Christmas is now just around the corner, the season of goodwill to all men and all that malarkey but it’s not always been my favourite time of year – certainly not during my time in warehousing.
It was always just before Christmas, right about now in fact, that my suppliers decided to stop deliveries for a couple of weeks.
I can see the logic behind this, I worked in the kitchen retail industry and not many people want their kitchen out of use over the festive period while their shiny new units are installed and I dread to think how much a kitchen fitter would charge to work over Christmas week. Consequently there’s not enough demand for goods to justify the service.
I didn’t have a problem with the idea of companies stopping deliveries for two weeks – in fact I rather liked it as it meant I was able to take a couple of weeks off myself. The problem was you could almost guarantee that as the last delivery of kitchen units came off the lorry and was checked off there would be one stray door which had inadvertently been dropped off at the wrong end of the country.
It then fell to me to deal with an irate customer on the other end of the line who didn’t particularly want to hear there was no chance of their kitchen being finished in time for Santa and his reindeers to admire it as they pass through on Christmas day.
Fortunately I never had any problems with my kitchen appliance suppliers. Fridges, freezers and, most importantly, ovens always arrived on schedule – especially before Christmas. Quite a relief as I didn’t want to be informing a customer they would have to wait a year to test out the ‘Christmas turkey’ setting on their new multi-function multi-gadget oven. In case this ever did happen I had a speech prepared on the values of eating out with the family and taking the pressure of the cook on Christmas day. I have my doubts as to whether this approach would have had the desired effect but thankfully I never had to find out.
So I guess all that remains this month is to wish you all a merry Christmas and I hope Father Christmas brings you all the gifts you want – especially if it’s a kitchen door you’re after.
The Warehouse Insider
To read more comments from warehouse & logistics news go to www.warehousenews.co.uk
Comments are closed.