O is For...

Oy Vey.

One of the stranger parts of my job is to observe inventory counts at various clients. It's one of the few tasks I have that forces me out of the audit room and in to the field. For those of you [lucky] folks who have never had to experience an inventory, let me break it down for you. Counts take places in a variety of places at various times, depending on the client's business. I've done inventories in lumber yards, department stores, warehouses, gigantic milk coolers and an avacado freezer with start times ranging from midnight on New Year's eve to 6 am on a Sunday. What I'm counting changes, but the process is pretty much always the same. I show up at whatever ungodly time they tell me to, count 25 areas, make sure my counts agree to theirs and then get the hell out of there so I can go home and document said counts in a unnecessarily large number of documents. It's thrilling, let me tell you. But on a positive note, occassionally inventories take me to exotic places like San Diego.

...Or so I thought.

A couple week ago I was told I'd be doing a count of a luxury retail store in San Diego. Being that San Diego is basically my favorite city in America, I was pretty darn excited about this. Today I got the store's address so I could book my flight and hotel for the weekend. It didn't take long for Google maps to bring my excitement level down a notch. The store I will be counting is located in San Ysidro. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of San Diego, let me put it this way: from the store I could literally walk a quarter-mile south and be standing in Tijuana [i.e. Mexico]. My search for hotels only confirmed the proximity to Mexico as my travel agent website was giving me options in pesos. And if that wasn't enough, the classiest hotel in a 10 mile radius was the Knights Inn at a rate of 495 pesos a night [conversion: $42]. Ummm yeah...no thanks. After some additional searching, I found myself a lovely Marriott [whose rate was in USD mind you] on Coronado Island, a nice 30 minute drive north. As a little drive in the middle of the night sounded a hell of a lot safer than a motel near the border, I opted for that one. The hotel crisis may have been averted, but there's still the concern that store employees will not speak English and since they have no idea I'm coming, I'm sure that's going to work out fantastically. Necesito contar veinticinco areas? Like I said, oy vey.

But hey, at least I'll get to hang out on the beach some before my flight right? *Fingers crossed that works out*