Welcome to week 51 of 2019 everybody, and to episode #169 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career and I\u2019m Marty T Hawkins. Next week we\u2019ll find ourselves wrapped up in the Holidays and Christmas. I know it\u2019s pretty much a regular work week for a lot of us, well I guess there\u2019s some time off of course, but for example I know of several distribution centers that the order selectors will be off on Tuesday night as delivery trucks won\u2019t roll out on Christmas day and we\u2019ll work Wednesday night, Christmas night, so routes can be loaded and roll out Thursday morning. Some production facilities are even off or closed from Tuesday through Friday, and I know one that won\u2019t be gearing back up until Saturday morning at 1st shift. I had a guy ask why did he have to work Wednesday night, it was a holiday! Think about it, most industries will be working, not a full day maybe but, fast food places, shopping centers, call centers, retail, distribution, entertainment, restaurants, and most service places will be working at least half a day! Its not really that odd. And transportation, those trucks are still moving freight across the country! Many of our independent drivers never really get a day off!
\nI heard a few recruiters stating this week that it was hard to set interviews between thanksgiving and Christmas, people wanted to wait until after the holidays to start work? I started my first real career job on Nov 22 with a company and stayed there for 26 years. I figure if a person is responding to an ad they are wanting to work. There\u2019s usually 5 or 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and the new year, that\u2019s a long time to go without a payday. We definitely need to honor the season for what it is, and respect it of course, and its great getting the family together, those times are important, we need them. But jobs are important for us too, we know all year long we\u2019re going to be scheduled on those holiday nights. It's easy to set our holiday gatherings around our schedules. I worked nights, as an order selector for 6 years and never missed out on a holiday event. I didn't like it but that was the job I had. I always felt worse for the fast food and convenience store workers that had to work during the day on holidays! My point being our jobs take care of our families every week, don\u2019t get frustrated over a day or night worked, you can make it work! I know one guy that got upset and quit his job because his brother was coming into town on a Saturday, his normal day off but the boss told him he\u2019d need him that week. He got all upset, threw a fit that Thursday and quit his job because he wanted to spend all day Saturday with his brother. As it turned out his brother got hung up and didn't make it to town. No play day with his brother & no job on Monday. I have a hundred stories like that. Let's work out what we can and work it around our jobs, or that\u2019s my thought process.
\nWell I strayed way off subject that time but I do want to talk about week 51 or the closing of the year for a few minutes today. If we\u2019re in the production world we\u2019re probably going through an inventory about now. Whither your facility utilizes a cycle count program, meaning a program where we have cycle counters counting items every day, rotating through the sku\u2019s or slots and the aisles on some type of a schedule where every item is actually counted like monthly or quarterly so as to always know exactly what's in the building or a normal inventory where everything is closed, no inbound or outbound and no invoicing for an entire day or weekend, anybody enjoy that kind of inventory? I used to dread being paired with a salesman or a merchandiser to hit the aisles to count product. Never met one that could read a ti and hi or even verify an item number. Inventories aren't important to us as warehousemen, but they are important to our companies. A wealth of information comes from a true inventory. Asset figures, tax information,