The ENTIRE system went down today! (a long rant)

[rerant]

As soon as I walked into work today and got into the cash office one of the coordinators got a call from a cashier saying the register was saying, "not authorized," for credit and debit card transactions.
Soon after that call was received we learned the entire system was down: no credit cards and no debit cards.
During Christmas.
In a busy store.

So C, the most awesome coordinator ever, pulled out the "cash emergency kits" which consisted of receipt books, calculators, those ancient manual credit card imprinters and slips, and keys for the registers so we could make duplicate receipts.

I wanted to run away right then and there.

So here is how we had to do things:
cash transactions were fine, NO debit transactions could be accepted since there would be no way to process them, and for credit card transactions we were to ring everything through as normal, total it up, void-total everything, get an imprint of the card with the amount written in, have the customer sign the archaic slip and print them a duplicate in case they needed to return anything, with the original receipt stapled to the imprinted slip.
Oh and for credit card transactions over $100 we had to call the card companies, go through the automated system, sit on hold and finally get an authorization number to put on the slip.
All with lines out the ass.
I work a a store that grosses billions of dollars every year and we were working with Mom-and-Pop type tools to do our jobs.
Not that I'm complaining about how things had to be handled, since I know that sometimes that's just how things have to be, I just found it amusing is all.
And by "amusing" I mean only after the fact. Nothing about this was even the slightest bit entertaining at the time.

This sounds simple enough, except the majority of us had never been around for this kind of problem so we didn't know how to properly do the transactions, and there weren't enough coordinators to go around to both explain it to everyone, deal with and explain to customers what was going on, talk to LP about the problem as well as the tech team (turned out to be a problem with our internet) and other managers.

So lines that started with five people in them quickly became lines with 40 people in them, most of which were paying with debit or credit (remember we have debit and credit ONLY lines as well, though thankfully I was not on one of them).

Never have I walked into a more stressful situation at work.
I've been there for power outages, evacuations, and other miscellaneous situations from hell, but this one I have to say tops them all.

Thankfully customers were understanding for the most part, or at least mine were, so that made life easier, though it didn't make the situation any less stressful.

One delightful issue arose for me, wherein one man wanted to do a split payment of cash and credit.
It took us all a while to decide what would be the best way to do this, and thankfully the customer was patient and understanding.
Here is how we decided we had to do this.
His bill was $454.xx and he wanted to pay $300 cash and $154.xx Master Card.
So... take the $300 cash, enter it in, then do the credit portion as we were instructed to, which, if you remember, required us to void-total the receipt to have a copy for our records.

Still with me?
Can you guess what happened when I cashed out at the end of the day?
$300 in cash OVER, since when I had to void-total the receipt to do the credit portion the register naturally eliminated the whole cash portion. Because it was, after all, a void of the total receipt.
Well this fact didn't occur to me while we were trying to figure out what the problem was, since all the coordinators said quite plainly, "There is NO way you're over that much money. No way at all. It's not your fault."

Then, as I was changing and gathering my things from my locker and thinking about where that $300 could have come from I remembered, and ran to the cash office to tell them, showed them the voided receipt which showed the total, the $300 I accepted in cash and the slip for the remaining $154.xx.
Thank goodness.

I know I wouldn't have gotten in trouble anyway, since it would have been obvious something like that was caused by the system going down, but I'm glad it was discovered where that $300 came from.

Well I was actually over $289.xx , so that $300 issue we figured out actually puts me at $10.xx over, since I obviously made another cash related mistake during the day. Or... would that make me $10.xx short?
I don't know, I fail at math and don't really care anymore. Hopefully because of the system issue I won't be responsible for that other $10 and change, since over or short, $10 either way means a write up.
But to be honest I'm not shocked that my cash was wrong today by whatever small amount it was, since I got really flustered early into my shift. I tried my best to pay attention and go slow enough to not make any mistakes, but I'm a really fast worker who always tries to get people through my lanes as fast as I can, so when you pair that with the stress of the issue and lines that are growing exponentially a mistake will happen.
My fault totally, but it's done now so what can I do?

Well, that was my hellish, stressful day at work.
And how did I top it all off?
Christmas shopping at the mall.


Thank goodness tomorrow is my day off.

[Dave1982]

Two years ago at my store (before I started working there) a circuit board in the store phone system decided to shit the bed without warning, resulting in a completely dead system. No phones at all, which also mean no credit/debit lines, and no automated check authorizations, and no phone to call for help with the problem.

Oh, and this happened just prior to the store opening on BLACK FRIDAY!!!!!!!



I am SO glad I wasn't working there then. With no other option except to close, they wound up having to use their personal cell phones to do phone authorizations for pretty much every transaction that day, the busiest day of the year.

[matty]

First, rerant, :hugs:

Second, does your store use an "integrated" credit/debit system, that is, rather than you having to key in the purchase amount into the card terminal, the register automatically programs it in? I have always thought that these are the better system, but after reading your experience, I see that there are advantages to a debit/credit system completely separate from the register. That way, if you have to use manual credit slips, it won't muck up the register. Although, you would still have to do a pen-and-paper reconciliation at the end of the day.

I posted a similar experience I once had on these boards - the other way around though, it was the main registers that were down all day, the credit/debit terminals were working fine. If anyone is interested, they can read it here:

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...584#post199584

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

*creeeeak* Pardon me, sonny, while I show my age.

When I first started working retail, the store where I worked still had those paper slips & card imprint devices. The store even still used those receipt books for especially busy times or when the registers decided to die. I was so glad when corporate got pulled into the 1980's (during the '90's) and got an authorization line.

[rerant]

Second, does your store use an "integrated" credit/debit system, that is, rather than you having to key in the purchase amount into the card terminal, the register automatically programs it in?

Ours it automatic. We just hit a button on the register and it sets the debit machine up for the customer, as well the same button works for credit cards, which we swipe at the register.

Seeing as problems like this are so rare, the process is more efficient. However yesterday I grew to hate it.

[CaroPhoenix]

The Gaming Store's registers are little better than old computers attached to a register drawer. I've worked at the store when the computers go down, and the only things we can do is use the little receipt booklets, write things down and give the duplicate receipt to the customer. We don't have the imprint credit card machine. We have to write down which cc was used, the number, the expiration date. Once the computers come back on, we put all transactions in the computer.

Oh yeah, for cash/check sales, we do the same thing, but we can open the cash drawer manually to give back change. Whew.

[digilight]

Hey I still use those ancient credit card slider imprinter dealie. But then again I only run anywhere from 0-10 CC sales a month and I sure as hell won't spring for new equipment for that little bit.

But a little piece of advice. I know in the US (I dunno about other countries). The merchant has to have all but the last 4 digits of the card number covered on the receipts. This usually doesn't happen on the manual imprinter unless you have some type of a guard on it.