Believe it or not there are companies who do nothing but inventory stores. I work for one. Washington Inventory Service, or WIS for short. It is by far the strangest job I've ever had, and not just because of the people, who are pretty damn weird, but because it is unlike any job I've ever had. A good day's work usually involves waking up at 4 in the morning, driving to the office, getting in a van, riding in the van while getting paid minimum wage until you get to the store. From there you get out and count using a thing that looks like a cross between a calculator and an old school Gameboy that got horribly mutated, grew a num pad, and got beaten up until it looked like the 70's. You use this along with a scanner to scan and count everything in a store. Completely mindless. Scan. Count. Scan. Count. But then the kicker. You get paid based on how fast you count. So now this completely brainless job got turned into a competitive event, where you try to count the ass off of everyone who dares count faster than you, because you want to make more money. And you can. You see, the company has a "benchmark" of how fast you're supposed to count, different to every store, or even certain sections of the store based on how difficult they are to count. They use this to determine how productive you are, based on a percent scale based on the "benchmark". The company takes daily records of this, you get an average productivity. Every three months your productivity is reviewed and you get a raise based on your average productivity for the last quarter. If you exceed 200% you can get a $5.60 raise, which turns a low paying $8.00 an hour job, into a much better $13.60 an hour job. So now you have people running around, trying to count as fast as they can, while simultaneously fucking themselves in the ass because the faster they go, the less hours they get. What a fucking scam.

But, if you think this job sounds like your kind of work, by all means apply. There are a lot of people who like it. The company has offices all around the US and Canada. I know at least the one I work at is constantly hiring, and about anyone who applies get's hired. They have flexible hours. They have night and day shift. And, you can't get fired. For some reason they never fire anyone, even if you miss like two weeks of work. It's easy and simple but there are downfalls. From October to January there isn't really any work to do, so you kind of get laid off. I just file for underemployment. It has its pluses and minuses. But I still work there, because I make $13.60 to stand around and count things.

In"ven*to*ry (?), n.; pl. Inventories (#). [L. inventarium: cf. LL. inventorium, F. inventaire, OF. also inventoire. See Invent.]

An account, catalogue, or schedule, made by an executor or administrator, of all the goods and chattels, and sometimes of the real estate, of a deceased person; a list of the property of which a person or estate is found to be possessed; hence, an itemized list of goods or valuables, with their estimated worth; specifically, the annual account of stock taken in any business.

There take an inventory of all I have. Shak.

Syn. -- List; register; schedule; catalogue. See List.

 

© Webster 1913.


In"ven*to*ry, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Inventoried (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Inventorying.] [Cf. F. inventorier.]

To make an inventory of; to make a list, catalogue, or schedule of; to insert or register in an account of goods; as, a merchant inventories his stock.

I will give out divers schedules of my beauty; it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labeled. Shak.

 

© Webster 1913.

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