Hey, the Mets, Royals, Blue Jays, Cubs and Dodgers all win in the baseball play-offs and your shirt distributors run out of Royal Blue t-shirts for a month. Maybe Taylor Swift is seen in a video that goes viral and she is wearing a pink Dickies work shirt and you then can’t get one for three months. This stuff happens and you can’t easily predict it.

What should not happen is tank tops that run out in June, hoodies in November, or my beef today, Carhartt watch caps that I cannot get in December. Hey you can buy an orange watch cap today, but deer hunting season ends some places this month. All the other colors are sold out completely. You tell your customer that and they think you are an idiot or lying. What, you didn’t know Winter was coming?

I once couldn’t get a wholesale black Dickies Eisenhower jacket in November. This has been in style with golfers, geezers, mechanics, and hipsters since 1956. How can you ever run out of them? I mean cut your whole line back to navy work shirts and black Eisenhower jackets if you have to, but what the hell are you doing if you run out of your signature item at the most needed time? Idiotic and inexcusable.

Last year I dealt with a company out of black hoodies in November. What, you think it is better to start building inventory to stock up when the weather warms up in May?

One year I was told that a company with a fashion orientation was out of their navy tank tops til September when I needed them in June.  What, do you have a South African or Australian running your numbers and they think we are the same schedule of seasons as the other hemisphere?

I’m old enough to remember faxing in orders for next Winter, which I think was also when dinosaurs ruled the earth. However, that world is long gone and we live in a world where tomorrow isn’t soon enough, folks want things later today. So it doesn’t cut it to tell a customer they have to wait three months until winter is over to get their winter hats, or maybe better luck next year, or to have them tell you what they want for next Winter.

I’m guessing sometimes we have too many bean counters or they are counting the wrong beans. Somebody is running too many or at least the wrong algorithms. How about some common sense and make lots of your basic Winter stuff at the beginning of the Winter and here is a tip, start making those basic tank tops in large supply because around June it sometimes get hot.