The Damndable Crew Below Decks
Every ship (and game company) has a captain (the chief game designer) to command the ship, a weapons officer (the marketing director) to deliver the ship's firepower, and a pursur (the business manager) to control the ship's money.
But they are only part of the team.
The damndable black gang below decks that keeps the engines running (that is, the warehouse crew who assemble the games and ship the orders) never get much credit, but they deserve it. Sure, you wouldn't have a product if the designer hadn't designed it, but you also wouldn't have it if the warehouse crew had not assembled the game and shipped the order.
We started the company eight years ago and Steve Petrick (an Army officer) wanted to be in charge of something, so we gave him the warehouse (much like the Irish gave the bagpipe to the Scots, and the Scots didn't realize it was a joke gift). Steve Petrick threw himself into organizing the warehouse, and continually reorganizing it as the company grew and moved into new areas. When we started, I was the only one who knew how to run a shrinkwrap machine (and only because I used to stop by the TFG warehouse and they would let me play with it; anything as fun as long as it's not your job and you don't have to do it). I showed Petrick what I knew and he quickly decided that he was going to be in charge of the machine. I had to fight him tooth and nail whenever I wanted to play "gunner" on Old Smokey, but he grudgingly allowed me to operate his primary weapon just so I'd remember how when Steve Petrick was sick. When nobody else was available, Steve Petrick had to ask me to come help, and I unconciously ended up trying to run "his" warehouse and he unconciously let me, even though I didn't know where anything was and he eventually had to tell me to shut up and follow orders, for safety reasons if nothing else.
For a few years, we had my brother working part time, but Christopher was not a gamer and sometimes put the wrong book in the wrong box. After Christopher died, Steve Petrick and I decided not to hire a replacement and just do his job in our spare time, but we didn't realize that the growing company had made this a bad idea. Too many hours that Steve Petrick and I should have been designing games went into packing games and shipping orders, not to mention the endless restacking of boxes and respotting the deck to house a growing inventory.
So we hired Mike Sparks, a college student who played games at a local store. He's been with us two years (and will be for at least one more), and has become THE warehouse guy who gets little more than a "to do list" from Steve Petrick. Mike quality checks the miniatures, packs games, ships orders, and shows a lot of initiative. He doesn't wait to be given more to do; he just sees what needs done and does it. If we're short of Module J2, he packs a few dozen. Mike was invaluable last summer when massive orders for Romulan Border had to be shipped while Steve Petrick and I drove to Origins. It was the first time in company history that "the Steves" left the building without having all of the wholesaler orders stacked on the dock, but Leanna was able to get the rest of them done with Mike's help. When Mike Sparks took a week off for final exams and Steve Petrick had to do his job (during a massive Christmas mail order surge), Steve Petrick spent most of the day in the warehouse and frequently remarked "I had no idea how big that job had become." I forced Steve Petrick to teach Mike Sparks how to shrinkwrap, and now Mike does 95% of that (and 90% of that without being told to, he can see what shelves are empty). It's Steve Petrick now who operates Old Smokey just enough to remember how, and I am no longer sure I remember how. I could probably figure it out in a few minutes if we had to shrinkwrap a dozen boxes to finish an order, but I am hoping we never have to find that out.
As we moved into the final week of 2006, Mike Sparks as Steve Petrick threw themselves into a total reorganization of the warehouse. They disassembled two of our eight major shelf racks (these are 4x8 racks ten feet high) and set them up in other places to make space for "the building" to be erected. (Steve and Mike were all ready to show me that my plan for where to put one of the racks would not work, but it had a whole half-inch to spare! They should know better than to argue with a registered engineer.) Once the building is up, we'll actually have less warehouse space (despite last spring's erection of the 24x24 foot steel mezzanine deck. (That is 7.5 meters square for you Brits.) The way we're going to make things work is to load a lot of stuff on a dozen "rolling racks" which will be rolled into one of the aisleways, turning it into a solid mass instead of an empty space. This was Leanna's idea, since she saw the rolling racks on sale and bought them for this reason. Despite it being a solid 12x16 foot parking lot of rolling racks, we can get to anything in a minute or two by just rolling the racks out into the last remaining empty spot. Mike Sparks and Steve Petrick are loading the racks in a way that when they need to pack a new product they can just get (for example) Rack #4 and have everything needed for Romulan Attack. It's funny to think that when we started the company I had to do all of the assembly of new shelf units. After the first couple of years Petrick put them together while I was "finishing something and I'll be out there in a few minutes". Now, Mike does them while Steve Petrick is "answering this Email from Tos Crawford and will be out there in a few minutes).
Steve Petrick has, for years now, had something to say about each new product, about how it's designed and built, so that the warehouse crew can effectively pack it and safely ship it. Now, Mike is also giving us this kind of input, suggesting new ways of doing things so he can get more done in the time he works.
So the next time you get a game from us, remember not just the guy who wrote it (as likely to be Steve Petrick as it is Steve Cole) but the damndable crew below decks who put it together, shrinkwrapped it, and put it in a box to get to your local store or your front porch.
