Recently I came across an old RGIS Auditor's Handbook. I opened up the handbook and printed on the inside of the front cover was a piece titled "Code of Ethics". In reading this Code of Ethics I got a few laughs, mainly because the people in my district violated every entry on that list. For my district it was as though this Code of Ethics never listed. Those amusing principles are listed below.
ACCURACY FIRST ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE: "Like any business, RGIS exists to make a profit but our profitability can never influence the accuracy of our inventories." Okay, so how many of you laughed when you just read that? Of course the above entry is a big fat joke. A lot of us have witnessed Team Leaders and managers ignoring batching in inventories, and some of us have even been told outright to batch by our illustrious managers, all so that RGIS could get out of the store on time or even early, and thus score bigger profits.
NEVER TAKE MERCHANDISE: "Whether or not there's an intention to pay for it later, we regard it as stealing, no matter how small the item." Anyone working the warehouse (back rooms) had ample opportunity to lift merchandise. That happened in my district, as people in the stockrooms would often help themselves to whatever they liked. Usually it was something small and portable, like candy bars or chewing gum.
FOLLOW WRITTEN PROCEDURES: "It's a contract between the client and RGIS, a contract which cannot be broken." Now this one seems to be one mainly for the managers, as the auditors rarely got to see any 'written procedures'. In my district we usually got a few mumbled words of instruction from the TL or manager that was running the inventory. More often we would get no instructions at all, and after we signed the time sheet and grabbed an audit machine and laser we would be shooed out onto the sales floor with nary a word about what to count or how. This was all right for the veterans, but the newbies would be totally lost.
Occasionally we auditors would receive a photocopied page listing the various departments that we were to be counting merchandise in. For the Long's Drugs stores these directions would be on 2-sided sheets of paper. One side would have all the departments listed (from Automotive to Toys/Crafts), with a bar code depicted under each department. The idea with the bar codes was so that ostensibly you could scan the generic UPC for that particular department if you happened across an item that didn't have a bar code (usually from a local independent vendor that didn't have UPC's). Naturally the pictures of bar codes never scanned for us and we would have to key in the 12-digit department numbers by hand. And forget about putting the items in the correct department. A lot of us didn't even bother to learn or look for any department number but one: Miscellaneous. Everything that didn't have a bar code got counted under Miscellaneous.
The other side of the Long's instructions sheet had the cost code on it. In Long's all the merchandise was counted at cost, which was roughly half the retail price. The Long's cost code was 'Charleston'. Each letter in the word Charleston represented one number. For instance, 'C' was 1, 'H' was 2, 'A' was 3, and so on. 'N' was 0, and if we came across an 'X' that meant to repeat the previous number. The cost codes were printed on the shelf labels, just above the retail price. So if we came across something that either didn't have a bar code, or its bar code wouldn't scan, we would enter in a generic department UPC and then the cost price. For instance, if the shelf label had a retail price of $7.99, but we saw a 'RHL' above it, then we would enter in $4.25 as the cost price.
This wasn't too much of a problem unless you happened to have another store called Toyworks on your schedule. Toyworks was the only other store we did that had a cost code. Toyworks cost code was the word 'Pathfinder', with the same rules as 'Charleston' applying. After doing a dozen or so Long's, you might do one Toyworks and really screw up in it, because there were several letters that were similar in the words 'Charleston' and 'Pathfinder'. Many a time we would have to back out several of prices in Toyworks because we discovered that we had been counting in a 'Charleston' code when it should have been 'Pathfinder'. Crap!
Also on the Long's sheet were instructions like: "Different shades, flavors, scents of product must be scanned separately, even if the packaging looks the same and costs the same..." Ha ha ha! (See the blog entry "Batch? Natch." in the May 2006 archives). Another Long's instruction was: "When you run into merchandise that is not on file (doesn't scan), make sure you place one of the item on the salesfloor for the store personnel. They will use this item to update their files." Most of us RGIS auditors actually did follow this one, not that it mattered. I would witness many a Long's employee simply replace the item on the shelf without entering it into their system. I guess they were just as lazy as us sometimes.
