarking that they are military or seniors, nobody verifying this, and the person stuck entering this information having no clue, with no way of even proving who accepted the application as is. Assuming these didn’t just pile up with nobody getting around to them.

Those gathered here spend a good hour and a half to two hours debating these various options. Everyone except Todd, really, who remains curiously mute. He’s not even at the head of this elongated oval table — Tosha has claimed that honor — but rather one seat over, disconnected from the action as he pores over something or other on his laptop. Valerie, who Todd has recently tasked with writing down the minutes of every meeting, is also too busy to say a whole lot, as she scribbles furiously away. They’ve not yet sprung for a laptop on her behalf, somehow, meaning she has no choice but to type these up later. As such, she is typically not considered an active participant in proceedings such as this.

As far as those actively participating, the verdict winds up as a lopsided blowout — and not at all in the manner that Edgar had expected. Then again, is he really so surprised? Because the way this thing shakes out, he alone feels that #1 is the soundest option, even though this is also the most popular pretty much everywhere else in the retail universe. Otherwise, despite his most vocal and detailed objections, the verdict is unanimous: the other nine people voting all pick #2. Yet as the metaphorical ballots are counted, metaphorical because these are vocally declared out loud, it only opens up the question as to why everyone else is seeing things this way.

He really doesn’t care about the work involved for himself — if that’s the best route to take, then so be it. For that matter, it hasn’t even been definitively stated that he will be the one entering these applications. It’s just that he isn’t remotely convinced that this is the way to go. While it’s important to remain positive and expect the best, he already has a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.

Maybe because on the flipside, it’s inevitable that he will begin examining everyone else’s motivations. There are some people here at this meeting he respects a great deal, but others, not so much. You don’t want to read too much into their reasoning, without knowing for certain, but it certainly seems as though there are some, such as Isabel, god bless her, who didn’t even know what she was agreeing to, necessarily, but felt the pressure to ride along with the majority, and therefore she too agreed and said #2 sounded awesome. A few he believes genuinely believe this will work best, and who knows, maybe that’s even a compliment, that they trust Edgar more than anyone else to enter this information correctly. Yet there is definitely a certain faction, represented clearest by Destiny, which is already pissed off enough about the introduction of this concept…and beyond that, really doesn’t care much, except that #1 and #3 clearly represented more work for them personally, therefore there’s no goddamn way they’re voting for those.

Before the meeting is even adjourned, Craig has one recommendation which everyone agrees to utilize. Instead of stacks of applications sitting at the register, why not just sign up sheets? A simple line or two per person, signing up, a couple of check boxes, a place to sign that they’ve consented to being sent emails in conjunction with this program. Which sounds like a great idea, considering that these are much less likely to be lost than endless applications flying every which way. The votes don’t change any, from this 9–1 blowout, but even Edgar agrees that Craig’s proposal is a solid one, and at least makes option #2 incrementally better.

“Well, okay, people, it sounds like we’ve reached a decision,” Todd eventually concludes, shutting his laptop and standing, after they’ve not only ironed out this verdict, but discussed in great detail how the process would flow. As for Todd, though, it’s the first he’s spoken to or even so much as looked at them in an hour. “So take this back to your stores, and…the cards should be here soon, right?” he says, changing gears to shoot a glance at the far end of the table, at Edgar.

“Yeah, they could be here as early as this weekend. But probably more like Monday or Tuesday,” Edgar tells them.

“Okay, so yeah,” Todd nods, “take this back to your stores, and tell your people, you know, this is happening, it’s not a rumor, we’re doing this, the cards are on the way.”

Having said this, he turns on his heels and marches into his office. Which is about as conclusive, symbolically, as he can be, announcing that this meeting is adjourned, all discussion on this topic has ended. And after everyone departs, Valerie types up her notes on everything discussed, emails these to all of the figures who were present at this meeting. Upon receiving a definitive arrival date, Edgar follows up with an update on Friday afternoon, too, explaining to all of the same that these cards will arrive on Monday. And they do.

He had also sent all of them a PDF with the sign up sheet he’s created. Upon receiving the cards, the employees themselves are the test subjects, as Edgar has requested and received a list from Unfriendly HR of every active person. He has loaded the 10% discount to each of their numbers, and everything works just fine on that front, leading to their going live with the general public later that same day.

