Saturday, January 08, 2005

Day Four: It's a good thing I don't have a gun.

I check my bank balance early this morning. Checks are starting to hit, and I'm in the hole $271. I learn how to do three-way calling with my cell phone, and get the bank and hotel to talk to one another to release the hold. And the bank is kind enough to make sure that my checks aren't bounced.

Back at the warehouse, conversion is complete, sorta. The stores did their sales on both the old and new systems. But tickets for delivery were forgotten or ignored on the new, and there are 15 sales not scheduled for tomorrow's deliveries. Plus, we still have inventory problems. The decision is to ignore the differences. When they can't find the exact item, they'll use whatever is the closest match. The promise is that all new merchandise will be right; they'll just suffer through the old stuff until it's gone.

After all is said and done, everyone gives glowing reports about the conversion. I don't, but since I'm not supposed to give a report, no one asks my opinion. And the warehouse people lie through their teeth, and say how much they love it, despite the extra work it causes.

It's now 1pm. "Hey, Tom. Do you want to try to get out tonight?"

Asshole. "Sure, let me see what I can do with my ticket." There are seats available, so we race to the hotel to check out, two hours after normal checkout times. And to change my flight, I pay an additional $138 in change fees and airfare rates, which comes immediately out of my bank account. This will put me in the hole, unless I get reimbursed ASAP when I get to the office.

Boston's Logan Airport is the crappiest airport I've ever been to. The guy in front of me at security is the lucky recipient of a full search. He's made to stand in a Plexiglas booth, while they search his luggage, clothes and shoes. He shows up at the gate about 45 minutes later. I'm guessing from the look on his face that he got the cavity search, too.

At BWI, there are shops and food places after you pass security. At Boston, there is one food stand. Sandwiches start at $5. Sodas were $2, and a bottle of water was $1. I think the company that ran the stand was the same company that wanted to charge me $1.50 for the bottle of water in my hotel room.

I chant my mantra the entire flight: "Trust No One."


Thursday, January 06, 2005

Day Three: The Blizzard

Ok, so it wasn't a blizzard. Five inches of snow in Boston in January. Hell, they don't run "Winter Storm Warning" on the TV, and there's no weatherman tag-teams talking about how bad it is. "It's snowing. Deal with it. On more important news, the evil Yankees signed Randy Johnson."

Warehouse... Sit on hands waiting for the FedEx guy with our tags and ribbons. Still no real decision on how to handle the inventory problems. During the conference calls, everyone is so happy with the conversion. My team admits to some discrepancies, but they're not concerned.

"Should we try to change our travel arrangements to leave Friday night?" "Gee, Tom, I don't know. Let me talk to someone later, and we'll see."

Bank... "It should clear out overnight." I have $24.


Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Day Two In Hell

Corporate Travel: "We never pre-pay hotels. You have to pay for it, and submit for reimbursement."

Me: "Ok, so who paid for my airfare?"

CT: "You did. We used the same credit card you gave us for your hotel reservation."

Me: "Um, I did not arrange any of this. Someone there did. I've never given anyone my credit card. So whose credit card did you use?"

CT: "I honestly don't know. You'll need to speak to someone else. There's nothing I can do for you."

So I make a call to my own office, and they make the arrangements to pay for my room. I have to deal with my bank to get the hotel charge reversed fast. The good news is that it's only a hold on my account, they haven't actually drained it dry. But it may be two or three days for it to "unhold."

The warehouse is a disaster. One quarter of the items in any location don't show in the computer. This is offset by the one quarter of the items in the computer not being in the location. And since the new system uses unique ID numbers for everything, about one half of the items are also wrong. Clearly, the computer inventory does not match reality. And there doesn't seem to be any clear decisions made on how to fix this, or if it should even be fixed.

And my travel partner doesn't seem to be interested it getting our travel schedule to match our work schedule. "We should probably come in Saturday." Translate: "We'll ignore the fact that everyone around us is planning to run out of town as fast as they can Friday morning. We'll just not question this and stay overtime."

We spent most of the day tagging boxes, until we ran out of tags. The warehouse was provided with one ribbon and one roll of tags for their new printer, which was not nearly enough. Spent most of the afternoon typing emails I can't send.

Dinner was good. But when we asked the waitress for separate checks, all she did was divide the bill by three. I end up paying about $8 more for my dinner than I should.

Did I mention that I now have $24 left in my bank account for the next three days?

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

The Business Trip from Hell

I work with idiots.

Change that, I work FOR idiots.

From that far off frozen north, the powers-that-be that now rule my life, have sent me to Boston. In the winter. Right after a holiday.

My job is to observe and help these poor souls convert from one inventory program (that I have no clue about), to another inventory program (that I will never use.) My travel schedule was set before Christmas, to work here from 9am Tuesday to my departure at 8pm Saturday. My agenda, however, was not determined until yesterday, and was conveniently emailed to my office on my day off. And the plan is for me to work until 3pm Friday, and still fly out at 8pm Saturday. So which one is right? Or do I get to spend an additional 28 hours in this wonderful town?

Speaking of travel arrangements, I have discovered that my room has NOT been prepaid by the company. For every fricking business trip I have taken the past 20 years, the company has prepaid my hotel room. Not this time. I use a Visa check card, and my account has been drained of $700 by the hotel. I can't do a damn thing about it until tomorrow sometime, and until I do, I have $32 available to feed myself with for the next four days.

As for conversion and inventory, I now have nothing to do. They decided not to do a physical count, so there's nothing to reconcile. The old system and the new match item for item, dollar for dollar, but there's no knowing if any of this matches reality.

I have no internet access at the warehouse. I can't help anyone at my own job, I can't check my email, and I can't send scathing emails to the travel department. I can't even try to reschedule my flight out of this hell hole. Of course, I have no money to reschedule with...