The Sales Label Spiral

So Ryan—my boss here at O’Reilly Auto Parts—asked me to take on the new Welcome Center planogram for the front of the store. Cool, no problem. I pulled all the old merchandise off, got the new stock up on the shelves, and even swapped out all the price labels like a pro.

Then came the sales labels. Cue ominous music.

Here’s the thing: on the second shelf, there’s only space for four long sales labels total. But surprise! There are more than four different products on that shelf. So now the sales labels are covering up the price labels, which makes zero sense and is completely messing with my OCD and anxiety.

It’s like: how do you expect me to finish this when my brain is screaming at me that the layout is wrong, the labels don’t match the products, and everything is visually lying to the customers?

Miranda—being the wonderful human she is—noticed I was spiraling and told me to go sit down in the office and close the door. I appreciated that, I really did. But the spiral was already spinning. I could feel it.

Then Mikey came in to count down his cash drawer and boom! Miranda comes in and scares the absolute daylight out of both of us. Not once. Twice. Like, full-on heart-jump, adrenaline-surge, internal-screaming type of scare.

Meanwhile, those sales labels? Still not done.

And tomorrow, I guess I’ll have to tell Ryan I can’t finish them. I’ll try to explain it rationally—like, “Hey, the layout isn’t working, the shelf can’t physically hold all the right labels without covering up prices, which creates confusion for customers and staff…” But knowing me, I’ll just end up sounding like my usual awkward autistic self, and it’ll probably come off like I’m being dramatic.

But I’m not. I swear I’m not.

If this plan had actually been laid out with some logic—or at least with enough room for all the items and labels—it would have been done already. I want it to be right. My brain needs it to be right. It’s not just about being neat. It’s about functioning in a world that already feels too loud and too unpredictable.

And right now? That shelf is chaos. And my brain? Also chaos.