Who do you work for?

    One day I was in a convenience store counting merchandise tucked away in a storage bin that pulled out from underneath a gondola.  The merchandise was through into the bins in a somewhat disorderly manner, and because these items remained out of sight, little thought was made to order or neatness.  To get an accurate count I emptied all the contents onto the floor, counted each one and threw them back in. The store manager was standing behind the counter and could see me counting the merchandise in this manner. By this point in my inventory counting career I was used to the idea of having people watch me work, and frankly I never really noticed nor even cared if someone was watching me.  Once I got done counting all the bins on that one side of the gondola and pushed the last bin in the store manager made a remark about how he liked my "counting style".  The comment kinda struck me as a little odd rarely does anyone express what I do in terms of a definite "style". 
 
With the notion of style, I can't help to think about Henry's quote:

"By the very nature of their job function, auditors [or counters to be more accurate] as a whole, whether internal or external, will not now, nor will they ever win the confidence of the majority of managers."

While I can see where Henry is coming from, and can understand the point that he's making.  There's one aspect of this statement that bothers me.  Henry seems to suggest that all inventory counters are the same, they are universal and indistinguishable from each other.  That they all count the same way and are ultimately dispensable.  This notion is not quite true, and I feel compelled to strongly disagree with it.  Not all inventory counters are the same, there are many different types of counters out there, with many different "styles" of counting.  Even Henry himself suggests this with the very next sentence he writes:

"Of course, there are individual exceptions"

      Okay so, let's say that there are indeed "individual exceptions", what makes these people different from the lot who fail to win the confidence of most store managers? The answer probably lies with the notion of style and what that is comprised of.  There are a lot of things that can distinguish two different counters, their level of experience and knowledge, their integrity, their talent and ability, their attitude and philosophy.  Most of the time though counters are distinguished by their effectiveness, how well they perform their job, how well they meet the desired goals and objectives set out for them, i.e. how fast they are, other objectives may include, how accurate they are, how much integrity do they have when they perform their job, how dependable they are, and so forth.  What's interesting to consider about all of these different aims of the job is that not all of these aims are necessarily compatible with each other.  Take for instance the aims of speed and accuracy when counting.  These two aims can be highly incompatible at times, being accurate means being thorough and highly detailed and that can be time consuming, and time consuming usually equals 'slow'.  Being fast on the other hand, may mean counting more loosely, cutting corners, looking at the bigger overall picture of things, being more pragmatic when encountering difficulties in counting, this usually involves a drop-off in the level of accuracy.  The idea of style can arise out of the decisions we make when confronted with two seemingly incompatible aims of our jobs.  The aim that we feel is the most important determines what our style becomes.  If I want to be accurate when I count, I'll take all the items out the storage bins and count them one by one, and this becomes my style.

     The conflict between speed and accuracy is clearly the most interesting conflict among all the aims of a inventory counter.  But keep in mind the most ideal way to handle this type of conflict is to attempt (however daunting it may be) to satisfy both aims.  A counter who can be both fast and on the mark is pretty special.  We shouldn't think of speed and accuracy as mere choices, as if we either have to be one or the other, but rather as two separate forces on opposite ends of a continuum constantly pulling on us to count in certain ways.  An inventory counter's style is about the balance of these two forces. It be interesting to consider what kind of inventory counters would exist at the absolute extreme ends of this speed/ accuracy continuum.

     On one end of this continuum lies a counter hopelessly obsessed with accuracy.  For simplicity let's call this counter Ashley.  For Ashley an inventory count has to be 100% correct at any cost, and there's nothing that shouldn't be done to achieve this purpose.  Ashley will pull stuff off the shelf and actually touch the merchandise.  Ashley will verify her counts to ensure accuracy.  Ashley will check prices for unmarked items, Ashley will check every nook and cranny in a store to ensure that nothing's been missed.  Ashley will tag, and double check her work. Ashley will work at a "measured" pace.  Which for some people will essentially mean slow.  Ashley is primarily concerned with the notion of quality, the idea that an inventory count has to ultimately represent exactly what is present in the store, and that it provides the best possible picture to capture the store's inventory.  The ultimate goal is to provide the highest quality count possible.  Ashley is a "grinder", working meticulously, and constantly focused on her work.

     On the other end lies a counter obsessed with the notion of speed, and in how fast one can both count and complete the job at hand.  Let's call this counter Bradley.  Bradley will not object to using shortcuts to counting.  Bradley may even at times resort to cheating, or employing low integrity methods like fudging numbers to expediate the process.  Bradley is no stranger to estimating , and Bradley will estimate a lot, especially when he needs to get through difficult to count sections. He will utilize the techniques of profitable counting.  He will do a lot of sight counting, will utilize "standard industry pricing", he won't waste the time doing price checks. Bradley won't waste time on much at all, he needs to work at a quick pace and not get bogged down into detail.  He will look at the "big picture" when counting, he figures as long as he's within the tolerance levels for his counts, he's okay.  Bradley is mainly concerning with the notion of productivity, of how efficiently or quickly can the inventory count be completed.  He is a "speedfreak", plowing through areas with almost reckless abandon.

     The notions of counters like Ashley and Bradley are probably theoretical and may not actually exist.  Ashley would certainly be labeled by her auditing company as "slow", her hardcore tactics to counting would be discouraged by the auditing company, and she would probably get passed up for jobs by faster counters.  Bradley on the other hand, could get into too much trouble with the client with his "counting" methods.  Bradley is a counter an auditing company would have to handle carefully.  Bradley is a counter who could easily get kicked out of counting certain sections of the store, or the entire inventory completely.  To be a good counter, you have to develop a style between these two extremes.  Most counters will invariably fall between these two ideals recognizing to some degree that both aims are important.  But it's the balance (or perhaps imbalance) of these two ideals that's left up to the counter to decide.  Some counters might fall so much in the middle that it's hard to distinguish what type of counters they really are. The line that divides counters who lean in opposite directions may be impossible to determine, but one thing is easy to spot, and that's the styles of counters who lean drastically towards opposite ends of the spectrum. 

