A couple of years ago the company I work for was owned by a family and then they sold their company to an investment group from New York City. At first, there were small changes but then the changes started getting larger and more noticeable. The beginning of this year brought forth a change in personal restructuring in our stores. Just because you held a leadership position in the past didn’t mean you would retain your position, you would have to apply for a leadership position going forward. For me, I was a receiving clerk receiving merchandise into our store and preparing shipment leaving our store. My duties would continue if I did nothing, but there were two leadership positions being created that would impact me and my future.
First here was the Warehouse Lead and second the Inventory Control Lead. The Warehouse Lead would be managing the people in the Receiving department, the Lot, and the Gate Hut. The Inventory Control Lead would be a combining of multiple department past responsibilities into a newly created position. As I listened to the descriptions of the job duties I applied for both positions. I was perusing the Inventory Lead position over the Warehouse Lead position. I realized I was already doing 80% of the work that the newly created Inventory Control Lead would be doing in the future. So the first week of March I was named the Inventory Control Lead in our store.
As I settled into my new responsibilities I had a responsibility to teach my replacements how to take over my past responsibilities as a Receiving Clerk. At the very same time, our company was in the process of converting our inventory counts from two very small counts a week lasting most of the year to a whole store count in one day and that is the heart of my new position. But the first order of business to get ready for this count was a massive purge of the merchandise in our store. Thirty years of “we can’t throw that” was ended as though you were moving from a castle to a very small tenement apartment. If it was broken, bent, missing parts, old displays it hit the trash. If the merchandise had no value to our company or to our customers it went into the trash. Waste Management would have to up their game at our store to keep our dumpsters empty. I started adopting the new philosophy, if it had zero value it goes away. Yes, it was hard to do and wasteful, but it had to be done. Co-workers would approach me with discontinue items and ask what should be done with the product. “To the dumpster” I would reply.
Now let me take a moment to speak to something that is a growing interest in my personal life. Minimalism. I have been listening to Podcasts by Matt D’Avella and others and watching programs on this subject. This is not a how to go from hoarding everything under the sun into storage sheds (He who dies with the most stuff, wins) to exist in this life with only what is on your back. It is finding value in the items you possess and remove those items that don’t add value to your life. I know I have a long way to go in my own personal life, but there is still time. I may need that valueless item in the future, so lets just put it over here for now. Then the other day I saw the connection. Our store was becoming a minimalist! We were purging the merchandise that had zero value to us as a store and to our customers. It is the junk we kept holding onto and walk around every day saying we might need that someday. And then came last Saturday.
On Saturday my co-worker in Receiving stated to me they had found a pallet of 72-bed pillows. He continued to tell me when he scanned them the inventory showed zero and there was a clearance price of $6.00 and an original price of $29.99. I looked at him and said, “What would our GM do?” He responded, “Throw them away!” “Correct!” Well, he didn’t get to throw them away before he left work. Later in the evening I saw the pallet of pillows and took a quick look and had another co-worker take them outside to the dumpster. Then I started thinking… In my hoarding fashion, the next morning I retrieved them and returned them to the receiving area. It didn’t feel right to throw these pillows away. They were new and looked perfect. I had thrown many things away that had been damaged but these didn’t appear to have any damage. Yes, they have no value for our company, but do they have value? On Sunday I had another employee go through the pallet of pillows looking for any damage or staining. There was none and so these pillows have value.
On the shrink wrap was a blue sticker to direct the skid from our warehouse to our store. The date on the sticker stated it was shipped to our store on October 26, 2015. Three and a half years ago and the product never made it to the sales floor but was wrote off in one of our cycle counts. I wasn’t going to return clearance merchandise into our inventory, but I believed the garbage heaps of the earth didn’t need another 72 pillows. So I wanted to add value to someone else’s life.
In a conversation with my manager, I spoke of my mindset what I was going to do. I don’t want to donate junk because I don’t want it, but will it add value to the recipient of these items. I didn’t state to my manager I was donating pillows instead I phased it with “I want to add value to someone else’s life”. So I donated the pillows to our local United Way for distribution to those in need of a new pillow. The United Way was thrilled to receive such a donation because most items are used at some level and these were new. The pillows may not have had any value to us as a company but they could add value to someone else’s life. They could add value to their sleep, to their dreams, and to their future, but the most important message, I added value to someone’s life, by telling them They have value thru a new pillow. Many of the people who will be receiving these pillows may not have hope because they have no dreams. With no hope or dreams, they may feel as thou they have no value in this life. I feel humbled to have add value to someone else’s life through such a simple gesture. Minimalism isn’t about living a life without anything, it is living a life with items around you that add value to your life’s experience.