Work

My thought this morning, when I read an email from the ops manager going out to everyone of what his schedule is going to be today and the fact that he was going to spend a couple of hours at our branch this morning - was that he is coming to "deal" with the situation yesterday.

I had no clue if I was correct or not - until after I got back from the first run today.  I asked my manager if the ops manager had showed up.  Yes.  I instantly knew the substance of the appearance with the look on his face.

The thing that clued me in that management knew about this is the apology email from the salesman to my manager (not to me, however, and I was the one he had called an idiot).  He wrote that yesterday and it was WAY too gooey for ever coming from that guy.  Of course, it was by force - he was forced to apologize and make it look good.

So, I guessed what the ops manager said since my manager said he really couldn't talk about it.  The ops manager had actually heard that salesman cussing out my manager from within his office yesterday.  I mean, he would have had to have been talking VERY loudly for his voice to carry that far.  The ops manager went out to find out what was going on.  What happened over there - I will find out eventually from someone done there who might have seen it.  I doubt the ops manager to be too happy about a sales rep cussing and yelling into a phone so loudly that it stops the place.

So, the salesman got a reaming, that's the jist of it.  My manager said he got a taste of it this morning as well, but, honestly, that dude at the main branch undoubtedly got a huge piece of humble pie.

It then dawned on me: whenever something like this happens over policy, the ops manager changes the policy.  Yup, I was right after I asked.  I am now to ask anyone that I am delivering pipe to if they need lube, regardless of the quantity, even if it's one stick of pipe.  My manager objected to that - we have 7 quarts of the free stuff out there right now.  It isn't enough to cover the LIFTS of pipe in our yard, much less a few sticks here and there.  And believe me, we get these small orders all the time, which is why we don't give out the lube free to someone buying 2, 5, 10 sticks of pipe.  That person can buy the lube instead.

The ops manager said fine, we are to take the "pay" lube- the stuff we sell - and give it out for free and then write it off.  Confused?  We get X amount of lube for free from the pipe manufacturer's when we buy pipe from them.  They used to give it out liberally - until the economy tanked and now they don't give out enough to even cover the amount of pipe we get from them even if used sparingly.  That forced me to severely cut back the amount that I give out at jobsites.  I had brought the subject up when all of this had started: what am I supposed to do out there?  Are we going to give them the pay stuff after we run out of the free stuff and just write it off?

It took an incident like this to get an answer.  I don't actually think it's the right answer, though.  On small orders, the salesmen should be selling the pay stuff, not forcing us to give it away.  On big orders, yes, we should give as much as it takes.  I mean, if you buy PVC Schedule 40 pipe that has to have cement to put it together, do you expect the store to just give you the cement?  

Whatever the case, it certainly doesn't bother me to be instructed to give the pay stuff away.  Especially to large contractors who buy millions of dollars worth of product from us every year. I always give them as much as they want, anyway.  In fact, on small orders, I give it away if they ask for it.  I'm not going to hold up a crew of people working  on laying pipe in the ground if the need  is there.

Hmmmmmm, well there was more.  But it isn't really worth going into all of that.  The point is, even if it took a man going WAY overboard on a "small" issue, the issue has now been addressed.  For whatever reason, managers have not been willing to write off the lube until - now - of course.  Tomorrow, I will be reminding my manager to order more pay stuff, lots of it, because when I start offering it to everyone, that free stuff? .......... will be gone in short order.