But they are only part of the team.
The damndable black gang below decks that keeps the engines running (that is, the warehouse crew who assemble the games and ship the orders) never get much credit, but they deserve it. Sure, you wouldn't have a product if the designer hadn't designed it, but you also wouldn't have it if the warehouse crew had not assembled the game and shipped the order.
We started the company eight years ago and Steve Petrick (an Army officer) wanted to be in charge of something, so we gave him the warehouse (much like the Irish gave the bagpipe to the Scots, and the Scots didn't realize it was a joke gift). Steve Petrick threw himself into organizing the warehouse, and continually reorganizing it as the company grew and moved into new areas. When we started, I was the only one who knew how to run a shrinkwrap machine (and only because I used to stop by the TFG warehouse and they would let me play with it; anything as fun as long as it's not your job and you don't have to do it). I showed Petrick what I knew and he quickly decided that he was going to be in charge of the machine. I had to fight him tooth and nail whenever I wanted to play "gunner" on Old Smokey, but he grudgingly allowed me to operate his primary weapon just so I'd remember how when Steve Petrick was sick. When nobody else was available, Steve Petrick had to ask me to come help, and I unconciously ended up trying to run "his" warehouse and he unconciously let me, even though I didn't know where anything was and he eventually had to tell me to shut up and follow orders, for safety reasons if nothing else.
For a few years, we had my brother working part time, but Christopher was not a gamer and sometimes put the wrong book in the wrong box. After Christopher died, Steve Petrick and I decided not to hire a replacement and just do his job in our spare time, but we didn't realize that the growing company had made this a bad idea. Too many hours that Steve Petrick and I should have been designing games went into packing games and shipping orders, not to mention the endless restacking of boxes and respotting the deck to house a growing inventory.
So we hired Mike Sparks, a college student who played games at a local store. He's been with us two years (and will be for at least one more), and has become THE warehouse guy who gets little more than a "to do list" from Steve Petrick. Mike quality checks the miniatures, packs games, ships orders, and shows a lot of initiative. He doesn't wait to be given more to do; he just sees what needs done and does it. If we're short of Module J2, he packs a few dozen. Mike was invaluable last summer when massive orders for Romulan Border had to be shipped while Steve Petrick and I drove to Origins. It was the first time in company history that "the Steves" left the building without having all of the wholesaler orders stacked on the dock, but Leanna was able to get the rest of them done with Mike's help. When Mike Sparks took a week off for final exams and Steve Petrick had to do his job (during a massive Christmas mail order surge), Steve Petrick spent most of the day in the warehouse and frequently remarked "I had no idea how big that job had become." I forced Steve Petrick to teach Mike Sparks how to shrinkwrap, and now Mike does 95% of that (and 90% of that without being told to, he can see what shelves are empty). It's Steve Petrick now who operates Old Smokey just enough to remember how, and I am no longer sure I remember how. I could probably figure it out in a few minutes if we had to shrinkwrap a dozen boxes to finish an order, but I am hoping we never have to find that out.
As we moved into the final week of 2006, Mike Sparks as Steve Petrick threw themselves into a total reorganization of the warehouse. They disassembled two of our eight major shelf racks (these are 4x8 racks ten feet high) and set them up in other places to make space for "the building" to be erected. (Steve and Mike were all ready to show me that my plan for where to put one of the racks would not work, but it had a whole half-inch to spare! They should know better than to argue with a registered engineer.) Once the building is up, we'll actually have less warehouse space (despite last spring's erection of the 24x24 foot steel mezzanine deck. (That is 7.5 meters square for you Brits.) The way we're going to make things work is to load a lot of stuff on a dozen "rolling racks" which will be rolled into one of the aisleways, turning it into a solid mass instead of an empty space. This was Leanna's idea, since she saw the rolling racks on sale and bought them for this reason. Despite it being a solid 12x16 foot parking lot of rolling racks, we can get to anything in a minute or two by just rolling the racks out into the last remaining empty spot. Mike Sparks and Steve Petrick are loading the racks in a way that when they need to pack a new product they can just get (for example) Rack #4 and have everything needed for Romulan Attack. It's funny to think that when we started the company I had to do all of the assembly of new shelf units. After the first couple of years Petrick put them together while I was "finishing something and I'll be out there in a few minutes". Now, Mike does them while Steve Petrick is "answering this Email from Tos Crawford and will be out there in a few minutes).
Steve Petrick has, for years now, had something to say about each new product, about how it's designed and built, so that the warehouse crew can effectively pack it and safely ship it. Now, Mike is also giving us this kind of input, suggesting new ways of doing things so he can get more done in the time he works.
So the next time you get a game from us, remember not just the guy who wrote it (as likely to be Steve Petrick as it is Steve Cole) but the damndable crew below decks who put it together, shrinkwrapped it, and put it in a box to get to your local store or your front porch.
posted by Federation Commander at 11:31 AM
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