I was on my way back to Iowa after returning to Indiana for the weekend. It had snowed lightly all of the way back. I was watching the snow blow across from the fields and then swirl across the highway. It was getting colder the further I went. When I arrived to go through Chicago the snow started to cake on my wipers, I then had to stop every so many miles and snap the wipers. Ice had formed on the antenna and it was waving about. The spray back from the other automobiles would cover the windshield and when I would use the washer very little would come out causing streaks. I would pull over and throw snow on the glass with the wipers going. This was ll making for a slower trip. When I finally made it back to my apartment there was a couple of inches on the ground and the snow seemed to let up and I felt relieved to had made it back safe. I set the alarm to get me up earlier for I knew that the trip might be slow to get to the office. It had snowed a small amount through the night and the city streets were still covered but the freeway was pretty cleared.
I made it to the office in time to get the coffee ready for my people and to see them off. I was surprised to see that they all showed up, but snow was a normal part of Iowa winters. I stayed at the office all day going through reports looking for the dollars that were causing our branch to lose money. I found some things that just wasn’t right. The last manager had allowed for spending to be done in a way that wasn’t right. We were allowed so many dollars each month to spend on advertising. That is that we would pay the customer what ever the cost to run our products in their ads. Some of the money was being spent right and some of the money was being used to buy down product so that it would reflect a lower end price to the customer. It was okay to do that but there was some overspending. When the past manager would get the call about overspending, the following months monies would be cut back. Giving the branch less to promote with.
What I then found was that there were credits being written for some of the accounts that were very excessive. You see writing credits for damaged or outdated product is a normal part of business and it can be more alloted for a newer branch then other existing branches. I also found that there were allowances given on every single product sold on every single invoice. That would be fine if every single item that we sold to the accounts were on sale, but, they weren’t. The salesmen were giving the promotional price just to be giving it without a reflection to the end cost. As the day wore on I got a bad headache from looking at invoices and reports. I hadn’t been outside for most of the day and I was starting to feel hungry. I decided to go to Iowa City for a quick sandwich. When I opened the door I found that several inches of snow fell. I didn’t think about going anywhere.
