In business, just as in life, things come in waves. After the relative quiet of the usual post-Christmas lull, business has sharply increased at Spicer Towers with March seeing a veritable frenzy of warehouse and office activity. A large fulfilment job suddenly landed, requiring thousands of envelopes to be packed, labelled and sent to America and Europe. On top of this, hundreds of boxes needed to be assembled with many components having to be added in a particular order. These then needed to be packed into larger boxes; stacked, labelled and dispatched.
A good deal of organisation was required, with a mini-production line created in one of the warehouses to ensure quick and precise assemblage. But before this, space also had to be made. Because of the urgency of the job, some staff had to put certain jobs on hold as they threw themselves into a stationary whirl; office-space getting rapidly squeezed out by piles of envelopes, labels and boxes. Whilst the job needed careful administration, the work itself was mechanical and repetitive. Add to this a rapidly-looming deadline and things were looking daunting at times.
But Team Spicer, as they so often do when the chit hits the fan, pulled together in fine style to bring about a feat of collaboration and joined-up thinking. Tasks were prioritised, flexible outlooks came further to the fore and good humour prevailed. As boxes were stacked, carried into the warehouse and prepared for delivery, Spicer life continued unabated, albeit with considerably less wiggle room.
And who said that manual labour was unedifying? Thanks to Google, a map of the USA was brought up. And as the address labels kept raining down, we stimulated ourselves by guessing which states were located where. So let it be known, should there be any doubters, that we truly know our Harrisburgs from our Elbas (Pennsylvania and Alabama, natch).
Downstairs, our warehouse dynamo Ilian was a font of generosity as we picked and packed and stuck and stacked. Normally the purveyor of a questionable line in Bulgarian pop/trance/grime, he generously allowed us interlopers to listen to our own playlists with abandon. His perplexity at my somewhat ‘classic’ tastes were replaced by our bemusement at his inability to recognise any Beatles tunes. After an anonymous tip-off, the culture police will be visiting him soon.
So the job was completed and dispatched on time, leaving happy clients and relieved staff, who, in spite of their minor RSIs, were curiously phased by the sudden absence of stationary stacks. But they needn’t fret: the good news is that on the back of this job there’ll be plenty more where that came from!
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