created by Howard Tayler and Alan Bahr, and set in the universe of SCHLOCK MERCENARY
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Shipping Update #5
over 6 years ago
– Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 12:38:00 AM
Greetings Backers,
This is Sandra checking in for the promised update during the week of August 7-12. Not much shipping will happen between this week and next since this week is frantic GenCon prep and next week is GenCon.
I return home from GenCon August 21. My kids start school August 22. On August 23 I will begin sorting and figuring out how to logically proceed with both completing this shipping and the Handbrain shipping.
I will post a shipping update sometime between August 23-26 once I've figured out my plan of action.
Thank you all for your patience and support.
Sandra Tayler
Shipping Update #4
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 08:10:53 PM
Greetings Backers,
This is your Fourth shipping update. The next update will come during the week of August 7-12 when Sandra pauses for a week at home mid travels.
Short version
About 300 packages into the mail this week, 1037 packages to go. 467 of those are International, 518 are combined with handbrains. In the mail are:
High Admirals: 10/10
Rear Admirals: 10/10
GenCon Field Marshals: 4/4
Retailers: 11/13
Commodore: 582/757
Company Commander: 1492/2302
Sergeant In Motion: 246/286
Seventy Maxims with Air Drop: 389/398
Seventy Maxims only: 1006/1024
Air Dropped Grunt: 250/256
Forward Observer: 225/234
Pre-Order 717/736
All US packages that do not contain handbrains were in the mail as of 7/20/17.
The remaining packages fall into the following categories:
International Orders: I pushed hard to get more of these done. I've begun to find ways to optimize the process, unfortunately my ten days of travel begin next Wednesday and I'm not certain how many more I'll be able to get into the mail between now and Wednesday, but I'll try to do some. If you have an urgent need for your package to be mailed in the next four days, email [email protected] by Sunday and I'll pull yours to the front of the line.(467 Packages)
Orders with handbrains: The handbrains are being manufactured as I type this. I expect them to arrive around July 28. Shipping on these packages will begin as soon as I return from my travels on August 22. If you want to uncombine your handbrain order from your Planet Mercenary order so that you can get your Planet Mercenary stuff more quickly, email [email protected]. But do so quickly. The last day to request uncombining your hadbrain from your Planet Mercenary order is Sunday 7/23. (518 Packages)
Unanswered surveys: 55 people have not yet answered their Backerkit survey. I can't mail your package to you if I don't have your address. (55 Packages)
Longer version
The shipping went much more slowly this week, the process for mixed contents and international packages meant I couldn't do big shipping days. Though I may have figured out how to make that work when I return from my travels.
Friday 7/14: I crashed this day and got nothing useful done on either shipping or family tasks. Mental health days have to happen sometimes.
Saturday 7/15: This was our last big shipping day with a crew of six people. We made base packages so that the mixed contents could be added then the package sealed, labeled, and sent.
This was the day when I realized that I'd run out of the sticker pouches I need for international packages. I noticed I was running low a week ago and I thought that I'd re-ordered them, but when I opened the box that I thought was pouches, it turned out to be plastic bags that I purchased for a different reason. I'd conflated the two purchases in my head. So I had to order the sticker pouches with rush shipping so that I wouldn't lose the whole week of international shipping.
Sunday 7/16: Day of rest and family things
Monday 7/17: I began with answering customer support emails. There were reports of items missing from packages, so I had to re-print their invoices and put them in the queue for re-shipping. There were requests to uncombine that I needed to process. There were reports of items damaged in shipping, so I needed to send out replacements. And then there were other concerns, questions etc. A massive shipping like this always generates a lot of email to manage. Then I processed regular store items.
I also collected a small pile of returned packages from the post office. Once I've got all the first set of packages sent out, I'll need to email these folks and acquire accurate addresses from them. I'll probably be chasing down some orders for the next several months.