NEVER ESTIMATE: "We are contracted to perform an accurate count of our client's inventory." Oh God, these are killing me! It's so fucking hilarious to read over this so-called "Code of Ethics" of RGIS'. "Never estimate"? You've got to be kidding me. I estimated in just about every damn store I did, and I was most definitely the rule, and not the exception. There were countless (no pun intended) inventories where we would estimate how many candy bars there were in a box, how man eyeshadow pans in a display container, and how many boxes of frozen fishsticks in a cold display case (At Food 4 Less it would be quite amusing to witness someone counting the frozen foods. We would just sort of glide alongside the horizontal freezers, called 'coffins', entering in prices (financial inventory) and merely touching the top box of whatever it was. No one wanted to get frostbite of the fingers digging down and really counting how many frozen burritos there actually were). There are only 2 stores I can think of where we didn't dare to estimate (or batch): Best Buy and Comp USA. Those stores had lots of big ticket items and printed out every single area, which would then be gone over by the store's employees with a fine-toothed comb. But in every other store it was Batch City and Estimation Town.
NEVER ACCEPT UNVERIFIED FIGURES: "Pre-listed merchandise and any merchandise not physically present must be verified and documented. Requests for adjustments which either add to or take away from the value of the inventory, after the inventory is complete and RGIS has left the premises are not be granted." Another joke. Anyone who did pre-lists in my district knows that we often would enter in merchandise in amounts just tossed off the top of some store employee's head. Nothing on these 'pre-lists' were ever verified to my knowledge.
NEVER ACCEPT GIFTS: "A gift by a client may be misinterpreted." Laughable. This too went on in my district. Psycho Alice told me that when she was running a Kunde Winery inventory the store's manager gave her two bottles of salad dressing, which she of course accepted.
CONFLICTS HANDLED BY RGIS MANAGEMENT: "Auditors are required to notify management if they suspect that an inventory is being misguided by store personnel or even by an RGIS manager." Good thing I'm almost at the end of this comical list. I don't think I could go on for much longer without throwing up. How many of you experienced your TL or AM or DM turning a blind eye to auditors batching? It happened all the time in my district, and it wouldn't have done one damn bit of good to "notify management" since it was often the RGIS managers themselves that knew of and ignored batching. And if you were so righteous as to care and complain about such "conflicts", and did actually notify a manager it (and you) would be ignored (see the blog entry "Shorts (Long's Drugs)", in the June 2006 archives).
TOTAL CONFIDENTIALITY: "You are being entrusted with information that is the lifeblood of our client's business. It could be used by a competitor as a lethal weapon." Virtually every auditor I know of who did a Long's Drugs inventory told their friends and families about the 'Charleston' cost code. So much for confidentiality. Also amusing was to hear people's outrage that Long's would score such a profit with their markup prices. That every retail store marks up their prices to make a profit didn't seem to register with non-RGIS people. Most would be upset that they were paying more than double the price that Long's had paid for the same item.
Well, that's it for RGIS' "Code of Ethics". Hope you had a good laugh!
24 comments:
My district does pretty much adhere to that code of conduct. I sure hope your district does more now than it did in the past. It's pretty insane how they did things when you were there. In the stores I go to, the majority at least, there's just no such thing as estimating. It's either right or it's not. Batching, it just doesn't happen unless you figure out how to do it correctly. Grocery has it's own standards, but no one as far as I know goes so far as to batch entire areas and get away with it.
My district does pretty much adhere to that code of conduct. I sure hope your district does more now than it did in the past. It's pretty insane how they did things when you were there. In the stores I go to, the majority at least, there's just no such thing as estimating. It's either right or it's not. Batching, it just doesn't happen unless you figure out how to do it correctly. Grocery has it's own standards, but no one as far as I know goes so far as to batch entire areas and get away with it.
It's funny -- I was in my third week before a guy that the managers loved told me his secret was batching. A couple of days later a TL showed me some good estimating techniqes so anyone watching would be satisfied I was really doing something.
What a Joke. No wonder Walmart's going after those RF tags -- I heard a lot of horror stories of people getting sent home or fired for minor miscounts to satisfy the Walmart brass (a few from people back at work after being fired) and I think Walmart finally dumped RGIS here.
I also like the dress code...Whereas the manual recommended any of blue/black/khaki... coloured pants -- just not shorts or jeans for most people -- and black sport shoes in good repair, everyone in our district was expected to wear black dress pants and dress shoes.
It was then funny to read the warnings on the ladders about having proper footwear. Also, between taking out the knees crouching half the day, and turning Greyish brown with dust, the black dress pants really didn't help us look professional.
Actually, as I understand, Wal-Mart won't eliminate when they do go over to RFID, we will be just as important.
