Taking Responsibility

Our POS (Point of Sale) system we use for our lunch account system records each transaction that you make on the computer. This is good and this is bad. The good news is that when you have a problem on the register, you can go back and check out the detailed transaction report to see what the problem might have been. That is also the bad news.

Last week, when I went in to start a "session", which would be either a lunch or breakfast, I mistakenly put in "Breakfast" instead of lunch. So, all the lunches I put in, came through the system as a breakfast instead of a lunch. Now you might be thinking "well, no big deal" but it is a big deal. You see, the school district gets a "government reimbursement for meals served". When you serve breakfast, you get a certain percent reimbursement, and when you serve lunch you get more of a percent reimbursement. So, if the meals stay in the system as a breakfast, we lose money on our reimbursements. That means we have to back out and void every transaction and re input them in a lunch session. DAMM.... Of course it was a Dominos Day, when I made probably a 1,000 transactions or more.

Our administrative assistant who helps with these problems is probably one of the nicest persons I have ever met. She has offered to void out all the entries made and I will be re-entering them back in. I did offer to do that. I don't feel that she should have to do that when it was my mistake. She shouldn't even have to void them out, however I am so grateful to her for offering to do that.

Now I knew that day that I had made the mistake. Something "weird" came up on the register as the kids were coming through and I went back to look at the computer monitor and I saw what I had done. I quickly changed the session from breakfast to lunch but it was way too late. I thought that since I had hit the lunch key, that they would register as a lunch. But it doesn't work that way.

What a mess I have made. If I was the administrative assistant, I would be furious at me for causing all the extra work. But she was so nice. I think I should send her some flowers or something. I, on the other hand, am so pissed off at myself for doing something so stupid. Once I heard it all had to be redone and the extra work for the administrative assistant and me, my mood changed dramatically. I really beat myself up about it.

Part of the problem is that my hands (I have carpal tunnel) have been hurting and cramping so bad these days that the thoughts of re inputting all the information in, is overwhelming. However, it doesn't have to all be done at one time. I am thankful for that. I am very, very quick on the register so it really won't take long to do it. (I used to do data entry) The most work will be reading what to input, not the actual putting it in.

So I guess I have to think about what I should be thankful for. Here they are:
I am thankful for the administrative assistant who was so nice and understanding.
I am thankful that my staff has offered to help with the inputting.
I am thankful it doesn't all have to be done right away or all at the same time.
I am thankful that on Friday we are supposed to have an extra person which will give me the extra time to input the transactions.
I am thankful I finally made a doctors appointment to check on my hands.

That is about all I can think of at this moment. Sometimes its hard to be thankful when your miserable. I need a nap....

And one more thing about doing extra or double work. Karma is really something. About two weeks ago at my other job, I was told to do something, then found out after 45 minutes of working on it, I was told that we didn't need all that work I had done. I was angry and complained to anybody that would listen to me. I wasn't nice and understanding like the administrative assistant at my school job who has all this extra work to do because of something I did. I guess I need to remember that next time. Mistakes happen. I need to ask myself "what is the opportunity in this lesson for me to learn."

On a happier note:

It was Chinese Day in the cafeteria today. Yumm! I made Wonton soup, General Tso's chicken (which you might not believe it, but it was pretty good for school Chinese), egg rolls, and vegetable fried rice (not really fried, it was steamed). And you got a fortune cookie. The kids love getting the fortune cookies. The lunch mom's hated it. They said the little wrappers were hard to get open and the wrappers were all over the place. Hmmm, can't please everybody.

Well, another day done. We have two whole weeks without an extra day off. Bummer!!!
All is well.