One of the things that has been fun is having my helpers comment on a name and me answering "Oh that's the person who sends us cookies every Christmas." or "That's the person whose post office used to mangle their packages so badly that I had to start sending via UPS instead." or "That's my GenCon booth captain." So many of your names are familiar to me now, even if I don't have a story to attach. Thank you for supporting us over and over again.
With all the administrivia out of the way, I went to the warehouse and created packages until I ran out of packing paper. (Remember we had to stop early last Thurs because of no boxes and low quantities of packing paper.) When I returned from the warehouse, the packing paper was sitting on the porch, so I ran a load of packing paper and boxes over to the warehouse so it would be ready for Tuesday.
Tuesday 7/18: I went to the warehouse solo and created 160 packages then hauled them to the post office. I prepared some customs forms for International packages. And I managed quality control on the handbrains via text message. The manufacturing run was approved and that work began. I also did an abbreviated version of my weekly accounting. It didn't happen on Friday because of my complete brain fry. So I did enough to make sure that the credit card had space on it for postage I needed to print.
Wednesday 7/19: I went to the warehouse solo and sent out 80 international packages. I hauled more boxes and shipping supplies over to the warehouse. This is what it looks like with a combined pile of outgoing packages and incoming shipping supplies sitting in my front room.
Then I sat down to prepare more customs forms for the next day's shipping.
Thursday 7/20: I spent time answering customer support emails, preparing customs forms, printing postage, and then I went to the warehouse and made packages. After that I came home to write up this post.
Between now and next Wednesday: See if I can get another pile of international packages into the mail, rearrange the warehouse so there is floor space for 6-8 pallets of handbrains that will arrive while I'm out of town, ship all the uncombined orders, prep house and family for my absence, pack for an international trip, and write a bajillion notes about the current status of shipping. The notes are because, in order to give my full attention to the writing conference that is paying to have me teach, I have to completely disengage from all shipping thoughts. The notes will help me re-engage those thoughts when I return. And the notes are a little bit because my anxiety wants someone else to be able to pick up and finish the shipping task should something happen to me on this trip. No one but me will understand what is happening in this filebox unless I leave instructions.
File box contains: special handling, all the uncombined orders because I keep track of them on paper once the order is marked shipped in Backerkit, all the packing lists for the not-combined handbrain orders. Stacks of packing slips for people who said they wanted to combine their orders, but never answered my email about how to apply their shipping credit, and packing slips for international orders for which I've not yet created customs forms. This box is crazy complicated and I really look forward to emptying it out come August when I have a clear schedule and handbrain screens to ship.
I usually do not run a file box this complicated. Originally everything was going to be neatly handled with Backerkit. But then we decided to make two versions of the Seventy Maxims books and I had to ask each backer which version they wanted. That generated some paper to track. When Seventy Maxims books began to ship, some people wanted to split their orders so that created additional papers to track. Then we ran the Handbrain Kickstarter, which generated a piece of paper for each backer because I wasn't using Backerkit at all. But then when backers chose to combine, five hundred pieces of paper went away as I entered the data into Backerkit.
Every order I send out is one I don't have to track any more. So I'll reiterate: I am going to be so glad when I have a clear schedule and handbrain screens to ship.
Next update will happen sometime during the week of August 7-12.
Shipping Update #3
almost 7 years ago
– Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 01:51:26 AM
Greetings Backers,
This is your Third shipping update. Sandra will be trying to send them out weekly on Fridays.
Backers in Sergeant in Motion level, If your package arrived without a deck of cards, email [email protected]. Sandra will mail one to you.
