Date: August 21, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
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It rained again yesterday, or should I say last night. The weather was calm and clear and the temperature was actually quite pleasant and yet it rained. It was not the rain of water droplets with which we all are so very familiar but into my life a little rain did fall.
Yesterday was our first normal day of work this week. Our first actual day was just a finality to our long and very busy week end. We had, on the first real day, driven from Boston to our campground and just made it to work on time. Yesterday we had actually awoken in our own bed, plodded through our normal morning routine and walked to work just as we have all summer. We were back to what ever normal is in our lives. It was now that the rain began to fall in our metaphorical world.
The rain of customers that had, through some mistaken goof up in their lives, made a problem in ours. Small problems like showing up at a full campground with out a reservation and expecting us to manufacture 3 or 4 campsites next to each other just for them. Or customers that show up at our counter to register and finding out that their reservation was for last month and not today. Or customers that do not understand why we can’t just move everyone in the campground around so that they can have the campsite that they have always had, or at least have always wanted to have. It was a Friday and the rain of disgruntled customers was pouring on our work life.
It was also a day of raining frustrations as we older work cadre have to watch and try to get past the total lack of any work ethic exhibited by many of our younger team members. When someone has the attitude that everything can and should be performed at the highest level of competency has to work along a cadre often exhibiting a lack luster effort or desire to even be at their post a major thunderstorm of frustration will and does materialize . Yes, you are scheduled until eight o’clock and no you can’t leave just because you are lazy and don’t want to work. Or, maybe if you put down your texting phone and actually watched the kids that you are responsible to supervise for safety reason that little child would not now have a bloody nose and that large kid would not be doing flips over there by the sign that reads “NO FLIPS.” Yes, today was a rain storm of frustration.
And yet I have not gotten to the explanation of rain which I alluded to as I opened this morning’s blog. As is my chore in the office I have to verify the safe each evening prior to closing. A disappearance of cash last year has been a cause for some slightly anal policy changes. Long story short, I have to count the safe at the beginning of my shift and as we close out the books for the day. This is not a big chore but a tedious chore. We have rolls and rolls of coins that are used to replenish our registers for change. Each of these must be verified and counted by me twice daily. I also must verify each cash drawer prior to closing and place them in the safe atop the stacks of coins. Another obligation of mine is to assure that the deposit bag is as neat and concise as possible in preparation for the next morning run to the bank. This means that I will take the 6 dollars of change and swap it out for paper money from one or two of the afore mentioned cash drawers. It was in doing this that caused me to run into the miserable rain storm.
As I was counting out 3 dollars of coins in the top cash drawer to exchange for paper money I cold not fit my fat hand in the safe far enough to extract the 3 dollar bills. I had to slide the cash drawer out just a bit to reach the dollar bill section of the tray. As I pulled the tray it seemed to catch on one or two of the racks of coins so I maneuvered the tray to unhook the coin rack and pulled the tray out of the safe. Oops, along with the drawer came 20 rolls of nickels all neatly rolled and secured on a trays. Secured may be a wrong choice of words. Just as I realized what had been hooked on the cash drawer I noticed a rain cloud of silver coins flying through the air and pelting the Pergo wooden floor of the office. Do you know how loud 20 dollars worth of nickels can sound as they hit a solid wooden floor and how loud you inner voice can be as you call yourself as many evil dirty words as you can muster in the split second it takes each roll of paper thin wrapped coins to explode as they splash against the floor? Rain it did and I found myself knee deep in a sea of silver surrounding my feet. 20 dollars worth of nickels lay at my feet and a wave of exploded paper wrappers dotted the landscape, and tears filled my eyes. Verify the safe, hell most of it was at my feet, under the desk, rolling around the floor searching for a nook to hide in or just plain staring me in the eye with its tongue out. Shoot, or an expletive deleted phrase of the same ilk spilled from my mouth as the rain of frustration, the rain of disgruntled customers and the rain of failed work ethic all took a back seat to the new rain storm of coins bouncing and rolling around my feet.
A few days ago I wrote about how “A Little Rain Must Fall” into every life. Well, my thunderstorm had arrived and metaphorically soaked me in nickels. By the way, have you ever tried to pick up a million nickels from a slippery wood floor with out fingernails? It ain’t easy, nor is it fun. Believe it our not I found all of the coins, rolled all of the nickels, again, and placed the trays back in the safe and did not cuss out loud once. The latter is the hardest to believe.
The rain clouds of nickels cleared, the thunder of bouncing coins diminished and passed and the safe balanced. Maybe I even learned a lesson. If it doe not come easily don’t be an idiot and yank the damn thing. It might be connected to something that will follow the force of the yank and explode at my feet. Maybe I learned a lesson, and yet this is the third time this year I have done something of this same stupidity. Perfect is as perfect does and perfection has never been one of my faults. But I can roll a mean stack of coins.
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