Sunday, August 14, 2011

The Importance of Making a Good First Impression

Especially when starting a new job or, I don't know, grad school. The first impression I made was as an ass. An idiot. A numbskull.

In order to sign up to re-take the tech orientation class, which is only offered LIVE, I had to out myself to the program administrator so she could get me into another class. *sigh*

Oh, did I not mention that to proceed in the tech prep course, I need to take this live training class? No. Well, I do. So I can't move forward until I take. the. darn. class.

It reminds me of the time I worked in accounts payable for a big plumbing manufacturer [Hint:  Pfabulous!], and it was my turn to get the checks signed once they were printed, and we had this machine, the keys to which had to be checked out from the payroll department. So the checks were printed on Thursdays, and came in a big stack. Before I ran them through the check signing machine, I had to separate out any checks over $10,000 dollars. Above that was a tangle of required hand signatures depending on the amount.

Well, aside from the fact that I really hated that job (accounting? Hello?), I was tired. I  loaded the checks in the machine--it had these sprockets that would fit into the sides of the checks, hit start, and I stood there as zip-zip-zip all the checks ran through the check signing machine. As I watched the last check disappear into the machine, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't removed the checks over $10,000 from the stack. (The checks ran from lowest to highest, in order).

So I'm standing there, holding the payroll check, which is for $700,000--and this was in 1994--and a shiver ran through my body and all my hairs stood up on end, because I realized that was probably the most money I would ever hold in my hands at one time, ever.

And it was signed by the machine.

So I had to think. Can I cover this up? No.
Can I hide it? No.
Can I change it? No.
Can I play stupid? What checks? No.

Nothing to it but to confess. I had to rat myself out.

And everyone had a really good laugh at my expense, particularly because of my distress and having to go to the president of this company and tell him what happened AND get his signature for the $700K check. He was cool about it, too.

But I always felt like an idiot. "Oh, there she goes, Jewels, the one who ran all the checks through the signing machine. Idiota!" LOLOL

And that's how I feel about missing the class I'd signed up for. *pfah*

Maybe I am an idiot. But I want so much not to be one.  Maybe that's impossible. It's a character defect, a flaw. Maybe I should embrace my uniqueness and special snow-flakiness as I stand out in the universe!!!

Nah. I blew it. That's all there is to it. And try not to blow it again. At least in not such an obvious way. *ugh*

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