The scenario is this, some guy at head office had been informed that one of the shirts on the website had the wrong picture. It was showing as a white shirt but the ordering code behind it related back to a blue shirt. So when customers were placing orders against a particular white shirt what was actually getting sent out was a blue shirt. Completely not what the customer ordered.

Worst part about it was these shirts can be customised to the customers needs. Quite a few of these shirts had been sent to be altered and then shipped out to the customer. Its only when they arrived back saying not what we ordered did we figure out that picture on the website is completely wrong.

What happened next is what interested me. The guys who work on the website even though they knew about this issue over a week ago, couldn’t ‘do anything to fix it’ in a reasonable amount of time. So I was asked to put a block on these shirts via our system. For me it was a case of 30 mins of work. I could have updated the site myself in 5 mins if I had the access.

I went to inform some of the staff in the department. An older lady who has been with the company for many many years nearing her retirement, she had been swapping the shirts for the correct ones.

I said no you guys can’t just swap the shirts, as the orders are coming in for blue shirts.
“No, the customer ordered white shirts.” She said to me.
I corrected her, “No the customer thinks they are ordering white shirts but they are in fact ordering blue shirts”.

I explained that changing the shirts from the actual ordered ruins the stock levels and also its not traceable what actually happened, the system won’t be showing we sent out white shirts but blue shirts. Which is the correct line.

“I just think that’s ludicrous, when we have plenty of white shirts we can send them.” She retaliated.

I explained a little that head office need accountability of each line of shirt so they know how well they are selling and how much profit they are making from it. Also if someone is sending out something else instead of what the system is saying it will throw their profit figures out for styles of shirts.

And then I took a moment as it struck me that if you’re not sending the item the customer wants, you’re not getting any money. Which makes profits per style completely pointless. Its then it struck me how inflexible and stupid the setup and system actually is.

Anyway I put a block on the shirts so they automatically get removed from the website. I have seen them in the past take months to correct very simple issues. However if I had a say, the web team would be the first to go, replacing her with this old lady who actually understands more how systems should be run.