All of which makes Palmyra’s response…well, the proper term is probably befuddling, though nothing about this operation surprises anyone at this point. It will eventually turn out that a couple of people here are plotting their escape, which, bully for them, though this doesn’t help matters during this particular situation. On the personal ally front, it’s also doing Edgar no favors that his mom and sister-in-law have both long since quit as cashiers up there, too.

Because next thing he knows it’s Wednesday morning and he’s got some obnoxious email in his inbox. For some reason they’ve roped in their back dock receiver, Sharon, who isn’t involved with this in the slightest but perhaps believes that she is, to speak on behalf of the entire store. It’s a message she has composed and sent to him alone, though copying the key Palmyra figures who were presumably among those complaining to begin with.

Edgar: Speaking on behalf of the Palmyra store as a whole, we agree that there are significant issues with this loyalty card program, and that it appears to have been a poor rollout. We were not informed by you or anyone else that this program was being introduced. Additionally, it seems that a different method should have been used, as the cashiers are often too busy to be taking the time to fill out these sheets and then remember to send them. What we can’t understand is why you didn’t just have someone at the store enter this information, possibly at the customer service desk. Another problem is that there is no way to look up customers by name.

Once he gets over this pompous verdict about it having been “a poor rollout,” Edgar actually considers the email itself mighty hilarious, and considerable confirmation that he had been correct in the first place, as the lone holdout voting against this concept. And responds in like fashion, explaining all of this and then some to everyone included on this email chain, though also copying Todd as well.

Sharon: Though I like your idea about having an on-site person for entering the loyalty card information, it’s also pretty hilarious to me — considering that was my proposal at the meeting, and I was outvoted by everyone else. It was unanimous. As far as this having been “a poor rollout,” however, I would have to disagree. I know you weren’t even at the meeting, so maybe you’re not aware of these specifics, but then again I’m not sure why they would have you speaking on their behalf. Everyone present at that meeting was told that these cards were coming and when, and were also sent minutes of the meeting by Valerie, as well as a follow-up email from me telling them exactly when the cards would arrive.

Regarding the ability to look up customers at the register, this is a point that Todd has insisted upon. One major reason these cards have been introduced is that we suspect there was a great deal of fraudulent activity in the past. Todd does not want the cashiers to have this capability of looking up names, because then any name could theoretically be selected at random, and this would have us right back at square one.

Maybe this isn’t a justification, but it’s somewhat obvious why store manager Billy McEntire might not say anything to anyone about these cards. He has already checked out. Mentally, sure, but then physically as well, considering not two weeks have gone by before he’s putting in his notice. He is but the latest to decide he’s had enough of this place, and is leaving to manage a Chesboro location for one of their primary competitors, Lowli.

It’s also possible that the front end brigade is full of it anyway. While Edgar already has serious doubts that Billy and Michael were complaining about these cards to their employees, he’s all the more skeptical that between those two and Shelly, nobody said a single word to anyone in advance, that this program was arriving. Sharon’s email is highly instructive in a manner she hadn’t even necessarily intended, too, in that it’s already been painted that this loyalty card concept was his baby. They can’t seem to comprehend that he is just the guy stuck entering the information into the system. Which he could have probably predicted, if he stopped to think about it.

Taking it upon herself to fire off this email is another Wholesome Shopper Market trademark. Though she’s quick to apologize, with her own customary response, in person, of extending her arms, palms up, while simultaneously shrugging and saying, “I’m just going off what they told me, I-I-I personally wouldn’t have the first clue, you know? I have no idea. How would I know what was said at that meeting?” it still doesn’t solve the riddle of why she’s decided to wedge herself into this conversation to begin with.

This is something he’s been running into constantly for years, and will continue to do so, around here. People assailing him out of the blue with their own latest kooky theories about something…but then when he rebuts such, a palm out shrug and a backpedaling, as they blurt out, “okay, okay — I didn’t know! How would I know?” Which only makes him either think or come right out and say: well then why are you going around telling everyone this, then, if you admit that you don’t know much about this topic?

Regarding this latest situation, however, it sucks that Billy is leaving. Despite Palmyra’s protests, the loyalty card program continues rolling right on ahead in their latest configuration. There are already rumors that the most logical and expected turn of events — a promotion to store manager for Michael, with Shelly becoming his assistant — might not happen. So yeah, they are clearly knee deep now into the Todd Cashner era.