The Fifty

I had a good chuckle when I logged in this morning.  Can you see why?

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Updates and Bug Fixes for Feburary 12th

February 12, 2008 — permalink

If you fix a bug, spell check the announcement.  It makes the users less nervous.  Don't worry, I won't mock this too much.  It's sufficiently embarrassing all by itself.

Speaking of embarrassing, or actually more like nerve-wracking, yesterday I found a $50 bill mixed in with my twenties.  This is, to a cashier, the equivalent of an unarmed transport discovering a Klingon uncloaking off the port bow.  Gah!  So what, you think?  Well, there are two instincts that a checker operates under while on 'automatic.'  We fly on autopilot with money in order to deliver good customer service--asking about your dog, checking up on things that you couldn't find in the store, stuff that requires actual thinking.  Instinct one--look at money, sort from highest to lowest denomination, count, enter cash amount, drawer in order.  Instinct two--look at money, sort from highest to lowest denomination, count, enter cash amount, drawer with amounts over $20 denominations getting stuffed under the drawer and others being drawered in order.  Very, very occasionally, especially if there's an additional distraction (like another customer wanting to know what aisle toothpaste is on,) a cashier will think they've been handed a twenty (the most common bill we get handed) when in fact we've gotten a ten or a fifty or a one hundred dollar bill.  I always, always, say "your total is X, out of (insert denomination I think I have in my hand)" and if the customer is paying attention (big if) they'll say "wait, I gave you X."  At which point I'll look at my hand and see X, and apologize.  This doesn't happen very often at all, I'd say once in two thousand transactions.  (Unfortunately I don't have a pulling number out of a$$ icon.)  If I have made a mistake about what denomination I have in my hand, and the customer didn't catch it, chances are high that I'll catch it on the count back.  I always count back when the purchase is made in cash and it's for more than $50.  Just my personal policy.  

The problem was that I remember having flubbed a count back earlier that day, and the customer dismissed it and left rather than me recounting it.  (I compared the change shown on the computer to the amount in my hand instead of recounting it.  This assumes that the number on the computer is correct--which it won't be when I've entered the wrong amount.  Word to the wise.)  And now I was staring at a $50 in my twenties.  I may have, in haste, put it there instead of under the drawer where it belongs.  There were some other wrong bills at about the same height (cashier archeology) so maybe I had gone to the default where I just sorted highest to lowest denomination and skipped putting the fifty under the drawer.  Or, bad, very bad, I may have thought I had a twenty in my hands, entered it as that, and the other misplaced bills were a result of my brain reacting to the fifty in that section and I sorted them consecutively.

So I told my supervisor right away.  And sweated.  And waited.  At six thirty, moment of truth.  Will Kami be $30 over?

Kami was 27¢ over.  Kami had either taken a quarter and a couple of pennies from someone, or the coin rolls she opened were miscounted (a frequent and usual issue, mostly from bank counted and wrapped rolls than the paper ones that regular folks turn in for paper cash.)  

Time to go back to work.  I gotta tell the money not to scare me like that.  I'm getting old and it's not good for my heart!