Hide

Hide

v. To place a slight excess of a PRODUCT somewhere close to its regular HOLE on the SHELF, once the HOLE itself has been completely filled: “Hide up to 2 or 3 extra items—no more.” See also GO, JAM, LAY-IN, MAKE IT GO.

NOTE: Why Hide? Because it saves time and trouble. Picture it: you've filled the HOLE, except you have one or two ITEMS left over. As appropriate, do you take them back to the SPECIALS RUNNERS or BACK-STOCK them? It depends...

Generally speaking, you should not attempt to Hide big, bulky ITEMS like gi-gundo bags of dog food, or mega-canisters of laundry detergent. Neither should you try to Hide something that MOVES very slowly, like, say, a specialty imported chutney.

It's generally OK to Hide it if:

• after filling its assigned HOLE, you only have 1, 2, or at most 3 ITEMS left over
  
• it's relatively small
• it's popular, has high turn-over, and the Hidden ITEMS will soon be reunited with the rest of the STOCK in the right SPOT
  
• there's enough space either to the left or the right of its assigned HOLE
• you can't JAM the extra where it belongs

When possible, JAMMING is preferable to Hiding, because it doesn't disturb other ITEMS.

Hiding a slight excess among neighboring ITEMS to the left or right is preferable to a SPOT on another SHELF above or below because on the same SHELF it's more easily discovered and more easily corrected as ITEMS are sold, or perhaps, as NIGHT CREW does its finishing BLOCK.

It's generally better to Hide shallow, behind just a few neighboring ITEMS, and not all the way at the back of the neighboring HOLE. Remember, you want Hidden ITEMS to be restored to their proper HOLE sooner rather than later. It's bad if, say, the same size and shape of pickle jar is buried and goes undiscovered at the back of a neighboring HOLE when the ITEM'S proper HOLE has run empty. The goal is to mess up the ordering and INVENTORY control system as little as possible.