Looking Bad Because of Vacations


Josie Leavitt - March 10, 2015

There is a rhythm to every day at the bookstore and much of that is determined by when the deliveries come in. These boxes, especially on Tuesday and Friday, have our distributor orders that often contain customer’s special orders. Our customers know this schedule and they notice when things are amiss.
It’s been a hard winter for predictable delivery schedules. Ingram’s Tennessee warehouse was closed for days because of ice. Baker and Taylor’s New Jersey center was socked in by snow, as was Bookazine’s. In the meantime, the weather up in Vermont was just really cold, but not stormy, so people wondered why their books weren’t coming in. People tried to be patient, but grew tired of explanations about the warehouses and their weather situations. They were seeking books to survive the brutally cold winter, so just as their need for books was at its height, we were hindered because of global warming.
The problem came when the weather seemed to be better and books still weren’t coming on the expected schedule. Why weren’t the books coming in? Our regular Fed Ex and UPS  drivers were on vacation, vacations that were well deserved and not begrudged at all. These people work extremely hard in jobs that are not easy. But when the regular man (we don’t have any female drivers) isn’t there, the timing of deliveries is off, sometimes, way off.
We are lucky enough to normally get our shipments by 12:30 (sometime as early as 10:30). This allows us to receive them quickly and call all the special order folks before they need to pick up the kids at school. Generally, we’re not as busy in the morning as we are in the hours between three and six, which allows us to haul through the receiving and focus only on that. In essence, this early unpacking of orders really does allow us to provide next day book delivery. However, when the deliveries come later in the day, it pushes everything back.
This might not sound like an issue, but in fact it’s one of the largest issues we face. When my Fed Ex deliveries show up at 5:15 we have lost the battle of being able to provide overnight delivery. There is no way we can get everything unboxed, received, sorted, shelved and more importantly, we cannot call the special order customers. We’ve talked about this as a store and decided it’s just rude to call someone at five to six, often during dinner,  and tell them their special order is here, but we’re closing in five minutes, so you have to wait until tomorrow anyway. So, books the folks expected on a certain day are now coming in a day later. You wouldn’t think this would be a big deal, but it is. And it’s utterly out of my control, which is the truly maddening part of the whole thing.
All this really serves to do is make appreciate my regular drivers all the more, which is why, come Monday, I’ll be leaping for joy to see Bart and Ray again.
 

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