Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Slice of Lime-One of Those Days

*Old picture but my camera is dead.  It's an ex-camera.  It has run up the curtain and joined the choir invisible.  So you'll have to make do with this old shot, which more or less illustrates my point.

Now to preface this post I have to say all blunders, goofs, SNAFUS, and displays of general incompetence were rectified in quick order by yours truly.  Also, the day was not a bad one as the assorted foul ups provided good chuckles for all the folks witnessing them.  But good grief, I could not get it together Wednesday.  Yet, here I am trotting it out for all of blogdom to see my idiocy.  Yes, folks, we're getting to the bottom of the barrel of blog post fodder here...  So without further ado here or just some of the ways in which I managed to mess up simple tasks during a single shift at work.


  1. Answered the phone, put the caller on hold to transfer the call and hung up on them instead. (Common mistake I know, but it gets better so read on.)
  2. Dialed the phone to make another call and forgot who I was calling. (Motherheimers moment)
  3. Left a message for one patient stating, "This is Michelle from Smallville returning your call." Instead of "This is Michelle from Smallville Chiropractic returning your call..." (Yes, I'm so famous I only need my first name and location and people will just know...)
  4. During appointment confirmation calls left another message stating, "This is Michelle from Smallville Chiropractic confirming your apartment..."  (Should you need to move, please pack your bags and get outta town?)
  5. When the boss handed me a bunch of papers and asked me to fax them to the number on top I dutifully sent them to...our own office...because that's the first number my eyes fell on. After the fax failed to go through I realized the number I punched in was kinda familiar.  (Oh yeah, that's OUR number!)
  6. So I tried the next number on the paper...4 times...before I got an annoyed call from the other office telling me to use the FAX number not the land line...uh, yeah, that was the note at the bottom of the page...the one marked "fax number." (I was told my blonde roots were showing there.)
  7. Discover several patients on the paper schedules from yesterday who I never put into the master computer schedule for today.
  8. My personally horrifying moment came when I accidentally, and without realizing it, ran one patient's credit card for 10 times the amount I was supposed to and her card was declined.  Not wanting to embarrass her I discreetly indicated as such.  She was incredulous and said she was going to go call the bank.  The bank let her know I was the one at fault.  She came back laughing hysterically (thank god she wasn't ready to kill me) and I ran the credit card for the correct amount with no problem.  I apologized profusely.  And may I say I am VERY glad she didn't have enough in the account to cover my initial blunder because I shudder to think how badly that might have screwed her up and the horror of having to deal with that, not to mention trying to balance my drawer at the end of the night.  Which leads us to...
  9. Balancing my drawer.  Patient count was right, check total was right, credit card total was (miraculously) right.  I counted the cash 3 times and kept coming up $10 in excess....because a 50, a 20, and a 10 make $90, right? (Seriously, having me do this part of my job is akin to having a dyslexic as a file clerk.)
Ok, so all relatively minor, but some of these I repeated multiple times today, and all of it was in one day.  Again, not a bad day, lots of comic relief for coworkers.  But I dunno where the heck my head was.  I was functioning like I'd been lobotomized.

18 comments:

~Tim said...

Hey, I need some change. Can you give me two twenties for a ten?

G-Man said...

The mind is a terrible thing to waste Trini...:P

Commander Zaius said...

I'd say you have earned yourself a Klondike bar.

Dave said...

Thanks for showing us these Michelle. It makes me feel soooo much better :-) - Dave (P.S. I'm joking!)

choochoo said...

Rofl.

"Dialed the phone to make another call and forgot who I was calling. (Motherheimers moment)"

A friend of mine keeps doing this. She'll call me on my cellphone and when I pick up, she goes "oh, it's you?" and sounds very surprised.

Bijoux said...

I've never seen anyone pay cash at a medical office!

Bubba said...

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But when life gives you Lime, you just smile. Very entertaining!

Jocelyn said...

I genuinely believe sometimes the swirls of the universe create that kind of day--I mean, out of nowhere, everything's two steps out of kilter. At least no one ended up in the hospital!

Cricket said...

Yep, we all have days like this, but thanks for sharing yours.

I was functioning like I'd been lobotomized.

I sometimes wonder if my insurance covers elective lobotomies. It would have its downside, but I'd have a failsafe excuse, and I suspect I'd be generally more cheerful.

Craig said...

My MIL (and I only have one; Jen's the one with three of 'em ;) ) calls that Sumzheimer's ('cuz, you know, it's not ALL the time. . .)

And I LOVE the Dead Parrot Skit!

Hope today goes a little more, um. . . coherently for you. . .

;)

Jazz said...

I want you to come work in our office. You'd make me look so good.

S said...

LOL that was a day that you should have stayed home in bed!
Hope today goes better!

lime said...

tim, i've got it a little more together today so i'll pass on that deal ;)

gman, it's a terrible thing to loose too.

beach bum, can i have a mint one?

dave, anything to make you feel better :)

choochoo, could you imagine if she called ME???

cocotte, we take cash, check, credit card, and we even have a couple of patients who swap stuff for services.

eric, glad you enjoyed:)

jocelyn, amen to that, sister!!!

craig, who doesn't love the dead parrot skit?

jazz, LOL, if i can be of service...

s, i really would have liked to.

(M)ary said...

Are you pre-migrainal? That is the type of day I have before a migraine hits.

I have broken a computer system (yes, I have. Do not believe folks when they say you can't break a computer system)

I have dropped a bank deposit in a mail box.

Those are two biggies that I have done....the mis speaks and the mix ups are too numerois to lost!

(M)ary said...

Too numerous to list...I meant to say....

Anonymous said...

#5 & #6 - awesome..

i got a slug...

secret agent woman said...

Wowza at #8! Fortunate it was with someone with a good sense of humor, though.

moondustwriter said...

Lime - you need a vacation
Bahamas, Hawaii what the doctor ordered


hate those days thanks for sharing now I know I'm not the only crazed person on the planet