Perfection

Last night was yet another reminder of why most night auditors I know are heavy drinkers. There's a lot of pressure on me to be perfect. I cannot make any mistakes. None whatsoever. I have to be better than the computers I work with, better than my coworkers, I have to think 10 steps ahead of everything around me...

So last night I run my single revenue center detail for Rm/Tx... and all the room charges posted as 'Late Check-Out' fees were sitting in the column for 'Food Revenue'. I stared at that thing for a good 5 minutes. I ran the report again, same results... not being quite insane, I didn't run it again expecting a different outcome. Nope, some $2000 worth of Room charges were sitting merrily under 'Food'. But when I looked into the individual transactions, it showed them running under the 'Rooms' revenue center. So I called CIT (aka Chaos in Technology)... the supervisor on duty called the asst. manager, Pam (aka the Battle Axe)... and I sat & panicked til CIT called me back. Luckily, the whole problem was because CIT had 'moved all the late check-out revenue from box 1 to box 2' in an attempt to fix an earlier error involving the tax being posted as NV State sales tax (7.75% or something similar) instead of NV Hotel Room Tax (9%)... so they 'moved the revenue from box 2 to box 1' & voila - my rooms were back where they belonged. And everything balanced out.

But when I first saw that, my rooms sitting in 'Food' I swear I felt a patch of hair go grey... I really, really wanted to just turn in my resignation & go drink myself into a tequila stupor at the bar... My ulcers flared up. Luckily for the hotel, I didn't have a single dime on me, so the tequila thing was outta the question... I might have gone to the bar, anyway, on duty or not.

Still-life in black & white

I'm still in my latest funk. Everything sort of seems flat and colorless around me.

Been reading Clive Barker's 'Abarat' at my shot clinics... his writing is always imagical. 'Abarat' is supposed to be for 'young adults', but c'mon, this is Clive we're talking about here. Even 'Thief of Always' could be read by grown-ups. Clive illustrated 'Abarat', too. It's wonderful. His artwork is very living & looks kind of like he finger-painted it. I also like it because the copy I got off of half.com didn't come w/a dustjacket, so it's this big, slick purple book that says 'Abarat' on the spine in gold lettering. Very cool looking. And because I only read it at my shot clinic or when I'm in the bathroom, it's more like savoring a good piece of tira misu & less like devouring a plate of hot wings, which is how I fly through most books. 2 more shots on this dilution & then I'm on the maintenance dose. Woohoo.

Next weekend I've got to drag myself out of the house & go to something like Party City to see if I can find baby-shower crap for Jody. Aaagh!