Mismates

Mismates will one day be the death of me. Seriously. They are that bad and the worst part of my job. What's a mismate you ask? Glad you did, because you are gonna hear about it anyway.

Clothing vendors and retail stores love to sell clothing sets. You remember buying those cute little baby outfits that come with both the top and bottoms for one low price? Well, you can find those sets in almost any part of a clothing store, and unless you are a perfect size top and bottom, not everyone can wear the same sizes from head to toe. The only time that actually works is when a child is under 6 months old or it applies to your pair of shoes. After that, something grows faster than the other parts, and the sets just don't work.

Our rules at the checkout is that both have to be the same size in order for you to purchase the set, and believe me, they will try. There is a VERY logical reasoning behind this law. If you want to purchase that large top with the medium bottoms, what kind of set do you still have on the floor? That's right, a medium top and a large bottom (which, you may not believe, is IMPOSSIBLE to sell like that). So, in theory, if everyone does their job, we would never have mismated sets. NOT...

Some cashiers don't care, and let it go through. Or you have a store manager who is in too much of a hurry to bother to check the sizes. When this happens, my mess begins.

In the stockroom, I have a clothing rack about 4 feet long that any mismates found on the floor are stored. Again, the theory is if you have a mismate to place on the rack, first look at the rack and see if you can find the corresponding pieces, mate them up and return them to the sales floor. Again, this theory works if the sales associate cares about doing a good job, or you have a store manager that isn't in too much of a hurry and likes to help out where he can.

This rack is sorted in three sections, by date. First section is week one, second section is week two, you get the picture. Every week I take some time out of my already overscheduled day to look through this rack. First, I find one to two sets I can match up by just looking at it. Imagine if that part time associate did that! Then I take the mismated sets and head to the sales floor to try to match up the correct pair. I don't just check the original rack it was on, I check EVERY rack in that department, because remember that part-timer that doesn't give a flying feather about their job??? That's right, it could be a toddler item in the misses swim. I also have to check every piece on the clearance racks, because that is where things "hide" from the all knowing.

After 3 weeks of not finding the said mismate, I head to the office, grab an inventory scanner, and have fun. I first have to take the item completely out of inventory, scanning it to subtract it so our numbers match. Now I get to bring 2 new sku items back INTO inventory, because we are going to sell each piece individually. The price I assign is half (or thirds if it is a 3 piece set--which are more of a nightmare and could result in a whole other posting) and put a new ticket on each item. Because these new items are not meant to be sold separately, they need to go on a clearance rack, hoping they will sell. Going on a clearance rack means it will be signed "20-60% off our everyday price" so I get to ring them through inventory again, taking the value ownership to a lower price so now there will be the "original" price and a "clearance" price on the ticket.

This is bad enough, but some vendors have jumped on a new idea: selling a scarf, necklace, toy, or hat with the two piece set. So everytime there is a missing item, I have to conduct the mismate process all over again because the tag is marked "with scarf" for example. This has increased the mismate workload tremendously. (Just in case you were needing one, we do have boys t-shirts for sale with a real skateboard attached.)

Every night that part timer will clean their department. When they find a pair of shorts on the floor that belongs to a mismate, they will walk it back to the stockroom to the rack. I would think that the matching top is hanging on the rack right where those shorts are laying, but I am probably wrong in that theory. I also love the guest who has to tear into that packaged underwear to look at it (I understand it's kids underwear and you need to look at it, but it has a seal you can open and shut back up, do you really need to rip open the plastic on the top and then throw the loose pieces on the rack? Why can't you just put it back in the package?). I also want to applaud the smart one who actually pulls apart the socks that aren't in plastic, but only bundled by a strip of paper, so you can actually feel and see the socks without opening a bag. Is there a reason you need to have the pair separate from each other in order to see if one will work, or what?

I want to thank a coworker this week for taking on a huge problem. Due to the back to school season, that 4 foot rack grew into 3 racks because there just wasn't time. It was a mess, and she spent all day cleaning it up. She actually ended up with 2 racks of stuff that she could mate without even leaving the stockroom. I am now working on cleaning up the inventory of the merchandise that is older, because it needs to get on that clearance rack--next week we are having 50% off of that clearance and it's a great way to get rid of it. I am so glad that this week is almost up!