Short version
About 800 packages into the mail this week, 1318 packages to go. In the mail are:
High Admirals: 10/10
Rear Admirals: 10/10
GenCon Field Marshals: 4/4
Retailers: 11/13
Commodore: 459/757
Company Commander: 1438/2302
Sergeant In Motion: 173/286
Seventy Maxims with Air Drop: 385/398
Seventy Maxims only: 997/1024
Air Dropped Grunt: 248/256
Forward Observer: 216/234
Pre-Order 663/736
The remaining packages fall into the following categories:
Mixed contents: These contain an added item or two (or ten) that requires a person to double check and make sure all the correct contents are in the box. They can't be assembly-lined. We're prepping stacks of boxes so that these can go out quickly on Monday/Tues. (208 Packages)
International Orders: With the vast majority of other packages in the mail, getting these out will be a priority next week. (583 Packages)
Unanswered surveys: 56 people have not yet answered their Backerkit survey. I can't mail your package to you if I don't have your address. (56 Packages)
Longer version
This week we started doing smaller lists where we only had 10-100 identical orders instead of 200-400. This slows things down a bit, but we still got 800 packages into the mail.
Friday 7/7: First order of the day was posting the shipping update. This required a read through and some quick corrections. Accounting was a longer process this week because the beginning of July means the beginning of a new quarter. There are a bunch of reports and payments that come due at the beginning of each quarter.
The unpleasant news of this day was that the handbrain manufacturing was delayed. I'd expected to begin shipping the week of July 17-21 and instead that week will be spent on manufacturing instead. We decided the only fair thing to do would be to update all the hanbrain backers and let them know that if they want their Planet Mercenary stuff faster, we'll be happy to uncombine their orders.
Saturday 7/8: I spent an hour or more assembling pouches for Tuesday's shipping. We needed 250 more than I had on hand. I also worked on shipping some international packages and some orders that came in via our store. We can't put regular store operations on hold because of Kickstarter shipping.
The largest part of the work this day was printing packing lists and organizing them for postage printing. The Backerkit software lets me sort for contents very easily, so I'm able to create a list (called a segment) that is Company Commander, shipping to US, doesn't contain a handbrain, and has RiPP tokens. This is how I generate those big lists with identical contents. Unfortunately BackerKit has one field for name and my postage program expects first and last names to be separate. The postage program is pretty good about guessing what is the first name and what is the last, so that's nice. However, my postage program automatically alphabetizes by last name, which Backerkit is not set up to do. So once I print a segment, I have to sit down and sort papers by hand. I double check the contents to make sure that everything is as it should be. This check is important because sometimes I make mistakes in creating a segment and end up with orders that can't be sent in this batch. Then I alphabetize by last name.
Each list gets a yellow note on the front telling me what the list is and what should go into the boxes.
When we begin working on the list, I pull that note off and put it in a pile to take home. I then compare the pile of notes with my records to make sure that everything matches up and I've got the correct segments marked as shipped.
With the lists for Tuesday sorted, I sat down and create segments for Thursday. Then I sent the 48 hour notice emails to these folks. The lists for Thursday are all "odds & ends", which means orders with mixed contents. Those require more attention than orders with identical contents.
Sunday 7/9: Day of rest and family things.
Monday 7/10: I appear to have misplaced my specific notes for this day or I forgot to take them. It is a sign of my fatigue that my brain begins to lose track of small details and the days begin to blur together. I know I spent several hours at the warehouse. I'm sure I packaged up some things to mail. I finished assembling pouches. The largest work of the day was printing postage for the next day's shipping. We use stamps.com to create our labels. I import lists, and print out labels. My printer sometimes complains a bit about feeding the label stickers, so I have to babysit the entire process. But my printer is a good work horse and gets the job done.
Tuesday 7/11: We begin running the shorter lists. My crew now knows their jobs well enough that they can handle this with ease. However every time we change lists we have to pause and reconfigure. One list required Signed Planet Mercenary, Signed Seventy Maxims, and pouches with no RiPP tokens. The next list required Signed Planet Mercenary, Pristine Seventy Maxims and pouches with no RiPP tokens. So we paused and put away all the signed Seventy Maxims books. They have to be cleared completely out of the work space, otherwise when the assembly line starts running again we risk putting in the wrong type of book. The next list had regular unsigned Planet Mercenary, Pristine Seventy Maxims, and pouches with RiPP tokens. So we had to swap out all of the Planet Mercenary books and all of the pouches.