I find it hard to beleive any of the districts that do the Wal-Mart inventories would fire an auditor for a single minor miscount...there must be more to the story.
arzon, your District must be an exception as is agentskelly's. Batching is the norm in my district and estimating is done all the time. In fact, those who estimate and batch, 'the hackers' as we call them, are the favorites in this district.
Gas..we got the black pant rule in March. We look real professional before we start till we kneel down just once and pick up all the stores' dust. Black is the worst for showing dirt. We had just gone through a hiring period where we told people blue, black, khaki or gray pants. some only had jeans and went out to buy several pairs of pants..mostly khaki. Then, 3 months later, comes the black pants only rule. We in our District have questioned our DM about this now being a formal uniform. We should be able to deduct these from our income taxes as they are requiring us to buy black pants only.
Arzon, no one gets fired in this district. If they do, the DM panics at not having enough people for his big stores and rehires them the next day.
We were hoping the new owners would be more on top of things but so far, other than minor changes, things are still the same.
No kidding on the dress pant thing! After blowing out lots of knees, I bought Dickies. But even Dickies didn't have the lasting power I wanted. What choise is there, though? I iron patches on the inside which is a pain, but it works. It'd be nice if we could wear jeans, but surely that would be abused over time. We're allowed to wear just about any kind of shoe so long as they are black, closed (no sandals, open toes or mules) and safe.
Hello, just came across your blog and I find it fantastically entertaining. I worked for a year at RGIS's HQ here in Michigan in the PC Tech Support department. The higher-ups there are truly as dumb and weird as you probably think. If you'd like to here more I'd be glad to share.
you're so right, the handbook is such a joke. Once I was stuck in an area with 90% of the stuff on the shelf having no upc code or anything else on it. My TL told me to scan the ones that have the correct code and randomly choose something from the correct batch and use the price/code for the other stuff that have nothing on it. Another time there's a shirt with no code, I called store help many times and none of the staff came, my TL once again told me to randomly choose a shirt that looks similar and scan it twice.
And you know, sometime stuff like linens and clothes, we need to scan every single item, I always see other people batching, including the TLs.
Many auditors noticed that when the staff check our counts, they only count the item but rarely check the barcodes, so as long as you get the item count correct they don't care. So everyone batches in these stores.
I am still laughing after reading some of the excerpts from the auditors handbook. I had completely forgotton about the handbook. You and Gas and anonymous who posted at 526pm seem to be more in tune with what went on in my district.
I can't ever imagine reporting an auditor for batching to one of my managers. I would have been on "punishment". In my district, if you pissed off the DM, he would put you on "punishment". This might be something as small as making sure you count the shitiest area in a store (i.e whole frozen food section in a large supermarket by yourself), or if you really made him mad, he might make sure your team didn't get their fair share of work for a couple of weeks.
Anyway all of the rules that you mentioned got broken in my district, except for the one about stealing. I can honestly say that I never witnessed anyone stealing any merchandise, BUT I did witness auditors and one particular very fat manager in my district steal food that was meant for store personnel.
jkat: I'm guessing that manager who stole store personnel's food was Fat Bastard, right? Lol!
My DM said there was ONCE in his 27 years with the company an auditor stealing from a store while he's on watch.
Oh, and recently did a Tuesday Morning store :)
gas: I know, it's weird about the "black pants" rule. It's like whoever came up with that rule must have never counted, because as you noted, we would all end up with dusty brown knee spots on our pants at the end of the day.
anonymous at 10:22 pm: Thanks for reading! I for one would love to hear more stories from someone who worked in Tech Support. Like taliesyn, you can give us former and current auditors a unique perspective on what it's like to work for RGIS. Thanks!
AgentSkelly: So, how was the "Tuesday Morning" store? A nightmare of jumbled junk, or not too hideous? Lol!
It actaully wasn't THAT bad, but it was lots of junk. We actually set a record time of completion of the inventory apparently :P
I worked for RGIS in the early 90's and once we did an Odd Lots store (since bought by Big Lots, same crap). I was counting embroidery floss in a cardboard box, priced at 9 cents each, by grabbing a handful, counting the number in the handful, then counting handfuls. The store guy saw this, said something to the TL, and I had to recount it! As it turned out, I was within 1 percent by estimating that )&*)*$ boxful of crappy floss.
anon. at 10:40 am: That's funny, about the embroidery floss. How fussy some customers can get over little bits of 9 cent crap. I used to count thousands of sticks of incense in Long's Drugs in just the same manner as you counted the floss. But I guess lucky for me I never got caught!
