LJ Idol 9, Week 1: Jayus
I see that my boss has come in for the day, so with a big smile on my face, I sidle into the Service office, where he’s sitting at his desk. In my best Perky McCheerful voice, I ask, “Would you like to know how my morning has gone?”
He side-eyes me from his computer, taking in the scan report I’m holding close to my chest. “Not when you put it like that,” he replies, but he turns to see what I have for him.
“So, 142 was over $20, 143 was over $80, and 144 was short $500”
These are our service desk drawers. My boss is . . . not pleased.
“Lottery scanning is all over the place,” I continue, handing him my scan report. “I’ll let you take a look at the numbers while I get Western Union.” I bounce out of the office, still smiling.
Just as my Western Union report is printing, the last one I need to check for discrepancies, my boss comes out of his office to the service desk, flailing and going on about “why is it so hard to push the right buttons on the screen for lotto?”
I continue to smile. In fact, I am barely holding back giggles. I was not laughing an hour ago, when I had to count each one of those drawers twice, to make sure my totals were correct, not to mention double-checking that I didn’t somehow miss a cash drop for the $500 drawer and having to emerge from my Cave of Solitude (also known as the cash office) to make sure some stray bills didn’t get stuck behind in a register drawer. All of which set me behind in my workflow. I had some interesting things to say an hour ago, most of which aren’t really work-appropriate. But there’s no one to hear me back there.
But now it’s hilarious. The Sunday morning service desk crew also finds it pretty amusing, since neither they nor I were working the desk the day before--the day I’m balancing for--and we all agree that it’s really not that hard to push the right buttons.
I can only control so many things. I can’t control whether or not people at the service desk who are not me push the right buttons when they sell and redeem lottery tickets. I can’t control whether or not a cashier makes sure a tax-exempt slip has the customer’s exempt number written on it, or whether someone made a mistake loading instant tickets into the lottery vending machine. I can’t control whether the full-time cash office person emails me the postal inventory so I can update it.
And ultimately, these things aren’t even my problem. They’re my boss’s problem--all I do is discover them. The worst thing that happens to me is that it takes a little longer to finish my work, which, yeah, I've been up since 3:30am, and I'd rather not stay any longer than necessary, but I still get paid by the hour.
So when these things I can’t control happen, I can either rant and rave and clench my fists, and have a bad day, or I can laugh at all the crap the day throws at me and have a good day.
Today, I had a good day.
He side-eyes me from his computer, taking in the scan report I’m holding close to my chest. “Not when you put it like that,” he replies, but he turns to see what I have for him.
“So, 142 was over $20, 143 was over $80, and 144 was short $500”
These are our service desk drawers. My boss is . . . not pleased.
“Lottery scanning is all over the place,” I continue, handing him my scan report. “I’ll let you take a look at the numbers while I get Western Union.” I bounce out of the office, still smiling.
Just as my Western Union report is printing, the last one I need to check for discrepancies, my boss comes out of his office to the service desk, flailing and going on about “why is it so hard to push the right buttons on the screen for lotto?”
I continue to smile. In fact, I am barely holding back giggles. I was not laughing an hour ago, when I had to count each one of those drawers twice, to make sure my totals were correct, not to mention double-checking that I didn’t somehow miss a cash drop for the $500 drawer and having to emerge from my Cave of Solitude (also known as the cash office) to make sure some stray bills didn’t get stuck behind in a register drawer. All of which set me behind in my workflow. I had some interesting things to say an hour ago, most of which aren’t really work-appropriate. But there’s no one to hear me back there.
But now it’s hilarious. The Sunday morning service desk crew also finds it pretty amusing, since neither they nor I were working the desk the day before--the day I’m balancing for--and we all agree that it’s really not that hard to push the right buttons.
I can only control so many things. I can’t control whether or not people at the service desk who are not me push the right buttons when they sell and redeem lottery tickets. I can’t control whether or not a cashier makes sure a tax-exempt slip has the customer’s exempt number written on it, or whether someone made a mistake loading instant tickets into the lottery vending machine. I can’t control whether the full-time cash office person emails me the postal inventory so I can update it.
And ultimately, these things aren’t even my problem. They’re my boss’s problem--all I do is discover them. The worst thing that happens to me is that it takes a little longer to finish my work, which, yeah, I've been up since 3:30am, and I'd rather not stay any longer than necessary, but I still get paid by the hour.
So when these things I can’t control happen, I can either rant and rave and clench my fists, and have a bad day, or I can laugh at all the crap the day throws at me and have a good day.
Today, I had a good day.