The mishap for the day happened when we began packing Sergeant in Motion orders. The list only had the Planet Mercenary book and nothing else. Since it was a simpler list, I sent a couple of the helpers to take a load to the post office. I do not think it is coincidence that most of the mishaps occur when someone is making a post office run. Having one (or more) person gone means everyone else has to cover more work and the opportunities for error increase. This time it was my mistake. I forgot that "Only Planet Mercenary" meant a Planet Mercenary book and a deck of cards. We were in last names beginning with H when I remembered. So we halted the line, retrieved all the boxes with last names A-H, re-opened them and put in the cards. I think we got them all, but if yours came without the cards, email. I'll send them to you.
When the line is working smoothly, each individual person has moments of rest. Silliness happens.
Our box stacker decided to construct a throne for himself.
Wednesday 7/12: I started the morning working through some mixed contents packages. I needed to figure out how to make those efficiently. I came up with the solution of creating standard base packages but leaving them open. Then I could quickly add the extra set of dice or book that belonged in the package. I knew that creating base packages would be part of the work of Thursday.
This day also included printing the lists for Thursday, sorting the lists for Thursday, then printing the postage for Thursday. Because I spent the morning figuring out the base package plan, it simplified my sorting since at least half of what I was sorting was mixed contents packages.
Thursday 7/13: We were down a crew member this day, having only six people. Fortunately many of the packages had simpler contents since they were from Sergeant in Motion, Air Dropped Grunt, Forward Observer, and Pre-Order levels. I'd intended to finish up the lists of identical contents, and then begin stacking up base packages. Unfortunately the order I'd placed for additional boxes was arriving a day late. This is one of the disadvantages of having shipping days only one day apart. When I counted boxes on Tues, I realized I needed more for Thursday and ordered them, but they didn't arrive until after we were done shipping for the day. The crew and I discussed it and agreed that they would come in on Saturday to make the base packages that we couldn't make today.
We're really starting to see a difference in the warehouse. Space is beginning to open up. You can compare photos take on the day the books were delivered and Thursday.
That delivery day photo doesn't show the additional three pallets that were added to the end on the next day. So five full pallets of books have been moved from my warehouse into backers' hands. Next week we might need to make a run to the dump with our accumulated garbage.
We're sorting paper, cardboard, and other recyclables. Mostly those garbage bags are full of things that the recycling center won't take, like food wrappers or these plastic ties that keep bundles of boxes together.
I want to take a moment and compliment my crew. Mostly they're my teenagers and my adult kids with a couple of neighborhood teens added in. They come and work hard in a warehouse that gets stuffy. I make sure to supply paychecks, snacks, and lots of water, which helps, but it is still hard work.
By the end of a shipping day we're all sweaty. Arms are tired. Backs are aching. yet they come, they laugh, they jump to help keep each station stocked. They've been fantastic and I can only imagine what a long and depressing slog this would have been for me had I tried to do this without them. So they deserve praise, and maybe a nap.
Next week: Mixed contents orders and International orders.
Shipping Update #2
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, Jul 07, 2017 at 08:08:35 PM
Greetings Backers,
This is your second shipping update. Sandra will be trying to send them out weekly on Fridays.
Short version: About 1000 packages into the mail this week, 2082 packages to go. In the mail are:
High Admirals: 6/10
Rear Admirals: 7/10
GenCon Field Marshals: 2/4
Retailers: 11/13
Commodore: 319/757
Company Commander: 1115/2302
Sergeant In Motion: 3/286
Seventy Maxims with Air Drop: 384/398
Seventy Maxims only: 984/1024
Air Dropped Grunt: 244/256
Forward Observer: 209/234
Pre-Order 637/736
Longer Version: The second week is when things really get rolling. The Fourth of July holiday affected some things, but we worked around it.