I'm glad we don't have that "black pants only" rule in our district. We also don't have "black shoes only." We can wear black or brown shoes as long as they are one solid color (and even then, if there's a little bit of some other color in a brown shoe, no one cares. I know I don't.
In regards to unscanable items at Longs, all you have to do is be smart enough to have an idea of what department the item would be classified in or you could search up in your machine to the previous item and look at the Function which lists the dept. number for a scanable item and use that. By automatically assigning every unscanable item as Miscellaneous, in which you'd have to key a 12-digit dummy SKU, just like any other department, the manager gets a distorted total. Miscellaneous was once used for CRV entries on beverages, although Longs now provides barcodes for each type sold: 6-pack, 12-pack, 2-liter, etc. I think that those of you in Dist 414 who automatically used Miscellanous obviously didn't care, which you Misfit have made abundantly clear.
anon. at 11:19 pm: No shit! Of course we didn't care. Glad you were sharp enough to pick up on that, Einstein. The morale in my dist. was so low nobody gave a damn about customers getting distorted totals, AMs and DMs and Team Leaders included. All anyone cared about was getting in and out of the store as soon as possible. And that "Code of Ethics" was instilled into us auditors by our RGIS managers.
Misfit, you didn't have to be so damn sarcastic by calling me Einstein. Any idiot could have figured out that the people in your district didn't care about accuracy or the integrity of their work. It is a pivotal theme of the entire blog. I was shocked at alot of things which you have mentioned, particularly, TL's who plugged numbers into the portable when an inventory is in trouble, (which you call frying). I never would have dreamed about resorting to such blatant dishonesty. Or to feel no shame about doing it. I thought that batching was bad, but this goes beyond unethical. We are force-fed the importance of APH and getting the inventory done in a reasonable amount of time but the practice you described is fraud, plain and simple. You do make a good point regarding the store managers: if they are not aware enough to realize what's going on, they can only blame themselves. On the other hand, business is business, and those who have been entrusted as supervisors or managers to represent RGIS in the field should have enough of a conscience to do the right thing. If I were the store manager, and at one point, it looked like the inventory was a long way from being done, then shortly afterward, the supervisor comes to me saying it is finished, I would question that. Previous total comparisons don't mean much if the area has been reset or a store has been remodeled.
My only real issue, Misfit, is that by writing this blog you admit to being a part of what was going on, as well as condoning it. I enjoyed reading your stories and I sympathize with you on most of them, except for the impression that RGIS managers create disgruntled employees so they deserve what they get. Yes, I think things could be better, but there are ways to get back at managers without risking your job.
Such as not going to stores at the last minute when they need help. Or refusing to use your own vehicle for carpools. They can't do anything about that. Managers who encourage employees to be dishonest or commit any type of fraud should be fired! And just because they encourage it doesn't make it right. When veterans encourage you to do something that seems wrong, it usually is. You have the final decision as to whether you will follow these bad examples or set your own good example.
anon at 12:03 am: Of course, I fully admit that I was a part of what was going on in my district, the batching in particular. When I first started with RGIS I fully took to heart everything that was in our handbook; you know, all the stuff about "Accuracy is our primary concern", and how we should never ever batch, or complain about being tired in front of store personnel,etc. etc., because it could all affect the inventory in a negative way. But the longer I stayed with the company the more I realized that with the exception of really fresh newbies, NOBODY else felt that way. NO ONE in my district who had been with RGIS for any length of time cared about accuracy, making a good impression of store personnel, or if we went over our time limit for an inventory. All they cared about was getting paid. That includes auditors, team leaders and managers alike. When you have an AM or DM telling you to go ahead and batch a certain area because "We need to get out of this store, and the store manager will never notice", how are you supposed to care? And believe me, this went on all the time in my district. So of course I was a part of it. I thought that I had made that abundantly clear in this blog. Just because I've documented the things that went on in my district doesn't mean that I didn't do them too. If you read some of my entries a little more closely you will see that. I'm no innocent in some of the wrongdoings in my district. After all, apathy is catching.
Oh any by the way, anyone who tried to set a "good example" by following inventory procedures was looked upon with scorn in my district, laughed at and rarely scheduled for stores. Wow, what a great incentive to do well at RGIS!
