So TOTALLY Pathetic, It's Laughable
This is a TRUE story!! It actually happened Friday afternoon at work. To understand it, I have to explain something to ya'll first.
I work for a forms printing company and for the past five years, have been on-site at the Sales Rep's (for whom I work)account (which is Lowes -- the Home Improvement warehouse people). Anyway, Lowes has contracted with another company (XPEDX) to be their distribution center for the forms, brochures, posters, etc. that we produce for them. XPEDX has a requirement that ALL cartons and inner packs of items they store and ship to Lowes stores MUST have a special yellow label on them which gives the item number; the description of the item, and how many 'ship units' are contained in the carton. This label is IN ADDITION to the standard white shipping label that we affix to each carton that (basically) gives the same information.
Part of my job as the on-site Customer Care Service Rep 2 (fancy title for DOES IT ALL AND LETS THE SALES REP COLLECT HIS COMMISSION) is to place release orders for items that XPEDX shipes to Lowes stores so that they can ship from our warehouses to XPEDX. On October 31st I did this (as I do practically every day). Well, on Friday, one of the FAR TOO many contacts I have at XPEDX emailed me to tell me that their Salt Lake City storage facility had received this release order and that, though they had ordered item #95814, the carton had a white label that said it was 95814 but the yellow label said it was 95804. After making a BIG fuss about how 'this was getting out of hand' (WTF!!! This was the FIRST I'd been notified of such); I responded and requested that the SLC warehouse open the carton and check to see what the actual item number on the forms contained therein was. I also told the contact that I would get in touch with my warehouse to have them check their remaining inventory (which I did).
Meanwhile, the contact emails me again, this time attaching a picture of the two carton labels and reiterating that this is a 'major' problem and that they received the wrong item (I had not, as yet, heard back from my warehouse). So I called the young lady at XPEDX and again requested that she have her warehouse look at the actual item number printed on the form itself. FINALLY, after having to halt her rant about the problem, she agreed. A half hour later she called me back to tell me that the warehouse had actually opened the carton, looked at the and indeed, printed on it was the form #95804. She also said they were taking a picture of that and would email it to me.
At that point, I called our plant that actually printed the item and alerted them that we had a problem -- because it was obvious they'd produced the WRONG DAMN ITEM!!! Once I received the picture to prove it, I forwarded that to them and told them that I needed to have the correct item printed ASAP because XPEDX was out of stock and in a backorder situation and since what remained in stock at our warehouse was the WRONG ITEM, I had NO stock I could send to get them out of the backorder situation. I also emailed my warehouse to have the freeze the stock remaining so it couldn't be shipped until the producing plant tells me when they will get the correct item produced.
What's laughably pathetic is that it took the CUSTOMER'S DISTRIBUTION ARM to discover that there was a problem! I mean, I fail to see how EITHER the shipping people at the plant could NOT have noticed that there were TWO different labels on the cartons with TWO DIFFERENT item numbers on them. I also fail to see why our warehouse DIDN'T NOTICE EITHER!!
So tomorrow, I have to follow-up with the producing plant to make sure they understand that this was their error and they need to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get the correct item produced and shipped to our warehouse. I also have to get in touch with the warehouse to see if the can take the incorrect stock, re-label the white label with the correct item number and put that stock with the other forms that match it. I also have to enter a credit into the system because they customer informed me that, though they are keeping the incorrectly produced item and have changed their system so that in can be received, they want the original invoice sent on the order credited for the item they were supposed to receive and be re-billed for the item they did receive and elected to keep. Mind you, BOTH items cost the same and have only one digit that is incorrect -- '1' and '0' -- but they refuse to change the item number from 95814 to 95804 on the invoice!
Ah real life... isn't it wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I work for a forms printing company and for the past five years, have been on-site at the Sales Rep's (for whom I work)account (which is Lowes -- the Home Improvement warehouse people). Anyway, Lowes has contracted with another company (XPEDX) to be their distribution center for the forms, brochures, posters, etc. that we produce for them. XPEDX has a requirement that ALL cartons and inner packs of items they store and ship to Lowes stores MUST have a special yellow label on them which gives the item number; the description of the item, and how many 'ship units' are contained in the carton. This label is IN ADDITION to the standard white shipping label that we affix to each carton that (basically) gives the same information.
Part of my job as the on-site Customer Care Service Rep 2 (fancy title for DOES IT ALL AND LETS THE SALES REP COLLECT HIS COMMISSION) is to place release orders for items that XPEDX shipes to Lowes stores so that they can ship from our warehouses to XPEDX. On October 31st I did this (as I do practically every day). Well, on Friday, one of the FAR TOO many contacts I have at XPEDX emailed me to tell me that their Salt Lake City storage facility had received this release order and that, though they had ordered item #95814, the carton had a white label that said it was 95814 but the yellow label said it was 95804. After making a BIG fuss about how 'this was getting out of hand' (WTF!!! This was the FIRST I'd been notified of such); I responded and requested that the SLC warehouse open the carton and check to see what the actual item number on the forms contained therein was. I also told the contact that I would get in touch with my warehouse to have them check their remaining inventory (which I did).
Meanwhile, the contact emails me again, this time attaching a picture of the two carton labels and reiterating that this is a 'major' problem and that they received the wrong item (I had not, as yet, heard back from my warehouse). So I called the young lady at XPEDX and again requested that she have her warehouse look at the actual item number printed on the form itself. FINALLY, after having to halt her rant about the problem, she agreed. A half hour later she called me back to tell me that the warehouse had actually opened the carton, looked at the and indeed, printed on it was the form #95804. She also said they were taking a picture of that and would email it to me.
At that point, I called our plant that actually printed the item and alerted them that we had a problem -- because it was obvious they'd produced the WRONG DAMN ITEM!!! Once I received the picture to prove it, I forwarded that to them and told them that I needed to have the correct item printed ASAP because XPEDX was out of stock and in a backorder situation and since what remained in stock at our warehouse was the WRONG ITEM, I had NO stock I could send to get them out of the backorder situation. I also emailed my warehouse to have the freeze the stock remaining so it couldn't be shipped until the producing plant tells me when they will get the correct item produced.
What's laughably pathetic is that it took the CUSTOMER'S DISTRIBUTION ARM to discover that there was a problem! I mean, I fail to see how EITHER the shipping people at the plant could NOT have noticed that there were TWO different labels on the cartons with TWO DIFFERENT item numbers on them. I also fail to see why our warehouse DIDN'T NOTICE EITHER!!
So tomorrow, I have to follow-up with the producing plant to make sure they understand that this was their error and they need to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get the correct item produced and shipped to our warehouse. I also have to get in touch with the warehouse to see if the can take the incorrect stock, re-label the white label with the correct item number and put that stock with the other forms that match it. I also have to enter a credit into the system because they customer informed me that, though they are keeping the incorrectly produced item and have changed their system so that in can be received, they want the original invoice sent on the order credited for the item they were supposed to receive and be re-billed for the item they did receive and elected to keep. Mind you, BOTH items cost the same and have only one digit that is incorrect -- '1' and '0' -- but they refuse to change the item number from 95814 to 95804 on the invoice!
Ah real life... isn't it wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!