Friday 6/30: I sorted orders and selected what I planned to send out the next week. I started with Company Commander orders who hadn't added anything to their box. The assembly line works fastest when dealing with lots of identical orders. Also I knew I wanted to add a couple of people to the shipping crew, and we needed them to become accustomed to how to run their stations. Once everyone knows their job it is much easier for the team to adapt to packages with individualized contents. The goal for the next week was 1000 packages. I discovered that trying to time the "your address will be locked in 48 hours" to be 48 hours before I print postage took more effort than I'd like. Now that message will go out up to a week before I actually process the package.
The foam which was delayed last week finally arrived
I also ordered in additional packing paper, strapping tape and more boxes. They'd arrive in time for the Thursday shipping. I had everything I needed for Monday.
I finished sending some odds and ends packages left from shipping the day before. And I signed some Seventy Maxims books.
I also sat down and did my weekly accounting. Tracking all the inflows and outflows of money is an important business activity during regular times. It becomes critical when there is a huge outflow of money into shipping supplies and postage.
Saturday 7/1: I spent quite a bit of time working on processing the first batch of international packages. Because of changes in international shipping costs and requirements, I'm having to use a new system called Parcel Monkey. It cuts the cost per package dramatically, but each individual package takes around 5 minutes to process. In comparison, I can process a list of 100 US addresses in that same five minutes. Because of the tedious time requirements, I'm concerned that I'll have trouble getting all of the international packages into the mail in July. We'll see if I'm able to pick up speed as I get used to the system.
I ordered more printer toner because I had just opened my last box. Nothing brings processing invoices and postage to a complete halt like running out of toner and not having a replacement on hand. I expect to go through at least 2-3 toner cartridges during this shipping. I also ordered more printer paper, because running out of that would also be a problem. I've already got the 4000 sticker labels I'll need.
I took a couple of trips hauling foam over to the warehouse. it took up quite a bit of space. There is another stack completely hidden behind this one, and I still had another load to bring over.
I also prepped some invoices for printing. "Prepped invoices for printing" is a whole process by itself. Maybe I'll describe that in detail next week.
Sunday 7/2: Day of rest and family things. (Except because the 4th of July was going to take over Tuesday, I put shipping day on Monday. Which meant that I did have to do some work printing postage and preparing invoices. At the end I had a stack of 500 ready to go Monday morning. Toward the end of the printing, my printer started complaining it needed a new drum, so I ordered one of those. I had to put a rush on it or else it wouldn't arrive in time to print postage for Thursday. It would have been fine non-expedited if the holiday hadn't put a pause into mail delivery.)
Monday 7/3: I had a crew of seven people. We worked four and a half hours. That put 400 packages into the mail. There were a couple of mishaps. About thirty of you Company Commander backers may discover that you received a signed book instead of an unsigned one. Congratulations, your order was upgraded courtesy of a helper grabbing books from the wrong stack. The other mishap was that we ran out of paper errata sheets. I'd ordered more from a local print shop, but their printer went down and so the sheets weren't ready. I made an executive decision not to halt package assembly for pieces of paper. I had my crew on site and you're all waiting on your stuff. As stated above, if your package lacked an errata sheet you can get a PDF copy and print it yourself. Or if you want an official paper version, email [email protected] and we'll send your errata sheet to you free of charge (For US addresses, which should be everyone because I didn't send out any international packages while we were out of errata sheets.)
The process for packing standard Company Commander and Commodore packages looks like this:
Step 1 build the boxes.
Step 2 wrap book in foam, place it into bottom of box.
Step 3 put in errata sheet, then on top of that GC screen, post card, & Maxims book.
Step 4 Place invoice on top of flat items then put in pouch containing cards, pins, dice, and Planet Mercenary challenge coin.
Step 5 put packing paper around the pouch so that it is held in the middle of the box and the flat items are held down.
Step 6 Tape box closed.
Step 7 Place label on outside of the box. The boxes have to stay in a single file line between steps 4-7 so that the label which goes on the outside of the box has the same name as the invoice on the inside. The workers frequently check to make sure that everything is in order.
