I am truly sorry that everybody who has posted there negative experience in the final days of PAC has had to go through this. As somebody who was an employee of PAC until 3 weeks ago, I have some (not all!) insight into the situation and why so many frustrations have occurred.
The server was struck by lightening prior to the announcement that PAC was closing. Unfortunately the wheels were setting in motion, employees for PAC still must get paid, and vendors deserve payment for their merchandise, and customers deserve the timely shipment of their products. Nobody at PAC has ever had to work with a crashed server, and nobody at PAC has had the painful misfortune of closing a business. If the problems that have surfaced would have been know about than I am sure different measures would have been taken.
The problem, as I understand it, is when the server crashed several key functions were lost. It is my understanding that when an order was placed, the server would transfer the data to the warehouse, process the order, handle shipping, subtract the product from inventory, and send out a shipping notifications. Since the server is no longer working, orders have to be downloaded manually, processed manually, pulled from the shelves, weighed by the warehouse crew, then inputted manually for shipping. The problem is that instead of being able to process a series of orders in a a few moments each order takes about 15 minutes. Combine this with a skeleton crew and the problem is expotenital.
To make matters worse, there is no way to check the products that have been ordered and discount them from inventory until the order has been manually downloaded, the warehouse crew has walked to the shelf, and noticed the product is gone. When orders are backed up by a day, it leaves the potential for a lot of orders to be made on products that already spoken for. It is also becomes impossible to track shipping information and near-impossible to notifiy people of when products have shipped.
I am a firm believer that a simple communication could have resulted in a lot less confusion, and therefore a lot less frustration through this whole process. With the single computer being pushed to the max processing orders, even writing an email can take 15 minutes as the CPU is already pushed to max.
Please understand that I am not taking sides here, and can totally understand the frustration that is apparent. I can only try to share some of the information that I have in hopes that it assuages some feelings of confusion and helps explain what it is going on. The same people who built CMA as a company of integrity and customer service are many of the same that are in the back, packing orders in 98 degree heat with no A/C and doing the best they can to give everybody the products they ordered.
