Well, in the long, long ago once a store placed their initial orders, they were unchangeable. We were often ordering issue three before issue one had hit the stands. It sucked, and meant you couldn't really get good shelf numbers until 4 months into a book. Madness.
Hey, I have a quick, maybe weird, question--could you please tell us about the time that Diamond started the Final Order Cut Off program, and the owner refused to let you adjust the numbers? I don’t know why it just occurred to me to ask that question, but I bet it would feel nice for you to vent about it.
Paul! I have no idea what would have prompted this in your brain meats, but I'm glad to answer.
I loved working at my old job, but my old job didn't always love me. I was trusted to run the day to day, always to a point. One such point in the middle of my run was ordering. I was the person in store every day moving product, while the owner came in once or twice a week at best. He always insisted on doing the initial orders, even though he didn't really know what he was selling.
During that point in time, Diamond started up their final order cut-off program - something wonderful that would help us get better shelf copies. We could drop books that were dead, and increase books that were catching fire instead of reacting to a first issue's sales with our order for issue four. When I spoke to the owner about the new program, he waved it off (mostly because it meant more WEEKLY engagement from him) and told me he wouldn't do it. When I asked if I could, he told me no. He wanted to live and die by the numbers he put in.
As an owner now, I understand where he was coming from. When it is your money, you end up feeling more comfortable when you're in control. That said, he was SELF ADMITTEDLY checked out of the medium. So I thought he was being stupid.
I ended up changing some numbers on the sly, after talking with a co-worker. I was very careful with this, mostly just mitigating bleed points and increasing an order by 1 or 2 if a book was selling out. Small things that hopefully wouldn't be noticed.
Well. I found out YEARS later that I almost got fired for doing this. The owner eventually figured out that I had been changing some numbers, and yelled about it to the aforementioned co-worker. The co-worker ended up defending me. "He's saving you money. He's making you money." Something to that effect. It saved me. Because as I would learn over time, the owner never appreciated a defence of your actions from the source - but would only listen to someone else's take. I would use this to protect staff at points as needed, and I am very, very happy the same happened towards me.
Wild! Having worked in both corporate and independent bookstores, I can tell you that having some amount of control over the stock you sell makes a tremendous difference in how you approach the job--I felt so much ownership when I could order books on my own that it improved my productivity, our sales, and my morale.
What! Diamond wouldn’t let you change the numbers? But why sir? Why?
Well, in the long, long ago once a store placed their initial orders, they were unchangeable. We were often ordering issue three before issue one had hit the stands. It sucked, and meant you couldn't really get good shelf numbers until 4 months into a book. Madness.
Hey, I have a quick, maybe weird, question--could you please tell us about the time that Diamond started the Final Order Cut Off program, and the owner refused to let you adjust the numbers? I don’t know why it just occurred to me to ask that question, but I bet it would feel nice for you to vent about it.
Paul! I have no idea what would have prompted this in your brain meats, but I'm glad to answer.
I loved working at my old job, but my old job didn't always love me. I was trusted to run the day to day, always to a point. One such point in the middle of my run was ordering. I was the person in store every day moving product, while the owner came in once or twice a week at best. He always insisted on doing the initial orders, even though he didn't really know what he was selling.
During that point in time, Diamond started up their final order cut-off program - something wonderful that would help us get better shelf copies. We could drop books that were dead, and increase books that were catching fire instead of reacting to a first issue's sales with our order for issue four. When I spoke to the owner about the new program, he waved it off (mostly because it meant more WEEKLY engagement from him) and told me he wouldn't do it. When I asked if I could, he told me no. He wanted to live and die by the numbers he put in.
As an owner now, I understand where he was coming from. When it is your money, you end up feeling more comfortable when you're in control. That said, he was SELF ADMITTEDLY checked out of the medium. So I thought he was being stupid.
I ended up changing some numbers on the sly, after talking with a co-worker. I was very careful with this, mostly just mitigating bleed points and increasing an order by 1 or 2 if a book was selling out. Small things that hopefully wouldn't be noticed.
Well. I found out YEARS later that I almost got fired for doing this. The owner eventually figured out that I had been changing some numbers, and yelled about it to the aforementioned co-worker. The co-worker ended up defending me. "He's saving you money. He's making you money." Something to that effect. It saved me. Because as I would learn over time, the owner never appreciated a defence of your actions from the source - but would only listen to someone else's take. I would use this to protect staff at points as needed, and I am very, very happy the same happened towards me.
Wild! Having worked in both corporate and independent bookstores, I can tell you that having some amount of control over the stock you sell makes a tremendous difference in how you approach the job--I felt so much ownership when I could order books on my own that it improved my productivity, our sales, and my morale.