And the Winning Store of the Hardware Gold Cup is...

Chaska!  With special recognition to their Department Head, John!

John has been busting his butt the past couple weeks at work.  He has done many back-to-back shifts and working late into the night to get his Hardware department ready for yesterday's walk.  This was a competition between all the Home Depot stores in the district, about 8 in total including Chaska, Eden Prairie, Brooklyn Park and Maple Grove.  Besides just cleaning and straightening up, John's main task was to make sure there were no out of stock items.  There had to be at least one of every 9,000 plus SKUs on the shelf at the time of the walk or he would lose points. 

John couldn't do anything besides laugh at all the items that they were selling through the past week.  A couple examples... There was a pocket knife that he has only sold three of since May.  However, he sold two in the past two weeks, putting him out of stock.  There is a drill that he sells .67 per week and in one day he sold two, putting him out of stock.  He did probably a dozen transfers of items from other stores in the past week and his favorite story is when he came back from a trip to Shakopee he discovered that someone had come in and bought his entire supply of bungee straps!  The walk was at 2:30 yesterday and he finished with only one out, which happened 20 minutes before the store managers arrived at the store.  After one trip to Eagan and two trips to Shakopee that morning, finishing with only one out of stock is pretty good!

His one out of stock tied him for first place with Eden Prairie.  Overall, John's department looked better, so Chaska took 1st place. 

John, I know you didn't see Megan or me much the last couple weeks, but we are super proud of you and your hard work.  You take such pride in your work and have such a sense of ownership towards your department that is hard to find in many people.  We love you!