The Matter of Missing Item Inspection
Once missing item inspection prevents one awkward moment, it must remain in force for the rest of the routine.
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Subject: Missing Item Inspection (MII): Status Review Finding Period: Rolling (no defined start date)
Background
A grocery delivery arrived with one item missing. The item was a container of yogurt. The absence was discovered inside the kitchen, after unpacking, approximately eight minutes after the delivery person had left. The delivery person could not be recalled. The yogurt was reordered.
Missing item inspection was added to prevent this recurrence. The inspection occurs at the door, before the bags are brought inside.
Current Form of the Inspection
The inspection involves opening each bag and confirming that items are present. Items are confirmed present by visual scan. No checklist is used. No comparison is made against the order receipt, because the order receipt is on the phone, which is inside, and carrying it to the door requires a trip that the inspection does not currently include.
The inspection therefore confirms that items exist in the bag. It does not confirm which items exist in the bag. These are different confirmations, and only one of them addresses the yogurt incident.
Findings to Date
The inspection has been performed across an estimated forty-two to sixty deliveries since the yogurt incident. No missing item has been caught by the inspection at the door. Two items were later found to be missing or substituted. Both were discovered during kitchen unpacking, using the same process that discovered the original missing yogurt.
The inspection covers items that were present. The missing item is found, later, by looking in a location the inspection does not include.
The Absurd Rule
A rule has emerged from the inspection: if the bag feels heavy enough, the inspection can be abbreviated. What constitutes sufficient heaviness has never been defined, but it is consistently recognized when reached. The heaviness rule has no documented relationship to item presence.
Preliminary Finding
The inspection will continue. No revision is recommended at this time because revising it would require admitting that it has never worked, and this review is preliminary.