Step 8 Stack boxes to be hauled to the post office later.
During all this packing we're emptying boxes of books. We toss the empty boxes into a massive pile. We flatten them during the clean up time at the end. Fortunately the recycling center will take cardboard with no charge. We're going to have a lot of it when we're done.
After releasing my workers for the day I went home and checked on the status of some money transfers. The postage printing program charges to a credit card. Each time I print postage, I have to also make a payment to that credit card so that I have enough space on the card for the next postage printing. It used to be that the credit card company would shut down my card for "suspicious purchases" after I ran up several thousand dollars of postage. Finally a kind manager put some sort of note on the account which essentially said "no, they just do this postage thing sometimes. Don't shut it off." However the banking holiday on July 4th meant that I wasn't certain that payment would clear before I needed to print postage again, so I was double checking things.
I finished out the day processing some international packages. Still super tedious.
Tuesday 7/4: Howard and I signed the remaining Seventy Maxims books. This meant I had everything on hand to begin shipping Commodore packages. The print shop was closed for the holiday, so my errata sheets were still in limbo. So I printed some on my home printer, despite the fact that the printer kept blinking plaintively about needing a new drum. I home printed the errata sheets because I was packaging up some international packages and I did not want to have to mail pieces of paper internationally. I spent several hours over at the warehouse packing international orders. Then in the evening we did all the picnic/fireworks things that are traditional on the 4th of July.
Wednesday 7/5: My paper, drum, and shipping supplies arrived. Print shop's printer still getting repairs, so no errata sheets. I spent hours printing postage and prepping invoices. Keeping track of what I've sent is fairly simple, Backerkit manages that as long as I remember to mark packages as shipped. However figuring out what to send, who I've sent address correction emails to, and what I should mark as shipped, all takes a lot of thinking. My brain is pretty worn out from all the planning, so I have to write myself notes. I also take notes each day about what should go into the weekly shipping update.
I also packaged and mailed out about 100 special handling packages. It took multiple trips to haul all the supplies to Hypernode Headquarters. With the exception of mass shipments on pallets (which have delivery appointments), we always have things shipped to our house since there is always someone at home to receive the package.
This day brought our first reports of missing and damaged items. So I now have a few items to re-send. It is our policy to replace anything that is damaged in transit to you. Our experience is that 99% of packages arrive with no problems at all. But that last 1% gets seriously munched or mangled. We've heard of packages being soaked, smashed, punctured, and folded in half. (Yes really, some postal worker folded a box in half breaking the spine of a book. I don't know how they did it either. With a knee maybe.) So if you happen to be in the 1%, email [email protected]. We'll make it right.
Thursday 7/6: My day began with running over to the local print shop to pick up the finished errata sheets. I now have enough to ship all the remaining packages. I had a crew of seven people. We worked five hours, and 500 packages went into the mail.
We had two mix ups, both small, both quickly corrected. One where the invoices and labels got out of sync so we had to re-open packages and check invoices to get everything corrected. The other was where we accidentally built the larger size boxes that are for complicated orders. So we stacked those off to the side and built the correct size boxes.
It is possible that the postal workers in my local post office have opinions about how much I'm shipping lately. Every single orange bin is full of Planet Mercenary orders. In this picture are three out of the four post office runs we did during the day.
After dismissing the crew for the day, I came home to pick lists to prep for next Tuesday. I ordered in some more supplies. And then I spent a couple of hours writing up this shipping update.
Next big shipping day is scheduled for Tuesday.
Shipping Update #1
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 01:29:25 AM
Greetings Backers,
This is your first weekly shipping update. Sandra will be trying to send them out weekly on Fridays.
