Okay. Ten days ago, I ordered three samples to be fetched from yon warehouse so I could send them to my customer for photography. Five days later, I got two samples - WRONG samples - and a packing slip that noted the missing sample - but didn't indicate why I didn't get it. Backordered? Can't find it? Waiting for Christmas???

So, I check (Communicate) with Customer Service. Sample is backordered. Okay. I'm resourceful. I ask Marketing if they can build me a mock-up. Sorry. We don't have all the pieces. Check with Customer Service. Yeah, but they said it was backordered. I Communicate with Customer Service again. "Did you check inventory?" they ask... Hmmm. Gee. I thought that was your job, but okay.

Yes. The sample is indeed backordered - in our Huge warehouse. But amazingly there are over 6,000 of the little buggers in the small warehouse down the street.... I couldn't help myself. I Communicated this information to the Vice President of Sales. He was amazed too! He requested that I Communicate this information to the Operations Manager, because it is his warehouse, and obviously nobody had Communicated this information previously. Wow! Communication is cool!

Operations guy was pretty freaked out by his newly acquired information. He phoned the warehouse, and after attempting to Communicate with the person who answered the phone - a nice enough gentleman who unfortunately spoke NO English - the Operations guy was put in touch with somebody else, whom he asked to pull the item and bring it to me. Wow. I think we're on to something here.

I got a call two hours later from Warehouse guy. What item did I need again? I told him. "MWL5S-4ER. You've got 6,000 of them..." "Oh. We shipped those 6,000 items" he says. "What do you mean, you shipped 'em?" "Yes. We shipped them to a storage facility"

We're keeping our stuff at "Stor 'n Lock" now???

Fuckity Fuck Fuck!!!

So I had to Communicate all this to Operations guy - who looked further into the "Oracle" than I had. Yep. They had an over-abundance of stock, and needed to store some off site.

Cool enough I guess. Except somehow Oracle doesn't "Communicate" with the storage facility! Nothing tells our money pit of a computer system that the items we're ordering are somewhere in San Pedro and somebody better get their butt in a truck and head on down the freeway to pick some up!

Yeah. They found the problem all right. Communication...

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I'm only going to give this advice one time, so take it very seriously....

RUN! Don't walk, to your nearest music store and buy Leann Rimes' CD called "Twisted Angel.". Buy it especially if you are NOT a Country Music fan - because she's so NOT Country any more. This albun is FANTASTIC! Especially cut number 11 - "Love is an Army" Curls your toes and your hair. Wow! Just - WOW!

Okay. That's it. Carry on.

May 22, 2003