There’s a Bunch of Stuff to Keep Track of…
Inventory! Not necessarily the sexiest or most glamorous part of the live audio business, but definitely the lifeblood of what we do. As well as pro-viding income, our equipment defines us professionally. The equipment we stock as audio providers draws to us a certain clientele who, once happy with the product, will hopefully return to us time and again looking to repeat past successes. As our companies branch out and expand, we may sell or dispose of old equipment, while updating and replenishing our inventory with the hope of adding new clients to our roster. Certain companies cater to nonmusical corporate events, while others accommodate concert venues. Whether one has a warehouse filled with all the latest gear, or just a small DJ rig stored in the back of a van, it is still inventory that needs to be taken into account.
Lost, broken and misplaced gear is always a problem no matter how large or small it may be. The deficit cuts into our profit (which to begin with is not marginally that high) and also makes for more work, or possibly the loss thereof. Regardless of size, all companies have ways to track and ac-count for their equipment. Whether by a simple hand count, store numbers or bar codes, we all have load sheets and/or computer programs that help us track and account for our equipment. Whether we rent one piece or multiple pieces of equipment, it is imperative that we can provide a paper or digital trail leading to said equipment. Not only do we need to know where it is, but we need to know when and how it is being returned so that it can be reserved and rented once again.
Small Does Not Equal Cheap
Small pieces of gear are the easiest to fly under the radar, and though they may be small, they are not necessarily inexpensive. Let’s say a pair of Sennheiser G2 personal monitors rent for one hundred dollars per day, and the client calls up and requests three pairs for a show. It’s a busy day in the shop upon their return, but a quick check by the Q.C. department verifies that the belt packs and transmitters are in the case. Unfortunately, someone overlooked that three generic Shure E5 earbuds went out with the order and only two were returned. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, as everything else was satisfactorily returned, but considering the replacement cost for the E5 buds cuts the gross take from the daily rental of three personal monitors in half — that is a big deal.
We factor a certain amount for loss, damage and repair into our costs just to account for such things as cables, microphone clips and microphone stands, which again by themselves don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of all things audio, but over a year’s time, if we lose 50 microphone cables, 20 clips and a few stands, it adds up. Not only does it cost for the gear to be replaced, but also there is a loss in rentals until it is restored to inventory.
Most companies I know take a deposit or a certificate of insurance against the safe return of their equipment. The credit is issued to the customer after the equipment is returned and all pieces are accounted for and verified to be in working condition. These deposits are usually waived when an audio technician is sent along with the rented gear — the assumption being that the technician is qualified and capable of keeping track of his gear. A technician who loses or damages a lot of gear is likely to lose his job as well, as he becomes more of a liability to the company than an asset.
Meanwhile, Back in Iraq…
This all said — my mind boggles at what I have recently been reading in the papers and magazines. The September issue of Rolling Stone maga-zine reports, in an article by Matt Taibbi, how our government sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq on huge wooden pallets, which was then stored in Iraqi government buildings and distributed to local contractors without any real proof of receipt. The money was earmarked to pay for rebuilding costs as well as security, labor and food, but was awarded in such wanton and random ways that approximately $8.8 billion of the $12 billion went unaccounted for.
Such businesses as KBR (a former Haliburton subsidiary), as well as an upstart security company by the name of Custer Battles and a contracting firm by the name of Parsons, received lucrative, no-bid contracts and either overcharged the government by millions or provided shoddy, if any, services. To give an idea of how much cash was available and how poorly it was accounted for, one has to imagine that out of the 366 tons of cash delivered to Iraq, 266 tons was unaccounted for.
The October issue of Vanity Fair magazine reported the same details in an article by Donald Barlett and James B. Steele. In their account, they claim that $9 billion went missing, but then again, what’s a billion between friends. Friends it is, as they report that well-connected private contrac-tors were awarded “cost-plus” contracts that ensure a 3% profit of a project’s total cost. What this means is that the more the contractor spends, the more he makes. One would think that if this type of deal is in place then it would be in the best interest of the client (in this case the U.S. federal reserve) to be even more diligent in accounting for their cash. Sadly, this was not the case. One explanation for the lack of accountability was that a good portion of the money was not ours and was indeed Iraqi assets that had been frozen in U.S. accounts from as far back as the first Gulf War. (It wasn’t ours anyway, so who cares? ) The rest was U.S. cash, which means that our taxes paid for this loss; therefore, we should care.
Another frightening aspect of this lack of accountability is that much of this cash was delivered to Iraqi contractors and may have easily ended up in enemy hands. Mark Thompson, in the September issue of Time magazine reported that along with the missing cash, there was a missing stock-pile of weapons that was sent to Iraq to arm the Iraqi army and security forces. In all, 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols have been reported miss-ing and, as reported in Mark Thompson’s article, “Officials say it’s tough to track tens of thousands of weapons in the midst of a war.” I‘m assum-ing it’s like trying to keep track of all our cables when we do sound at an arena…NOT!
You Lose WHAT?!?!
Apparently, in an unrelated incident, the Air Force lost track of a B-52 airplane that was armed with nuclear-tipped warheads ranging from 5 to 150 kilotons (just for perspective, a 15-ton warhead was dropped on Hiroshima). As reported in the New York Daily News, Sept. 7, 2007, quoting Lt. Col. Ed Thomas, “The Air Force standards are very exacting when it comes to munitions handling; the weapons were always in our custody.”
In the same paper, it was reported that in the latest federal statistics “illegal weapons are getting harder to come by, taking longer to land on New York streets and be used to commit crimes.” Apparently, in 2002 it used to take only nine years for the guns to go from a gun store to a crime scene in New York City, and now in 2007, it takes 12 years for the same trip. I’m not sure of the correlation between these articles, but maybe an extra stopover in Iraq adds four years to the trip.
At this point, I’m serious when I say I have no idea if what we are doing in Iraq is for the good or not. As much as I read or is told to me, I cannot honestly tell if, by our actions, we are stemming the tide of terrorism or creating a new, more virulent society, but I do believe we need to account for not only the money spent, but our actions as well. I also know that if we, as audio providers, managed to lose three quarters of our inventory every time we sent out an order, we wouldn’t be in business for too long.
Maybe bar codes would help keep track of the errant cash or maybe more troops, but at this point, we have lost not only $8 billion, but we have also lost more than 3,500 troops in our efforts to stem the tide of evil. I would hate to think that we are wasting the lives of our young men and women to line the pockets of the connected few, as it doesn’t seem to be the best way of deploying our most valuable inventory.
E-mail Baker at blee@fohonline.com.
