it comes in pints?

Year-end Inventory Sucks (Updated)

Okay, as promised, here is the story of my first year-end inventory. It's a long tale, and hidden in the extended entry.

In 1988, I was a reagent manufacturing supervisor for a medical device company. Our fiscal year ran June to June and I had been in the job for barely eight months when the year-end inventory came up. I am not a materials control person by nature or job, but since most materials people are not closely familiar with chemicals and biologicals, my department controlled its own inventory for the most part. Usually, this works out well but the downside, of course, is having to do inventory.

Inventory was, for some ungodly reason, scheduled for May 31, the day after the Memorial Day holiday. I don't know who scheduled it for that day but his soul will burn in Hell. I pushed my crew to finish all the monthly production early and we spent the week before the holiday weekend fixing the inventory. This wasn't a terrible task since the inventory was already pretty accurate, but never having been through it before and not knowing what to expect, I wanted it perfect. It was.

Anyhoo, we left work that Friday knowing life was good.

The family and I took off Saturday morning for the north country to visit family out at the ranch. We were in my Chevy S-10 pickup, club cab, which had jump seats behind the front seats. Daughter Number One was about three at the time, and was in the jump seat behind the passenger seat. Daughter Number Two was still in a car seat, being only about 8 months old, and that car seat had to be in the passenger seat. Sainted Bride was in the jump seat behind me.

About 10 or 12 miles from our destination, on a two-lane country highway, we topped a small hill. Coming in the other direction, uphill at us, were three cars on the other side of the road and a Ford Pinto in our lane attempting to pass them with only marginal success, since it was traveling uphill. I slowed down to give the Pinto time to get back into his own lane.

At this point, I would like to pause for a moment and ask that all of you out in blog-reading land, should you ever happen across a Pinto that is still out there, to run the bastard off the road. Just on general principles.

The little fucker in the Pinto decided to pass just one more car. I had already slowed to under 45 because I had seen him coming, but when he kept coming I moved to the right to keep from hitting him head on. We went across three abreast, the unfortunate victim being passed in the other lane, us clear over on the shoulder with the right tires in a ditch, and maggot-felcher in the middle (i.e., my lane). We missed hitting him head on.

Unfortunately, as stated, the right side tires were in a ditch. When I moved out of the ditch, the back end of the pickup, being mostly unladen and so very light, flipped to the left. I corrected, then corrected again, swerving in and out of the oncoming cars a couple of time but managing to miss them, before rolling off the left side of the highway. By which I mean rolling. Twice. Down a hill.

Fortunately, we actually landed right-side up. The girls were crying, and I will tell you right now that, after rolling a vehicle like that, there is absolutely no sweeter sound in the world than a child crying. All of the windows in the cab were broken out, of course, and I was able to climb out. I got SB and the kids out. A lady came stomping down the hill, even angrier at the little puke in the Pinto than we were (she was the last one he tried to pass). She made sure we were all okay, then ranted at how "the bastard didn't even stop" and so on.

Unfortunately, this was before cell phones were common so the little puke got away. One of the people who stopped had to drive about three miles in the direction we had been traveling to get to a phone to call an ambulance; if anyone had had a cell phone, the motherfucker would NOT have escaped because it was at least 10 miles in the other direction to the first turn.

[UPDATE: This is the truck afterward]

Long story short (too late!), we were all more or less okay, though DNT didn't walk for three months after that (a statement which has gotten me into hot water a few times when delivered correctly - she was eight months old at the time). DNO got some stitches, SB had a broken rib which has led to further problems down the line, I had some glass buried in my scalp and hands but was otherwise unhurt, though not seeing well because one lens of my glasses was broken. The kindly soul who drove to call the ambulance also called my folks out at the ranch, and they met us at the hospital.

Come Monday, Memorial Day, my parents drove us home. We stopped off in San Jose to buy a new vehicle (another long, irritating story I will spare you).

Tuesday I went back to work to face the inventory auditors. I got there before 6:00 a.m as usual. I got all my materials out on the bench, tagged them with the inventory tags given me by the materials control people, and waited for the auditors. And waited for the auditors. And waited for the auditors. I spent the time doing paperwork and digging glass shards out of my hands and scalp. Along about 5:00 p.m., one of the materials people FINALLY informed me that the auditors would not get to my area that day. So I put all the stuff that required refrigeration away, left the rest out with its tags, and headed home.

Next morning, I once again got in about six, and waited for the auditors. We still had production to do and I hated putting off starting it, but the auditors got in about 8:00 so that wasn't too bad. I taught them how to count chemicals ("You don't take it out of the container, that will contaminate it. You compare it to an unopened container and estimate") and once they left, about an hour later, we started in on actual paying work, with much of our inventory still out on the bench.

About 11:00, another party, including a company VP, came in the door to the lab. It seems that some dickhead, probably the same dickhead who scheduled the inventory, may his soul burn in Hell for Eternity, decided it would be a good idea to SCHEDULE A FUCKING SAFETY AUDIT DURING YEAR-END INVENTORY. My department got dinged for two items. First, for having one (count 'em, ONE) box just a teeny tiny tad too close to a fire sprinkler. By law, everything must be at least 18 inches from any sprinkler . My manager's response to the item (swear to Jeebus, word for word) was "The box which was 15 inches from the sprinkler has been moved."

The other demerit I got was for "storing chemicals on the bench". The day after inventory should have been completed. And wasn't. The same day we got a late start on production. Because of the audit.

I had words with the safety committee. They never pulled anything that fucking stupid again.

Oh, and the inventory audit? Nailed it. Turns out I didn't have to sweat it as much as I did, being a rookie. Discrepancies are pretty routine as long as they're not grossly bad or terribly expensive, and I've never worried about inventory since. As Bobby McGee might have said, "Freedom's just another word for who fucking cares?"

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. What's yours?

Posted by Ken S at December 21, 2006 09:07 PM | TrackBack (0) |