t's a battle I never seem to be on the right side of.
Last spring I mentioned, on several occasions, my frustration with kids who insist on memorizing their student I.D. numbers and entering them on the keypad instead of having their debit cards ready to scan.
Earlier this fall, I expounded on the troubles caused by the temporary paper debit cards issued to the students pending the arrival of their permanent, hard plastic cards.
Because those little paper cards almost NEVER scanned properly, I was having to look up students manually as they came through. Ask kid "What's your name?", hit 'Account', then 'Name Lookup', enter a few letters of the name, and select the proper result from the list. Sounds like a lot, but I can actually do this very quickly, having spent my entire adult life in clerical and transcription jobs. However, my supervisor insisted that this was slowing down the line and that I needed to get on the kids' cases to...memorize their I.D. numbers and type them in when they come through. This annoyed me to no end, for two reasons:
1. This is exactly what I spent three months trying to discourage last year, because kids so frequently screw up typing their numbers in, which actually slows down the process; and
2. It's a new school year, meaning that half the school body consists of recently elementary school kids who don't know their numbers. Each time kids came through with their defective cards and no knowledge of their ID numbers, I'd have to look them up manually anyway, THEN stop to write down their six-digit number on a scrap of paper, give them the paper and lecture them on getting it memorized. As you can imagine, this really did nothing to improve checkout speeds. Fifth graders are distractible, and have an unsurprising tendency to lose small pieces of paper.
"C'mon," I'd urge them, on the third or fourth day that I rewrote their numbers for them. "It's shorter than your phone number. You can memorize your phone number."
And so it went on. Honestly, I didn't mind pulling them up by names - as I say, I'm very quick with the system, it gives me a chance to start memorizing their names, and it's actually slower for me to stop and remind them all. Mainly I continued nagging because when I'm perceived as being too indulgent with the kids, I occasionally find myself relegated to serving so that my supervisor can run register herself and scold the kids herself in her own, much sterner way.
After several weeks, the new plastic debit cards did indeed arrive. I'd say not a moment too soon - at this point 98 percent of the paper cards had been lost, thrown away with lunch trays, laundered, folded, smeared, or otherwise made to barely resemble a scrap of paper that barely resembled an identification card - but since they had never really worked anyway, having the kids continue to bring them really served no purpose other than to enforce the habit of carrying one.
But now, they had shiny new cards that they were, for the first time in their young lives, required to carry at all times, identification and meal card all in one. But you know what? By this time they were starting to catch on to the keypad system, and many had finally learned their numbers. And many felt that this was simply waaaay less hassle than actually remembering to bring their cards and have them in hand at time of checkout.
Enter my supervisor, who tells me that I'm being too soft on the kids and that I really need to get the kids' cases to...stop typing their numbers and start bringing their cards. Her main concern now - when they mistype their numbers, there's a chance they may actually pull up another student's account, increasing the risk that the wrong student may be charged (unlikely - I always check the photo and name against the student in front of me).
Try explaining this to a fifth grader.
Me: I know it's hard to remember your card. But what if you type the wrong number and someone else ends up paying for your lunch?
Kid: Sounds good to me!
Me: Oh-kaaay...what if some other kid types the wrong number and you pay for HIS lunch?
Kid: Uhhhhh....I wouldn't like that. But I can type in the right number!
So, mystery solved. Having entered this profession near the end of a school year last year, I often wondered why we have such a battle over debit cards vs. keypad entry. Now I realize that it's because we spend the first month of school training them to do this.
Next, please!
Last spring I mentioned, on several occasions, my frustration with kids who insist on memorizing their student I.D. numbers and entering them on the keypad instead of having their debit cards ready to scan.
Earlier this fall, I expounded on the troubles caused by the temporary paper debit cards issued to the students pending the arrival of their permanent, hard plastic cards.
Because those little paper cards almost NEVER scanned properly, I was having to look up students manually as they came through. Ask kid "What's your name?", hit 'Account', then 'Name Lookup', enter a few letters of the name, and select the proper result from the list. Sounds like a lot, but I can actually do this very quickly, having spent my entire adult life in clerical and transcription jobs. However, my supervisor insisted that this was slowing down the line and that I needed to get on the kids' cases to...memorize their I.D. numbers and type them in when they come through. This annoyed me to no end, for two reasons:
1. This is exactly what I spent three months trying to discourage last year, because kids so frequently screw up typing their numbers in, which actually slows down the process; and
2. It's a new school year, meaning that half the school body consists of recently elementary school kids who don't know their numbers. Each time kids came through with their defective cards and no knowledge of their ID numbers, I'd have to look them up manually anyway, THEN stop to write down their six-digit number on a scrap of paper, give them the paper and lecture them on getting it memorized. As you can imagine, this really did nothing to improve checkout speeds. Fifth graders are distractible, and have an unsurprising tendency to lose small pieces of paper.
"C'mon," I'd urge them, on the third or fourth day that I rewrote their numbers for them. "It's shorter than your phone number. You can memorize your phone number."
And so it went on. Honestly, I didn't mind pulling them up by names - as I say, I'm very quick with the system, it gives me a chance to start memorizing their names, and it's actually slower for me to stop and remind them all. Mainly I continued nagging because when I'm perceived as being too indulgent with the kids, I occasionally find myself relegated to serving so that my supervisor can run register herself and scold the kids herself in her own, much sterner way.
After several weeks, the new plastic debit cards did indeed arrive. I'd say not a moment too soon - at this point 98 percent of the paper cards had been lost, thrown away with lunch trays, laundered, folded, smeared, or otherwise made to barely resemble a scrap of paper that barely resembled an identification card - but since they had never really worked anyway, having the kids continue to bring them really served no purpose other than to enforce the habit of carrying one.
But now, they had shiny new cards that they were, for the first time in their young lives, required to carry at all times, identification and meal card all in one. But you know what? By this time they were starting to catch on to the keypad system, and many had finally learned their numbers. And many felt that this was simply waaaay less hassle than actually remembering to bring their cards and have them in hand at time of checkout.
Enter my supervisor, who tells me that I'm being too soft on the kids and that I really need to get the kids' cases to...stop typing their numbers and start bringing their cards. Her main concern now - when they mistype their numbers, there's a chance they may actually pull up another student's account, increasing the risk that the wrong student may be charged (unlikely - I always check the photo and name against the student in front of me).
Try explaining this to a fifth grader.
Me: I know it's hard to remember your card. But what if you type the wrong number and someone else ends up paying for your lunch?
Kid: Sounds good to me!
Me: Oh-kaaay...what if some other kid types the wrong number and you pay for HIS lunch?
Kid: Uhhhhh....I wouldn't like that. But I can type in the right number!
So, mystery solved. Having entered this profession near the end of a school year last year, I often wondered why we have such a battle over debit cards vs. keypad entry. Now I realize that it's because we spend the first month of school training them to do this.
Next, please!
1 comment:
It shouldn't be possible to accidentally enter another person's account because:
(a) The numbers should be nowhere near dense enough, e.g., only 1 in 1000 numbers should be used, not counting check digits.
(b) There should be one or more check digits. That is, digits that are computed from the others in a manner to catch typos.
Hopefully the system doesn't lack both of these.
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