Quick! How would you get toys to stores in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, London, Germany, France, Spain, and nearly 20 other countries?

How would you make sure the right toys get to the right store at the right time?

Well, that's what Michael Jacobs, Vice President of Worldwide Transportation, does every day for Toys "R" Us. If you go to a Toys "R" Us store near your house for the latest toy or video game, you'll see that Michael's been at work when you find it on the shelves.

As you can imagine, that's not an easy job! Because Michael's always racing around the clock to get the best and newest toys from the factories where they're manufactured to the stores where people like you will buy them.

Michael has a lot of experience in shipping and logistics. He has spent the last 20 years working in this area, and he knows how to move goods all over the world, by ship, truck, train, or plane.

Let's take a peek at Michael's busy job by imagining his role at just one store, the Toys "R" Us store near the busy Southcenter Mall just south of Seattle, Washington. It's now the start of the holiday shopping season. How will Michael make sure the shelves of that store are full of all the things the kids and parents in Seattle want to buy for holiday gifts?

Well first, Michael and his staff talk with the store workers. They want to find out what kinds of toys are most popular at that store. Do kids in the Seattle area play a lot of video games? Does the store need more bicycles or toys for younger kids? Computers will help Michael and his staff track exactly what toys are selling at each store… but they also want to learn as much as they can about the toys kids like in each city in the US (and in every country where Toys "R" Us has stores).

Let's say that Nintendo games are the biggest sellers at the Seattle store. That makes sense, because Nintendo's headquarters are nearby, in Redmond, Washington. But even though the video games are dreamed up nearby, they're not made in Redmond; they're manufactured at a factory somewhere else in the world.

Michael and his team place an order for video games from the factory and get them shipped to a large distribution center in the United States. Depending on where those games come from, they might be shipped directly to the Port of Seattle, or they might be shipped to another port. From the dock, the video games are shipped by truck or train to the Toys "R" Us distribution center. Each distribution center serves many stores.

At the distribution center, workers quickly pack the video games along with all the other toys each store needs. These toys are then loaded into another container and taken by truck to the store. Trucks often arrive at the store late at night or early in the morning when the store is not open. There is usually a back door or a loading dock, where workers can quickly unload the container of toys, unpack them in the store's storage area, and then put them out on the shelves.

Could you do that? Could you keep track of thousands of different toys coming from hundreds of different manufacturing plants and traveling to hundreds of different stores in two dozen different countries? If you think you could, maybe you're the next Michael Jacobs! And maybe your future is in moving goods all over the world!