Work hours today: 48
Packages shipped: Approx 600
Work hours:175
Packages shipped: Approx 1300
The following backer levels are in the mail:
Low numbered (9-99) Tagon’s Toughs coins
Tagon’s Toughs challenge coin
Two Tagon’s Toughs Challenge coins
Officer’s Club
US NCO club are done. International NCO left to do.
We did great today, but at the end of the day there is still a lot more work to do. Next work day is on Friday.
Shipping Update Wednesday Read More »
Monday:
Work hours 40
Packages shipped: Approx 100
Tuesday:
Work hours:31
Packages shipped: Approx 500
Total so far:
Work hours:127
Packages shipped: Approx 750
The following backer levels are in the mail:
Low numbered (9-99) Tagon’s Toughs coins
Tagon’s Toughs challenge coin
Two Tagon’s Toughs Challenge coins
About 2/3 of the Officers club is packaged.
Some simple NCO club orders (7 coins only) are packaged.
Progress feels slow.
Right after lunch we finished the last of the coin set assembly and began to ship orders. It took us awhile to figure out how the assembly processes needed to go, but once we did the finished packages began to accumulate. It was only after we declared done for the day that I realized we’ve finally finished set up and are now beginning to process orders. From here out things will be more routine with fewer surprises. This is good news. I can feel the difference.
The other thing that made today worlds better: Howard came home early from Phoenix Comic Con. We’d originally planned to have him travel today, but instead changed is flight to yesterday. This meant he could spend today recovering. Buffer work will resume tomorrow along with the continuing shipping work.
It feels strange that I’m sending kids to bed because they have school in the morning, but they do. Three more days of school for them, but none of those days are routine. Tomorrow my senior gets out at 10:30 in the morning, my elementary kids have a dance festival, and my junior high kid has yearbook day. Wednesday and Thursday are similarly odd. Then they’re done. I would probably have a lot more emotional energy to spend on all of these transitions if the coin shipping wasn’t smack on top of it all.
This is what assembling sets looked like on the second day:
The first day of assembly everything was a bit more chaotic. I didn’t get a picture of what package assembly looked like because we were too busy figuring out how it needed to work. Hopefully I’ll have enough focus tomorrow to take pictures.
Today We Achieved Routine Read More »
I hold the coins in my hand. They have a solid weight and clink when the motion of my hand pushes them into each other. They are beautiful. Three months ago they were only an idea in Howard’s head, then they were an idea that other people bought into. Now my garage is full of them, imagination made real.
***
I lay awake in the dark, feeling the weight of all the coins in the garage. Each one represents a promise. I owe it to the owners of those coins to do a good job with shipping. But there was a problem. Test packages did not protect the coins the way I’d pictured. Thankfully nothing was damaged, but I must do better. So I think of the supplies on hand, I ponder what can be purchased quickly, I calculate the extra cost in work hours. Then I look at the clock, knowing that all of it will feel more possible in the morning if only I could sleep long enough to get there.
***
I look around the room at people laughing and working. They have come because I said help would be appreciated. Some of them emailed me to volunteer even before I asked. It feels strange that so many people would be glad to spend hours just to help us. I am so very grateful. This job would crush me without them. It is not only the work in their hands, they bring gifts of story and laughter. We talk as we work and the time moves, if not fast, then pleasantly.
***
“What is this coin thing you’re doing?” asks my neighbor. Once again I explain, what challenge coins are, why they are cool for Schlock Mercenary, how many people bought. As usual the look of puzzlement fades only a little, but this time I reach in my purse and pull out one of the coins. I watch my neighbor turn it over and feel the weight of it. “These are cool.” she says. Yes they are. I did not understand challenge coins myself until I had the chance to hold one.
***
“Are you going again?” asks Gleek. This past week has been one of errands and hours of me running off to places or holing up in my office. Hotpockets and Pizza are the foods of the week. I take a moment to hug my girl and I want nothing more than to just curl up on a couch and keep hugging her for a long time. Just the thought of holding still sounds like a piece of heaven. Instead I release and move to the next urgent task on the list.
***
I look around the garage at the stacks of coins and shipping supplies. Time and again I have a momentary panic because of something unexpected, but it turns out to be fine because I planned well a month ago and left room for error. This is really going to work.
***
I stand on the steps of my garage and stare at the piles of boxes. So much work to do. So many chances to mess things up. I’m sure that it is not possible and I will fail.
***
Janci and I sit on couches after the helpers have left. We deconstruct how the day’s work went and how the next work session needs to go. Then we just sit for a few minutes, still talking even though the business is already discussed. Sitting still feels really good.
***
I am losing track of things. Mostly they are small things, a backpack left in the car that the teenager drove to school, an email that I read but failed to answer, a task that lingers on my list because I keep forgetting. There was one task that I stared at for five minutes because the note made no sense to me even though I knew I’d been the one to write it. I drop things more often. I make small mistakes. I’m assigning checking orders to someone else because my brain is beginning to gloss over details and details are what need to be noticed. I need to sleep more. I need to worry less. It will all be fine, but the quantity of things to do is oppressive. I rather suspect that when I depart for the writer’s retreat I will spend all of my days there just staring at nothing, content to be still for the first time in months.
***
Work count has not changed. Saturday was spent doing house and kid things. Sunday is not a work day. Work resumes tomorrow morning.
These Are Pieces of My Coin Shipping Experience Read More »
Schlock Mercenary book release shippings usually have 1200 to 1500 packages. So when the quantity of coin packages racked up beyond those number, I knew this would be the biggest shipping job yet. We topped out at just under 3000 orders, so I thought the job would take about twice as long. I forgot about the force multipliers. Book release packages average three items. The average for coin packages is eleven items. My job isn’t twice as complex it is some other multiple which takes into account the difference between three and eleven. My brain is too tired to math it. On our test day Janci and I timed ourselves assembling sets. We figured the man hours and decided we’d be able to get all the sets assembled in one day. Instead we had six people working for five hours, we got half of them made. So Monday will be yet another set assembly day.
