you can't make this up

My job is to make sure we have just enough books to sell. But not too many. Because god knows I can predict what four year old children will want to buy over the next six months. Who doesn't?

That is the basic job. But really I am a traffic cop. Look for problems, move slow traffic to the side of the road, make sure all the breakdowns get towed to the appropriate garage.

Today? We got a complaint from a customer (being a chain of booksellers) that a carton of books was received that smelled badly, like petroleum products.

So as part of my job, I had to email a guy to walk into a building the size of a football stadium to go smell about 120 cartons of books.

Smell them.

As ridiculous as I felt in asking, what warms the heart was his reply.

"A spot check was performed and all the stock smelled wonderful!!!"

Dude. I do not tire of telling this story. I had to ask someone to go smell books. As part of their (and my) daily job.

Awesome.



On a side note, for all of my ruminations about my employees, of course they performed in ultra stellar mode today. Which was a pleasant relief. The key I think to surviving this holiday season will be me delegating appropriately, and not assuming too much of myself and too little of them. Game on.