03: the count sheet

Okay. I said I'd do this properly, so here's the format. Date, time, place, what was wrong, how long it stayed wrong. Same as a count. If something's off you write it down, you don't argue with it, you come back and count again. Find the discrepancy, fix it.

I've had four days of no action, which I'm also writing down, because nothing also counts as data.

Then this morning.

Sat 3/21, 7:40am, floor, women's contemporary, fixture 14. Mannequin on the left of the three. Our mannequins don't have nails. They've all got smooth fingers all the way to the tip, that's just how the cheap mannequins are molded. This one had nails. Ten of them, painted coral, the exact shape and size nails are, but painted directly on the plastic where nails would go if there were any. Neat and clean. Professionally, not a smear in sight. Somebody sat down and did this very carefully. Who even had the time?

I know what this is. Somebody on the closing crew got bored with a bottle of polish. It's happened before with a Sharpie and a mustache. I put it in the log anyway, because that's the rule. I made a note to mention it to the closing lead and then promptly forgot, which is normal for me late on a Saturday, and I went and did the rest of my walk.

Sat 3/21, 8:15am, the back, count sheet for fixture 14. We were short one. Sheet said twelve of the navy blouse in medium, rack had eleven. Fine. Counts are short all the time. I counted again, eleven. I wrote eleven, initialed it, went to write the adjustment. I reached out to check the sku on the tag to verify they matched.

When I looked at the rack, there was twelve. Six and six separated by the support bar.

I need to get my head in the game. I suppose it's possible I counted wrong twice in a row. It's possible one was pushed behind another and shifted when I bumped the rack. I'm not saying it appeared. I'm saying I counted eleven twice, wrote it down, looked up, and counted twelve. Time between: maybe ten seconds. I did not leave the aisle.

I crossed out the eleven, wrote twelve and initialed that too, so now there's a count sheet in the back with my handwriting saying two different things ten seconds apart. Which is the truth, I guess.

Sat 3/21, 11:05am, floor, fixture 14. Went back to look at the nails so I could describe them properly for the closing lead. The mannequin doesn't have nails. Smooth to the fingertip. No smudge, no pinkish haze where somebody wiped it off, no smell. Nail polish doesn't just come off plastic that easy, does it?

I stood there, staring, long enough that a customer asked if I worked here.

Then, and I don't really know why I did this but I just HAD to, I checked the other mannequins on the run. Fixture 16, the one on the right. That one has nails. Molded ones, sculpted into the hand, the kind the nicer mannequins have. Not painted, part of the plastic. It shouldn’t have those.

It never had those, I know it never had those. I dressed that mannequin on Tuesday. I would have noticed, I'd have had to work a sleeve over the hand and the sculpted ones catch all the time.

I don't have a good explanation for it and I'm not even going to try and invent one. It goes in the log.

So here's what I have after one week: a new door, a single minute, a set of nails that was painted and then wasn't, a count that was eleven and then wasn't, and a hand that has nails now. Written out like this it sounds like no big deal. This is retail. Everything moves, everybody touches everything, and you spend your whole day reconciling what the sheet says against what's on the rack.

That's why I keep circling back. That's my whole job. The store is supposed to be one way, if it's another way, you fix it or you note it. I'm good at it. I'm good at it because I take a pill at 6:50 am every morning that lets me focus on one thing at a time.

I'm going to keep the log for a month. Every morning, walk the corridor, check the clock, check fixture 14, note anything. If at the end of the month it's all Sharpie mustaches, I'll delete this and go back to being a normal person who only occasionally miscounts blouses.

Kate asked what I was typing so intently. I told her it was inventory. She said "on a Saturday night?" and I said you know me, and she did the thing where she smiles like she's proud of me or something, and went to bed.

Log's started. That's the plan.