I Thought You Had Made A Mistake

I know I've complained about my receptionist in the past, saying that she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and that it's not working out with her.

 

Well, part of that is still true - she is truly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I changed around some of her responsibilities and it seems like she's finally picking up the ball and running with it.  She drops that ball a lot, but she recovers quickly.  Well, sometimes.

 

She still abuses the use of the word "however", and I thinks he strives to try and make me look stupid.  Or maybe she's just trying to make herself look smarter.  Either way, she's still stupid in my eyes.  Not as stupid as old Knucklehead #1, but she runs a very close second.  Sometimes the stupidity is mind boggling, but then she'll do something that makes me think, "ok, she's not THAT stupid". 

 

But in the end, yeah, still stupid.  Take last week for instance. 

 

I'm trying to close out the books for June and when doing the bank reconciliation, I find a transaction in the accounting system for an electronic bill payment that does not match the bank statement.  Upon further digging, I find that it was a payment she had made -- something I give her several times throughout the month (we buy a lot from this vendor) and her process is pretty simple.  I review and pay the bill in the accounting system, give her the electronic payment form along with the bills that we're paying to fill out and send to the vendor.  I even write the total she should come out to (we often pay more than one bill at a time) before she sends it in.

 

Simple enough, no?

 

Well, the payment in question included a credit that she needed to include on the form.  I recall pointing it out to her the day she paid the bill because we don't see a lot of credit memos from this vendor.  My additional digging found she didn't apply the credit on the form she filled out so the difference between my books and the bank's books was 900 bucks. I was 900 less, they were 900 more.  SWEET!  lol

 

Now, it's easy enough for me to fix, but dammit, get it right the first time!  I ended up getting side tracked from my work to fix the mess she made.

 

And seriously, I didn't go looney tunes over this.  We all make mistakes and this was the first time she did this, so I didn't make a big stink.  I corrected her work (I didn't want her touching our accounting system since it involved un-doing payments and reapplying credits, etc) and explained what happened, but I'm sure she didn't understand what I was saying, because I can guarantee it will happen again. 

 

Via IM I had the following conversation with her:

 

Me:  Why didn't you apply the credit memo to the payment?

Her:  I didn't see it.

Me:  A hard copy was included with what I gave you, plus my post it note stated the correct total to pay (credit memo included) and you over paid the payment by not including the credit memo.

Her:  I thought you had made a mistake.

Me:  Did you think to ask me?  Did you bother to look at the actual payment recorded in the accounting system?  Had you looked you would have seen the applied credit.

 

Of course, her answer was "no" followed by a million apologies.  It's a pretty common occurrence between me and Mrs. Brain Trust.  I appreciate the fact that she tries to think for herself, but that whole incident required some common sense, none of which she appears to possess.

 

I love it -- "I thought you made a mistake".  Telling me that she thought I made a mistake just cracks me up, especially from her.  Ok, I'm not perfect, I admit it.  I've made some zinger mistakes in my career.  But when it comes to the books here -- I'm a perfectionist.  I check, recheck and recheck again, and if I'm not sure, I call our accountant for advice. 

 

That's how I roll in the financial world.  It never hurts to second guess yourself.