     During one of my numerous stints with RGIS, I ran across two people who for me have come the closest to these 2 extremes than any two people I've ever worked with.  The Ashleyesque counter was mocked and ridiculed by the area manager for being "slow".  It would take her hours to do, what might take a normal counter 30 minutes.  One time me, her, and another counter counted a small grocery store.  I assigned her to do the 'the checkout" (the store was so small it only had one), and it took her an hour and a half to finish counting it.  What slowed her down was the fact that she had to check the price on anything that didn't have a price on it; a carton of cigarettes,a cigarette lighter,a pack of gum, 'anything'.  The notion of estimating a price on anything seemed foreign to her.  And if she had to wait to find the answer to a question on something, (and she wasn't shy about asking questions), then she would wait.  Multi-tasking wasn't her forte either, every issue had to be resolved completely before she could move on.  Now granted, you could always count on the accuracy and integrity of her work, the problem was there was no pace or sense of urgency to her work.  She did whatever it took to get her counts to be correct, the concept of time seemed meaningless to her.  Even accurate counters will have enough sense to know that they have to develop a certain pace to their work and achieve some level of efficiency, if not speed.

     For the concept of speed I can turn to the Bradleyesque counter that I had the pleasure of working with.  He was always looking to cherry-pick, and find ways to count as much stuff as possible.  At one store that I ran, he showed up hoping to count the precounted backstock, in order to boost his counting average.  When I didn't allow him to do this, he made up an excuse to leave and just split.  This sort of summed up his attitude towards his job, it was either cherry-pick or don't count at all.  And if time was a meaningless concept to the Ashleyesque counter, then integrity was a meaningless concept to this guy.  I remember at one inventory, we where walking with the store managers at the end of the count, he leaned into my ear after the store managers had left us momentarily and he said out of the side of his mouth "If they ask if we counted something, the answer is always yes".  This guy would at times get kicked out of counting certain sections of a store, because the client didn't like the way he was counting.  He would often moan at the notion of an area that had to be printed off for the store to review.  My favorite memory of this guy though was one fairly good sized grocery store that we did (This one had about 7 or 8 checkouts, and maybe 10-12 aisles).  He ran the inventory and only had me, himself, and another counter as the crew.  After showing up an hour late to the store, and despite only having 3 people, we still got the store done in roughly 7-8 hours.  I spent most of the day on the opposite side of the store from the other two counters, as they did Lord knows what.  This may be Bradleyesque's one true redeeming quality, he's able to get things done.  I'm sure few people (if any) at RGIS would be upset at getting a store done using so few manhours.  The problem is, you'll walk away from a store like that and wonder how he was able to pull it off, and then you really start to wonder about how much "counting" actually took place.

     What causes two such counters to even exist?  Most likely it's the forces exerted by the entities referred to as "C", and "I".  Small "c", or the store management may play a role in influencing counters as well, but much like counters they may very in terms of where they fall on this accuracy-speed scale.  If a counter and a manager both lie near each other on this scale they actually can get along fairly well.  Most often though they exist at opposite ends of the scale with managers leaning more towards accuracy and counters leaning more towards speed, and thus we get the quote from Jack Henry.  The positions of "C" and "I" are far more firm and constant, and more importantly in conflict with each other. 

    "C" ultimately wants to see counters employ a counting style that leans more towards accuracy, and integrity.  A style that is efficient, but at the same time meticulous and detail-orientated.  "I" will of course want to see counters employ a style more predicated on speed and production.  A style that "gets things done", both quickly and most importantly cheaply.  A counter can at times be torn between these two aims, and at times they may have to balance these two aims, and attempt to offer both sides something to satisfy them.  What ultimately divides counters from one side to the other is the simple question, who do you work for?

     The Ashleyesque counters seem to count with a great sense of duty towards the client that they work for.  For them the work they do is about providing a "service" for the client who's merchandise that they are counting.  To give the client the most accurate, honest count they could possibly get.  The needs of the client are more important then the needs of the company that they work for.  For the Bradleyesque counter the clients are irrelevant.  They are simply agents of the company that they work for.  They are dispatched by their company to work on jobs, and count according to their wishes.  So who do you work for?,  the client who's inventory you're counting, or the company who provides your paycheck?

    When working for an external service, the force of "I" is extremely dominant, and it's pretty clear that they want "their employees" to achieve their own standards for the job and no one else's.  With all the things that "I" does to promote their own style of counting it's hard to believe that people like Ashleyesque even exist, and it's still hard for me to believe I once worked with someone like that.  With all the things that "I" does I suppose it's nice to know that their attempts to have everyone conform to a productive counting style doesn't always work. It's nice to know that conformity isn't always perfect, that there's always going to be someone in the crowd who bucks the trend, and goes against the grain.  Even if Ashleyesque counters do exist, they are still rare.  The pressure that "I" puts on their counters to produce can be intense, and in recent times it has grown in some companies.  "I" not only needs to put pressure on counters to produce it also needs a way to determine what type of counters it has, to separate the Ashleys from the Bradleys.  To do this and to influence the counting style of it's workers, "I" will resort to it's most common weapon, it's use of statistics.