That seems to always be the case. New auditors try to do everything by the book, then learn bad habits from veterans. Anyone who does adhere to the rules can quickly become an outcast. RGIS does tend to have a junior-high social structure, and the only way to fit in is to adapt to it. When you don't put so much concern in it, you're free to be yourself. Yet, when you stay away from the riff-raff, you become gossip bait. Put it this way: you're nobody unless you're being bad-mouthed.
Misfit, sorry that you had to endure this in your district to such an extreme with people like Horndog Joe, Filthy Mondo, and Psycho Eric. People like that exist in every district and at any workplace. It seems as though you suffered alot of crap because of the people you worked with and by creating this blog, you have some sort of revenge. I have told some of my co-workers about the blog and at least one has read it. RGIS could stand for Rumors, Gossip, Intimidation, and Stress. There seems to be more of that than accuracy, pride or honesty.
anon. at 3:22 am: You're so right about the outcast thing, and the junior-high school mentality at a lot of RGIS districts. I used to think exactly the same thing. I'd see the cliques forming (and formed by AM Joe mostly) and I'd think, "What am I, back in junior high again? I thought this was supposed to be a business!" And don't get me wrong: it didn't upset me that people made friends at work. That's all very well and fine and to be expected. But when the AM, who is also the guy that made out our schedules exclusively, picked and chose among the auditors who to be "friendly" with and who to ignore, then it became a bad and dangerous thing. AM Joe had his clique formed and 99% of us were NOT in it. Oh, that didn't mean that he wasn't "friendly" with the rest of us outcasts. He would sometimes say "Hello" at inventories, and share a derogatory comment about some other auditor or the other Managers in my district, but when it came time to hand out the stores, guess who got the cream of the crop and who got the shaft? I mean, I was a very good auditor, and consistently received compliments from other managers and even store personnel, but I didn't fit into his clique and so therefore had to really fight for every store I got. It was very frustrating, and I know for a fact that I wasn't the only one who felt this way. Tons of people were glad to see Joe fired.
Thanks so much! for your kind words regarding this blog. It's true, I did get quite a thrill from writing this blog. Ah, revenge IS sweet! And fun too. See, as much as I disliked the people I worked with, I did find them interesting to write about. It's nothing that would shake the world, but it's definitely been entertaining. And not just to me. Comments like yours and others have been gratifying to read too. Thank you for referring this blog to others! I hope you'll continue to read all of the entries (if you haven't already), and to leave your comments. I also like to read about other people's experiences with RGIS, both good and bad.
We say the "Accuracy is our primary concern" 'motto' at the beginning of every store though we know its not necessarily true. I read it as "Accuracy is a concern if it means we will get out on time." I will admit that I took some merchandise from a store but it was on accident and it cost less than a dime. It was a red, heart shaped stone that fell out of a bag of other stones in an area I was counting. I put it in my pocket and intended to put it back after I was done with the area. 400+ bags later of marbles and stones I forgot and walked out with it. Other than that I have not heard of any stealing in my district. Most auditors wont/dont see the procedures but as a "Top Gun" auditor and (now) as an ATL, I see them all the time and usually they do not make that much sense. No estimating, while a noble ideal, is inherently flawed since I do not see anyone going to stand all day in a freezer of a store top make sure there are 300 packages of Green Giant Peas. Never accept gifts? Its rare but it happens. Walmart can actually no longer provide breakfast and lunch in our districts because it encourages us to pad their inventory. (Which is baloney as I would be motivated to make sure everything I did in WM is 100% accurate if I got breakfast and lunch from them for free). I have received credit card offers and such from jewelry stores for given awesome inventories. And lastly, I talk about inventories all the time. Hell, my cousin is a Walmart manager and I talk about Target and K-Mart inventories with him all the time.
Hello, I am Ishidan, I worked for the Hawaii office of RGIS from 2001 to 2004. I just happened to think about them as I recently got laid off and am thus on the job hunt, and found your blog.
Hell. I thought the idiocy and retarded pay scales you describe was endemic to Hawaii. Apparently NOT!
Me? I'm the guy that got laughed at because I rigged to do it right-kneepads, my own industrial-strength ladder (instead of the home-grade deathtraps they provided), and know how I counted the coffins? A string-knit glove with PVC grip dots on my left hand, allowing me to dig into the coolers without frostbite. Of course, as you can probably tell-my increased accuracy was never appreciated.
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