insider_imageThe Sunday Times’ Rich List came out a couple of months ago and I was interested to see one of my former bosses in the list.

I worked for him for a short time, he had a very successful business selling electrical goods online and I worked in the warehouse, organising the stock and preparing orders for dispatch.

Although it wasn’t an official title I was the most senior member of warehouse staff.

The warehouse was any man’s paradise with ipods, apple laptops, widescreen televisions, surround sound systems; any electrical gadget you can name was in there.

If I learnt anything from the job it was that however successful a businessman is, they should leave the warehousing to those who know what they’re doing. I learnt this during my last day working there.

I had already made the decision to change jobs and only had two hours of my final day left.

When somebody came down into the warehouse and told me we were moving all of the small items of stock upstairs into a spare office I thought it was a wind up. That was until a few minutes later when every male worker in the offices descended on the warehouse to carry out that very task.

A couple of hours later the stock which had been neatly organised for easy picking was now crammed into a small office with boxes piled on top of boxes to the point that you could barely open the door to get in there.

The reason for this madness? Apparently the boss had been checking through the stock list and noticed one ipod was missing, flipped, and initiated the craziness that went on in those final two hours.

Buoyed by the fact I was leaving anyway, I went into his office and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of the decision he had just made and that if I hadn’t been leaving anyway I wouldn’t be prepared to stick around searching for stock in what had now become a hideous excuse for a storeroom.

I was told in no uncertain terms that I knew nothing about running a successful company, I responded by telling him he knew nothing about running a warehouse and I left on fairly uncomfortable terms.

We have since patched up our differences but I still take with me to this day that running a warehouse should be left to those who know about warehousing – I’ve also learnt that running a warehouse get’s you nowhere close to the Sunday Times Rich List.

Warehouse & Logistics News

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