POS Follies part 4

Right, so where was I? Last Friday I lost a few hours because the firewall router I was trying to install wasn't working with the modem for some arcane reason I can't begin to understand. I had my dad come (over three tries) and get it going (he was a network guy for PacBell before he retired), but that cost me some precious computer time on Friday.

Saturday, Sunday, and much of Monday were lost to me because I kinda forgot it was "that time of the month" -- order form for August, and subscription set up for July, and the general "end of the month blues" of paying bills, etc.

Tuesday, the comics arrived. Can't sell them until Thursday, but we have Tuesday delivery, and since Wed was the holiday, it was either Tue-for-Thur, or Thur-for-Thur, and I chose to have the piles of boxes in the store, thanks.

Wednesday.... well, despite the holiday, I HAD to get back to the database. So I did. All day. "Finished" the comics section of it. And the magazines (though, come on, how much work really needs to be done there?)

Thursday was today, and it was New Comics Day. And I worked it alone, because Sue is off at a wedding. And yet I still mostly managed to deal with the Book part of the database for most of the right hand side of the store.

Friday is tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finish off the right hand side of the store, and maybe (MAYBE) the center too.

I'm piling up a bunch of books to put on clearance, too -- nothing like touching every book in your store to go "and these must go away!". I'm hoping those will be put into the sale boxes by Saturday, but who really knows, might not be until Tuesday.

Saturday will be my normal weekly reorder pass, but if I haven't finished the center-of-the-store, then I'll have to do that as well, being wholly under Rob's feet. He'll like that.

Sunday... well Sunday, I'm hoping I can rest.

Monday, all day at home working with the books inventory of all of the things we DON'T have in stock, and setting up primary and secondary and tertiary distributors for them, as well as reorder points for the stuff I actively want to stock, and so on. Unlike the comics, where there is necessarily a reorder point except "huh, sold out, get more", basically every book needs to have a decision made about it about HOW MANY I want to keep in inventory at all times. That will take me 3 (?) days... so, since Tuesday is Comics-arrive, I'm planning on being done by Thursday early AM (Because, damn it, I have to have time to take Ben to the park!!!!). Then next Friday (a week from tomorrow) will go towards all of the "behind the counter" (T-shirts, toys, whatever is in the case) stuff, which, hopefully, is only 3-4 hours work, max.

Then normal-weekly-reorders on Saturday, rest on Sunday, then start thinking about writing a TILTING around 7/16, to run on 7/20.

There's also something else going on on Monday 7/16, but you'll hear more about that a little later.

On 7/28, Mark Richman, programmer of MOBY, is coming to SF to reimport back our now edited version of the database, and to train us on the system, Unless something goes categorically wrong (and, hey, shit does, in fact, happen), we should be trained on MOBY on Monday 7/30, and POS is "live" as of that point, just before my "Dream Date" of 8/1. So, fuck yes.

That also means that, between (let's say) 7/16 and 7/28, I HAVE to get the database finished, no screwing around. I think that's an easy deadline (unless I biffed something hard I really should be done with a week to spare), but it IS a deadline, and I have to remain aware of it all the way along.

And somewhere in there is the new ONOMATOPOEIA (I'm guessing we'll have the "blackline" of PREVIEWS on the 17th or so, for a we-photocopy-it date of 7/20 and PREVIEWS street date of 7/25, but I never keep PREVIEWS dates straight in my head)

OH, and the deadline to Turn In next month's orders is 7/31, which means that I can't possibly work the order form in the 7/28-7/30 window I would normal do.... because we're being trained in MOBY right then. Gonna have to figure out a way to do it all on Wed 7/26, because there's not a whole lot of other day options available to me right now.

And, the normal end-of-the-month functions (like bill paying!) seem like they're going to become first-of-the-next-month this cycle, whooops.

So, this is what July looks like to me, wheeeeee. But at the end, I'll have POS and a much better control of my inventory, so this "Lost Month" will be all worth it, I think.

Anyway, just letting you know I'm alive, and why I'm leaving Graeme out to fend for himself right now (Sorry, G!) -- and why my wife hates me because she's having to shoulder like 96% of the entertaining-Ben duties (Sorry, Tzipora!) -- but it's just going to be an ugly July.

More as I have time -- now to take a shower, and maybe pretend I'm a human being entertained by some recreational activity for an hour or two before I sleep...

-B