A Day in the Life of a Warehouse Manager

By Jay

One of my coworkers recently described me as “the infrastructure that holds the company together.” While I don’t think that’s entirely true — every person on the team plays a vital role in the day-to-day operations of Atlantic ­— I do like to think that what I do everyday keeps the company running at top efficiency.

My job is exactly what it sounds like — I manage the warehouse. This means that I handle everything having to do with the physical book once it’s printed and shipped to us. When I receive the books from our printer, I first ensure that the quality is up to our high standards. Then I box all of the books correctly, and organize and stack them according to the location numbers printed on the back of each book. I sticker each box so that the books inside can easily be found in the future.

When someone purchases one of our books and I receive the order invoice, I package the book up and make sure it gets shipped to the correct place. If a return comes in, I make sure that the book ends up back in its proper warehouse location. And occasionally, if the editorial team has to go through the arduous task of reassigning barcodes for a certain book, I help them to sticker every copy of the book with a new barcode (trust me, reassigning barcodes is a hefty task that requires everyone’s cooperation).

Managing the warehouse may not sound like much, but if I didn’t do this, none of our books would ever be distributed (a true nightmare for any publishing company). I feel good knowing that my job is integral to the operation of the company.