So as some of you know, I have had a rough past few days. Yesterday I learned that the person I foolishly entrusted my french horn to ran over it with his car (writing that sentence hurts). Today my roommate decided that she wants to move out (for reasons you know if you should, and for everyone else, it is due to immaturity on her part). Despite this stress however, I haven't yet felt underwater. It's a blessing in disguise that I have woken up these past two mornings to do my workout. It really gave me the energy and physiological support to feel less stressed (aka endorphins). You always hear that exercise improves your mood, lessens stress, and makes you feel better.. well, it's true. I am not only proud of myself for taking these first real steps, but glad I did it so I could better handle these past few days.

The GOOD news, which I received today right before quitting time at work, is that my boss has offered me a bonus if I get my meter estimates down to a certain percentage for Jacksonville. Since that is probably gibberish to some of you, let me try to briefly explain (if you are just passing through this blog, you probably won't care about this):

The company I work for is a dealer of copiers, printers, mailing machines, etc. as well as offering services and supplies to our customers under contract with us. These customers generally are given (under their contract) a certain amount of copies/prints they can make for a base price. For example, they may be allowed to make 2000 prints a month for $20/mo. After they go over their allotted copies/prints, they are charged overages. So for this example, they may be charged $0.01 for each black and white, and $0.05 for each color print they make.

The way that we verify how many copies/prints they have done in a month, they must send in a meter read from the machine every month on their due date. Typically the way we gather these meters is through automated requests (faxes or emails that go out near their due date) that they have to reply to, or through software installed on a computer that automatically send their meters to us (Called Quickview or FM Audit). Many times, as you can imagine, customers don't send their meter in. Maybe the person that usually does it is out sick or on vacation, they no longer have the machine and don't tell us so they ignore the requests, they cancelled their contract but the meter is still billing, or they simply forget/don't care. THESE trouble-meters have to be manually called/emailed/faxed upon every month (every day because of varying due dates). Guess who has been tasked with this? You guessed it: ME!

Canon Imagerunner: Just press "Counter Check"!!!! PLEASE!!!!

So every day I receive a "Missing Meter Report" from our meter department in Tampa (headquarters). This report has meters that are "Due Today" (meters due TODAY or within the next 3 days), "Overdue" (meters that are past due from 1-5 days), and "Estimates Needed" (meters that are past 5 days overdue and require an estimate). Estimates are BAD and must be avoided at all costs. Basically the meter department in Tampa takes an average of their past reported meters if available. We want actual meters at all costs.

SO to the actual situation! I do the meters for Orlando and Jacksonville (Jacksonville beginning today, 10/1). Jacksonville is historically very difficult to get meters for. Most of the machines in Jacksonville are on Quickview, as explained above, and most of the meters on the Missing Meter Report are Quickview meters that for one reason or another are not pulling from the software (either someone uninstalled the software, got a new computer, never turn on the computer, etc. or there is an IP/Network issue). The thing about these Quickview meters is that they are typically used for companies that have many machines (10, 20, 30+). In their contract, the customers are required to provide their meters manually in  the case that Quickview isn't working. However, customers don't care and pretty much always make a fuss about this and/or refuse to give the meters at all. Historically, estimates made (out of all the machines in Jacksonville), have been over 50% for Jacksonville.

Today my boss offered me a "bonus opportunity" under these conditions:

Estimates Percentage Bonus        Equiv. No of Meters
Less than 3%   $250                     Less than 50 Estimates
3.01-5.00%     $150                      51-84
5.01-7.00%     $50                        85-117

So, as you can hopefully see from my not-as-brief-as-I-intended explanation, it will be quite difficult. She also explained that our "goal" is always less that 0.5% estimated, which is less than 8 (EIGHT) meter estimates. However, I am going to work really hard and make every effort I can to at least get one of these bonuses!! In the past my anxiety has sometimes kept me from calling on the most difficult meters (customers), as I'm not great with confrontation, but I am challenging myself this month to leave no stone unturned and use every resource possible to make this happen. I essentially have 8 days for each meter to find out the problem from the right person, find out if it can be fixed quickly or if I need to get the meter manually, find the right contact (sometimes a difficult task), speak with the contact and convince them to give me their meters (teaching them how, providing them with a spreadsheet if necessary, etc.), and then receiving the meters from them within those 8 days (by this time maybe 5 or 3 days), and have them entered into the system so that they don't end up on the "Estimates Needed" tab on the spreadsheet the next day. FINGERS CROSSED!!