All of those coins are sitting in my garage. Two file boxes of invoices are sitting in my office. I will feel much more at ease when both start flowing out and into the world where they belong. Next week is going to be long.
Total work hours spent so far on shipping coins: 56
Total packages sent to customers: approx 120
By the end of next week I want to improve those ratios.
Coin Set Assembly Day #1 Read More »
Actual thought process this evening:
As soon as I finish packing these orders for pick up, I need to clear the table because tomorrow is Friday and I’ve got volunteers coming at 9:30 to assemble sets. Goodness, it’s 10:30 pm and the kids are still playing computer games, but that is okay because today is Friday and they can sleep late tomorrow.
I’m trying to hold all the events in my head simultaneously. It isn’t quite working, which is why I am constantly checking my calendars and to-do lists to remember where I am in the endless list of things and which things need to come next. Also, I’ve arranged for there to be other people around to double check me. This is good because I make mistakes. Janci shows up to help with shipping and makes it all more organized. She solves problems I haven’t thought of yet. I’m also quite grateful to my past self who was smart enough to know that I would be frazzled and dumb right now. Redundant systems are actually useful when I can’t keep track of which day I’m in.
Thursday. This is Thursday because I dropped Howard and the airport first thing then raced back to the Elementary school for Gleek’s 6th grade graduation. She got to walk in a line and wear a paper hat. The principal shook their hands and the whole leaving Elementary school got a little bit real. Kiki also had a leaving school getting real type of day. She cleaned out her drawer in the art room. It was a little space at the school that has been hers for three years. Next year it will belong to someone else.
In the afternoon there was an orthodontic appointment and Kiki opting out of going to an awards night to go to a play with a friend. Good call on her part. Then I sat down for the first shipping work of the day, managing some special orders and the orders for local pick up. I spent four hours splitting my time between providing food for kids and packing coins.
Tomorrow the assembly work begins. Also: Helping Patch throw together a book report before school. Making sure the mummified chicken goes to school. Delivering art to CONduit in SLC and picking up art from the Covey Center from a show that is complete. And Delivering orders for pick up to Dragon’s Keep. There is probably something else too. I’d better go check my calendar.
Wait, Which Day is This? Read More »
If you are local and would like to help with assembling and shipping challenge coin orders, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com. If you’ve already emailed and I responded no need to do it again. If you can only come for part of a day, we’ll take whatever we can get. We’d dearly love to be able to get the majority of the coins shipped by the end of May.
EDIT: All current volunteer slots are full. Thank you! once again I’m blown away by how wonderful and willing to help you all are. There are likely to be additional times to volunteer during the first week of June, this is a huge project.
Volunteers acquired Friday May 24 9:30 am – 1:00ish
Volunteers acquired Tuesday May 28 11:30 am – 4:30pm
Volunteers acquired needed Wednesday May 29 9:30 am – 2:00pm
Volunteers acquired Friday May 31 9:30 am – 2:00pm
I’ll update the volunteers needed numbers as slots are filled. You will earn our gratitude, gifts of merchandise, and food is provided.
Shipping Volunteers Read More »
Yesterday the coins showed up as a big pile of boxes. I also had shipping supplies stacked in various corners of my house. Today Janci and I sorted through all of it and set up the garage to be a warehouse for shipping coins. We assembled the first 100 sets of coins and packaged up the first 100 orders. This test of the process gave us time to figure out a dozen small things, like we need two glue dots per coin instead of one. Which means I had to place an order for six more rolls of glue dots. We also realized that the Maxim 11 key drop does not come with a ring. We ordered those express shipped because it really doesn’t seem fair to sell key chains without rings on them. We’ll draw the line at actually attaching the ring. It only takes a minute to do one, but doing a thousand would seriously crimp the mirth around here. There were half a dozen other problem spots that we identified and resolved. It took us six hours of work to set everything up and test it all. But now we have a process and it works. I’m sitting right next to 100 packages of coins which will go out with tomorrow’s mail. On Friday we start assembly lining this project.
My garage turned coin shipping warehouse, not pictured are a row of four more coin types:
Testing Coin Shipping Processes Read More »
Today Janci and I spent four hours organizing the work spaces, sorting invoices, and generally cleaning up so that coin shipping could proceed. This flurry of activity was triggered by the UPS packing tracking stating that the coins were out for delivery. And they were. My garage is full of coins. I spent an hour sorting to pull out samples of all the types of coins. They had to be inspected. Later this evening I spent another 90 minutes making sure all the addresses were in order and everything is cleared for test shipping tomorrow. That will be the day when Janci and I start putting packages together and trying to figure out how everything works.
Total coin shipping work hours today: 10.5
The coins are gorgeous. Holding them makes me very happy. I would be more eloquent about that if I were not so very tired.
Last week I did a series of tweets talking about going through Body Politic and finding a hundred errors, fixing them, then finding thirty more, fixing those, and finding another dozen. It was an excellent example of iterative publishing. I ended the series by saying that even with all our attention beforehand, we always find mistakes in the finished books. How many? Well take a look at Tub of Happiness to the left. I’ve identified over a dozen things that I want to fix before it heads out for its second printing. That printing is imminent, so if there is a typo or other error in Tub of Happiness that has been driving you crazy, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com with the error and page number. I may already know about it, but you just might be saving me from holding yet another printed book and finding a mistake in it.
Preparing for the Tub of Happiness Reprint Read More »