16 Comments
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Daniel Webster's avatar

You'd be surprised at how wonderful everything is if you never watch the news.

DAVID's avatar

We should be grateful that filters have been installed on most of the news so very little of the bad stuff leaks through.

DAVID's avatar

I totally relate to your strips about inventory. I worked for a company that used to do inventory once a year by hand. That ment hours of tracking down every single item like we were out tracking fugitives and bringing them to justice. Inventory was pretty much, more or less, accurate then. Then they got the bright idea to only keep inventory by using the tags on the boxes that supposedly accurately described the contents and an electronic system that tracked the location. Soon nobody knew where anything was at and had to track it down like they were seeking a fugitive to bring it to justice. Perfect.

Stephen Beals's avatar

That’s a perfect description. I was once at a place that shall go nameless. Let’s just call them AT&. The folks at AT& couldn’t find several motherboards that were worth well over $100,000. There was some speculation among higher ups, who were sitting comfortably with coffee and donuts, that they could’ve been thrown away.

Guess who they sent into the dumpsters to dig through the trash?

W. Michael Johnson's avatar

I instantly assumed they were stolen. Did you find them in the dumpsters?

Heather's avatar

My business still prefers cheques! We’ve lost thousands to credit card fraud and $0 to cheque fraud. There’s no charge like there is on credit cards, and e-transfers are dicey not only for security but because people do them casually. Rabidracoon62@whatever.com sent you 103.50. Yay. Which account and invoices does that pay?

Direct deposit, cash, and non-fraudulent cheques please and thank you. 😉

Stephen Beals's avatar

I’ve seen, this is true, several checks with Mark Zuckerberg’s face on them. People get sent these things and they try to cash them, thinking that Mark Zuckerberg has singled them out because he just has too much money.

The worst check fraud is made by people offering work at home opportunities. They actually interview people, “hire them”, then send them a huge check in a standard FedEx envelope to purchase equipment. If you’re actually able to cash one of these checks, they’ll ask for most of it back. One guy in San Francisco spent his life savings on lawyers when he was arrested at the bank when he tried to cash one of those.

But for point of sale purposes, we’re saved from all of that. Yay!

Heather's avatar

Oh, yeah, ok, that shit! Wow. Yeah our cheques come from, like, the Salt Shaker Deli. If there was an issue I could pop in to the deli, probably buy a pizza because yum and I’m there anyway, and ask about it.

Stephen Beals's avatar

The Salt Shaker Deli is also safe because they’re not trying to get anyone to work from home.

JES's avatar
14hEdited

A friend spent their new year in hospital. They were attacked by the Shingles. Unexpected in their age group so at first they thought it was allergies. So, Shingles is no laughing matter and it was even a rarer situation, the one known for getting into your facial nerve near your ear.

Stephen Beals's avatar

Aaah! I wish them a full recovery.

Lee Most's avatar

Intellectually I know shingles is a disease, but when I read your comment I immediately thought of a gang of animated roofing shingles attacking you!

I hope you are doing well.

Peter Gimpel's avatar

BS"D

Good strips! I did not understand your comment about the posterboards (whatever those are!). If the manager counted each posterboard, that would have been the opposite mistake to Todd's, not "this [same] mistake." No? Or what did I miss? Last week, I got a great idea for your strip, but I didn't write it down, and now I can't remember it! Something to do with Tabby. Sorry! I'll let you know if it comes back to me.

Stephen Beals's avatar

I appreciate the thought.

Poster board is a sheet of thick, heavy stock paper used for presentations, signs, and classroom projects. The managers before me counted a box of poster boards as a quantity of one. What was really needed was the quantity of what was in the box. Instead of one, it should have been 100.

The computer, being innocent and all as a computer, automatically ordered more to make it more than one. Then another manager would make the same mistake and the computer would order more again. That went on for a couple of years.

I arrived to find boxes and boxes of poster board. There was no clamoring public to buy all of those and they gradually found new homes. I think I also made some pretty impressive paper airplanes.

The Devil Kitty's avatar

Small businesses (usually run by older people) require checks to pay them, otherwise I'd probably stop ordering them altogether. Also some utilities that take checks or permanent access to your bank account (which doesn't send me to my happy place). I somehow crossed into being part of the cashless society before that was supposed to happen.