Short version: About 400 packages into the mail this week, 3188 packages to go. In the mail are:
High Admirals: 6/10
Rear Admirals: 7/10
GenCon Field Marshals: 2/4
Retailers: 11/13
Commodore: 37/757
Company Commander: 365/2302
Sergeant In Motion: 3/286
Seventy Maxims with Air Drop: 384/398
Seventy Maxims only: 984/1024
Air Dropped Grunt: 244/256
Forward Observer: 209/234
Pre-Order 627/736
Longer Version:
The first week of shipping includes a lot of preparatory work. Until I had books in my hands I couldn't make final decisions on exact methods of packing. Then I had to order shipping supplies in sufficient quantities to manage a big shipping day.
Saturday 6/24: This was our big signing day at the warehouse. We had a crew of six people, 800 Planet Mercenary books to triple sign and 600 Seventy Maxims books to double sign.
The quarters were tight. Two of my helpers had to climb up and traverse on top of the pallets of books when they wanted to move from one end to the other. The tight quarters showed me which books I wanted to mail out first, because creating more space to move was a priority. We got all of the Planet Mercenary books signed, but Howard's hand was hurting too much to tackle the Seventy Maxims books. He had to rest so that he'd be able to draw comics later. This re-arranged my intended plan to ship out Commodores first because Commodore orders require signed Seventy Maxims books. The Seventy Maxims books got loaded into my car and hauled home so Howard could sign them a bit at a time instead of in one big push.
Sunday 6/25: Day of rest and family things.
Monday 6/26: I sent out the first Admiral packages on this day. The first packages are always something of an experiment. I'm trying to figure out process. I had to readjust my packing plan a little bit. I also spent time on the phone trying to track down my shipment of custom-cut foam inserts and was informed that it wouldn't be arriving until Friday at the earliest (a day after my first intended shipping day.) So I hurried and ordered some standard size foam which we'd have to cut to size on site. Having the custom cut makes packing go much faster. I also put in a call to my landlord because the AC wasn't working in Hypernode Headquarters, and packing boxes in a stuffy 80 degree room is miserable. At home I spent time processing more surveys related to the Handbrain screens to make sure all of those were in order before I shipped out packages.
Tuesday 6/27: I packaged up and shipped to retailers. This was more complicated than I intended because I realized that a brick of ten books had the ability to smash ten sets of cards in transit. So the retailers each got two packages. I did a few more Admiral packages. I also processed some of the orders who requested split shipping in the Seventy Maxims surveys because those orders have been niggling at my attention and I wanted to get them handled. As I made packages I began to internalize the routines, which is necessary so I can create assembly line steps. The key to not making mistakes is to simplify each step as much as possible. I stayed at Hypernode Headquarters until the AC guy came and made the vents blow cold.
Wednesday 6/28: The UPS guy had to make two trips to deliver all the shipping supplies I'd ordered. I worked mostly on the administrivia associated with running the comic and our regular online store. A large chunk of afternoon was eaten up by helping my adult daughter navigate dealing with her first vehicular denting. (No people hurt, my car has a dented door, other guy's car was scratched.) Fortunately the car was still in shape for me to haul two loads of boxes and packing material over to Hypernode Headquarters. (900 boxes and foam rolls.)
Thursday: 6/29: a crew of five people worked three hours and forty-five minutes to send out 290 packages.
The first shipping day is always inefficient. We're still sorting out what the various jobs need to be. At the beginning I had the following jobs: foam cutting, box making, box filler, labeller, and supply runner. By the end the jobs were: box maker, fill station 1, fill station 2, labeller 1, labeller 2. And that still wasn't efficient because the fill stations could work twice as fast as the label stations. So we've got yet another configuration planned for our next shipping day. The goal is for everyone to be able to work steadily, no one to have to do much lifting, and no one to have to go crazy fast to keep up with the others.
So that is the end of the first week of shipping. Next week's shipping will be impacted by the 4th of July holiday which will affect what days mail goes out and slow down the delivery of supplies. I can't schedule the next shipping day until my foam arrives (hopefully today maybe Monday) The good news is that this foam shipment should be enough to do all of the packages, so I won't have to wait on foam again.
