4.The missing 50 Yuan and the ge

Like I said, the job was not difficult and I took less than a week to adjust myself to it. But some tricky problems might occur sometimes. There’s a refrigerator at the front door of the hotel storing cold water and drinks. The colleagues from the cafeteria department would sit beside the front door and sell water and drinks to the tourists. Once a bottle of water was sold, they'd return to the front desk, gave the money to the receptionists and told them what was sold. Us recpetionists had a book to write down what was sold and we had to count the money when our shift is over, to see if it was in accordance with the bills.

As it was summer, the business was quite good. We could receive a lot of money each afternoon. However, it got really chaotic when we were so busy with the guests checking in and phone calls coming in. We might forget to write or rewrite the bills when the money was turned in. We didnt know what was it until we counted the money and caculated the amount of the bills when the shift was over. It was alright when the money was more than the written amount, we could just write down any drinks randomly. While it was annoying when the money was less, we had to recall if we rewrite the bills or the money was less charged.

And the annoying problem came so fast, faster than I expected, on the day Rain and I worked as partners. It was as busy as usual, we did everything we were supposed to do and came to the final part immediately. Rain found there was 50 Yuan less when she counted the money. She asked me if I'd remember rewriting some bill. I said no and in fact I didnt. We checked the bills, counted the money again and again, still no luck. Rain decided to turn in the 50 Yuan from her own pocket according to the hotel policy. I felt ashamed and responsible for the mistake too. Being a new employee, it was possible that I was the one who got careless and made the mistake. But Rain took the responsibility anyhow.

Things turned aorund two days later when a Dutch tour group checking in our hotel. Our hotel has a close and good coopertaion with some agancies in Guilin, so there's foreign tour group checking in every single day. There were 22 people in the group altoghter and they checked in at 12pm. I worked with my manager's sister that day as the colleauge who should be taking the morning shift was on a leave. I didn't know what posistion she was. But I supposed that if her brother's being a manager also made her a manager of the hotel. She just took the shift of the peroson who's on leave, bought some necessities for the hotel and rested most of the time.

Some guests from the Dutch tour group asked for their passports after putting their luggages in the room, we gave them. We thought everything was fine until their tour leader came to us and asked if their passports were still there.We told him the truth and he got a little pissed. He said that we should give  the passports to the tour leader, himself, instead of handing out to the guests themselves. We apoligized again and again, explaining we didn't know that. Whatunbelievable was that he gave us 100 Yuan as tip although we made such a mistake. The manager's sister said Dutchman was the most generous guest and suggested that we split it, 50 Yuan each.

She splitted the 100 Yuan and gave me 50. I couldn't forget we lost 50 Yuan two days before when working with Rain. I proposed to turn in the 50 Yuan so that Rain could get her money back. The manager's sister rejected, saying that it was a totally different thing and I should keep the money. 

Although I didn't quite agree with the hotel policy because people forgot things when busy and none of us should be fined for the money lost, it was a huge possibility that we just rewrote the bills, I knew the meaning of 'each should be given his diserts' for the first time.