The first post

It is shocking to me, given the shaky ground that Yes-girl is on, that she can continue to be so absolutely, positively Clueless in how she is perceived in this office.

I spent my day helping trunkshows and fuming about the email I was going to have to send the MD to get her to Stop assuming that just because I drop everything I have to do on a daily basis to help her and the trunkshow staff (which I consider myself on the Fringe of, thankyouverymuch) as well as anything she or the Mentor ask me to do, that it’s because I have Nothing to do. 

The MD suggested to the person needing the help that she ask Me and Yes-girl to help get these trunks out the next couple of days.  Yes-girl immediately tells staff person that she has her own work to do.  Which, apparently, includes going over emails and looking at pictures, in addition to whatever stupid-ass spreadsheet thing she has to do for Mitzi.

And the Mentor’s son?

I’m not quite sure why HE is never on the list of folks to ask to help, because I’ve been waiting for a month for an update on the closeout spreadsheet that he is supposed to be working on, and today he was also doing the email thing, as well as checking out some Frisbee golf website.

But I’m not bitter.

ahem.

I’ll keep you posted as to how That particular email goes over.

*****

Mr. Boo went through a stage a couple months ago where he would Not watch Disney.  He had to watch ‘The Eds’ as we like to call it on Cartoon Network.  (Which didn’t exactly thrill me, but there can only be One Warner Bros.)  We’ve finally come back around to dealing with The Wiggles and Higglytown Heroes and Little Einsteins.  But instead, he prefers to have me make him breakfast (because, apparently, it doesn’t matter that he eats breakfast at dayschool, too, and he’s training me for when he won’t be eating breakfast at school and my breakfast will be all he gets) and then goes on the poo walk with me.  Which is kind of cute in it’s own way.  (And, I am happy to report, that I can’t even remember the last time the evil rat-mutt poo’d or peed in the house.  It’s been months, hurrah.)

I told you that the Critterbug went through the ‘Mama!’ stage, wherein every two seconds she was asking, “Mama!” this or “Mama!” that.  It’s tempered a bit now, which is kind of sad, as it was Terribly cute.

Mr. Boo, on the other hand, has dispensed with the ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ entirely, and we are now “Mom” and “Dad”.

*sigh*

I don’t like that One Bit.

*****

Let’s see if we can do the Enron situation in a nutshell.  (This is Me, however.  Keep that in mind if you get bored.)

Finally, a couple weeks ago, It-girl got the mandate from the Mentor to do an inventory count on her inventory.  We all knew it was a problem, but Mitzi did some digging and found some monumental issues, so Someone (dependent upon who you ask, of course) managed to take credit for getting the Mentor to look into this.

Somehow again, I got roped into taking these handwritten sheets and making a spreadsheet.  (Because you know I have nothing better to do.)  But I have to admit, I was kind of interested in the whole thing, just to see what kind of a disaster we were dealing with.

Suffice it to say that I ended up with $923K at Cost.  Yes.  Just under a million dollars worth of inventory.  For a business that does just over a million dollars at Retail.  (Which isn’t entirely fair, as there are a couple of other things that she’s now in charge of, but it certainly doesn’t add up to much more than that.)

All of this was shocking and crazy and whatever and my spreadsheet just sat there.

Until last week, when It-girl asked me if I had her sheets and I told her I had them and had them in a spreadsheet and she casually asked where it was and I told her.

And I went back to my desk and was immediately locked out as she was looking at it.

And I stopped to think.

And I went to her desk (as she was in the back) and was going to get her out of it and change it to read-only, but I noticed that she had already made a change.

And I stopped to think.

And I rushed back to my desk and saved a copy in my personal drive.

And felt oddly guilty and I wasn’t quite sure why.

Until, at the end of the day when I was able to get back into my spreadsheet, the total had mysteriously changed to $783K.

And I Flipped.  And went from feeling sick to being PISSED to being at a total loss as to what to do.  (And of course received a different answer from every person that I let in on the little debacle.)

And the next day at another impromptu staff meeting the Mentor asked It-girl about the list and what the total was and she hemmed and hawed and commented that she didn’t really know what the total was, and when pressed for a Approximation, she threw out “about $700”.  And later, folks commented how odd that was, because even to Them it was obvious that she knew Exactly what the number was.  And by the end of that morning, the total on my spreadsheet had mysteriously ended up at $740.

So, in an effort to help out (and to be a control freak) I went to the Mentor and told her I had a ‘proposition’ for her…That since the MD had a couple of trunks she had to build and I knew everyone was busy prepping for Vegas, would she mind if I went through It-girl’s inventory and cleaned out all of the old styles and gave them to the MD to put in her trunks.  And the Mentor thought that was a fine idea and then asked where the spreadsheet was so she could look at it and I told her where the universal copy was and have yet to acknowledge that I have my own Correct copy.

I spent all of Friday pulling items and passing them along to the MD who, upon seeing all of the items, concluded that it had surpassed careless and had moved onto reckless.  I cannot begin to tell you how many different styles had many finished pieces as well as (uncounted) bags of raw castings.  (Which are the gold pieces before stones are set and they are finished and polished.)  And there were items with bags of castings that had been ordered multiple times, which is the same as you going to the store on Saturday and buying a box of spaghetti and then stopping at the store on Sunday, forgetting your list and not checking your cupboard before you left, so you picked up Another box of spaghetti.  Except these items are around $50 and up per piece.

I got barely half-way through the rings before I had to stop (and kind of gave up and went home and drank moderately to help me cope with the situation) and then came the weekend and it’s been a disaster here since then, what with trunk shows having to get out and people being unable to pitch in and help.

I figure tomorrow I’ll get back into it and try to get things finished so that I can then try to figure out how in heaven’s name we’re going to be able to get rid of all of this stuff.

Maybe they’ll come back from Vegas with another major retailer’s trunk show business, which means we’ll need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, but won’t necessarily see any money for it.

That we’ve got.

*****

In the meantime, although I am finally speaking to It-girl again, my whole opinion of both her and Yes-girl have dropped from tolerant to disgusted.

I can’t say that I haven’t done many more morally reprehensible things in my life, but it’s much easier to judge others, isn’t it?

*****

I am on a three-day roll with workouts.

Including weights on the arms!

I think this time I’m serious.

I want a swimsuit to Fit, dammit.

*****

Yesterday (or was it Tuesday?) we came back from the poo walk and I had to ask, “WHO decided that drawing with black ink all over the front door was a good idea?!?!?!?”

Mr. Boo immediately responded, “I didn’t do it!”

And the Critterbug (who was up and joined us in her jammies) immediately chimed in, “I didn’t do it!”

So I responded, as I surveyed the door jamb and the doorbell, “ONE of you is lying and I would have to say that it is apparently Mr. Boo, as he has Signed his NAME on the doorbell.”  /chuckle.

That little boy is in a Serious lying mode.  I just don’t know what to do about it.  But the look on his face when he realized he was busted was royally entertaining.

Of course, the doorbell is one of those ridiculous Radio Shack thingies that should just be taken off the door jamb, as it doesn’t work, anyway.

And since it’s the only thing that the marker wouldn’t come off of…

Darned urchins.

*****

Alright.

This entry has taken me two days to write and is long enough, not to mention that there’s plenty of work to be done, so I shall stop for now.

I may even see if I can post this over at the wordpress spot, too.  Just for fun.

You can find it at the same name over there, if you are so inclined.

We’ll see if I am.

It looks like I am!

ak