The Sweetest Thing and another tale of work

Work has been, as I've said before, extremely busy. Busy to the point that I am about ready to scream. But there have been some fun things that have happened.

A few days ago, this little old man with his cute comb over (never thought I would say that but it was kind of adorable) came in with a request for a letter. He needed to know what his stock was worth on the day that he transferred it. No problem. It takes about five minutes to figure out what his stock was worth and to type the letter.

When I finished, he expressed his gratitude and asked if he could tip me. He pulled out his wallet and put a five dollar bill on the counter. I told him I couldn't accept the tip but I appreciated the thought. He then asked me if he could shake my hand.

Maybe I am naive but I really thought this only happened in the movies. I shake his hand, I feel some sort of paper in the palm of my hand and he heads out the door. I say "Mr. Jones (fake name)!" And he smiles at me.

I went to my new manager Cheryl (well, she'll be my manager on July 3, Matt is still my manager and has promised to make time to talk about music and comic books with me when I need the break from the phone after the change) and told her I had an ethical dilemma. She laughed. Apparently I didn't sound that ethically challenged.

I explained the situation to her and she said she would talk to the department manager about what to do. I later got the email back from her about how we can accept non-monetary gifts of less than $100. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones gave me a five dollar bill and I couldn't accept that.

I wrote him a very nice letter, returning the money to him and informed him that, because of this, I will receive recognition for good customer service. And that is worth a $25 gift cheque. So I returned his five dollars and will be receiving a $20 profit. It's kind of amusing.


The other thing about work is that I try to not be judgemental when dealing with spelling and grammar errors. Everyone makes mistakes. But, when you're sending out an email to adress an entire group about proper procedures, it might be a good idea if you proof read.

We received an email the other day:

"Recently we have added more Alerts to accounts on our processing system. I can not stress enough the impertinence of reading all the alerts that pop up when you pull up an account in our processing system. Please do not just close out the alerts without reading them. The alerts are out there for a reason. Again, please look over the alerts.

Thank you and if you have any questions please let me know."

Seems fine, doesn't it? Except for the fact that the word is importance, not impertinence. Impertinence refers to insolence and irrevelence. And yes, I am evil and had a good laugh over it.

Even funnier, one of my co-workers sent an email to let her know about the error. She responded with something along the lines of that she was horrible with spelling and grammar but don't worry because she doesn't get offended when someone corrects her mistake.

Except that she used the word offered instead of offended.

I love my job. I get to blog in between calls (like that's happened any time soon. 33 calls holding) and I also get blogging material from it.