Just as she figured.

Stephanie took a deep breath as she walked back into the store. The few remaining employees wandered aimlessly around the store. In order to avoid the wrath of their boss, they did whatever task they felt needed to be completed. Some folded shirts that hadn’t been touched since the first day they were put on the shelf. Others emptied garbage cans that had no garbage in them. Stephanie was not so lucky. As soon as she clocked back in, Ted’s voice rang out over the intercom.

“Stephanie, can you come back to the vault, please?”

“Fucking Hell!” The blonde woman exclaimed.

Walking as quickly as possible, she made her way to the secure room where the store’s vault was located. Once there, she ran her badge through the scanner and prayed the machine wouldn’t allow her to enter. Once her dream was shattered, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

“Okay Ted, let’s get these tills counted so I can leave,” she stated.

“The truck is coming for the bags tomorrow. We’ve got to count all the bags marked for pick up. We may be here a while,” Ted grinned as he eyed Stephanie.

“Well, good. As soon as we start, we can finish, so let’s get a couple more people in here,” Stephanie suggested.

“No, I think we can handle this task by ourselves,” the manager leered.

Stephanie rolled her eyes and picked up the first bag. She wrote down the number on the counting sheet as well as the amount of money that should be in the bag. She then took out every bundle of cash in the bag and began counting the money in each. She had to write the total for each bundle and mark whether or not it matched what the slip said should be there. When she had counted out each bundle, she then had to total up the amount for the bag. If everything matched, she simply had to have Ted sign off on the bag. If it did not match, she had to mark down the bundle numbers that were off, and how much they were off by. The name of the person who counted the bundles was written down, in case a pattern occurred. After about the fourth bundle, Ted turned to Stephanie.

“Uh oh. It looks like the bill counter is on the fritz. We’re going to have to count the bundles by hand!” Ted said with a bit of a cheer in his voice.

“Good, a few more pairs of hands will make this go by so much quicker,” Stephanie sighed.

“Are you kidding? We can do this. It’ll take us no time at all!” the manager said as he blatantly checked Stephanie out.

“Yeah, I’m not counting these by hand by myself. Either you get someone else in here to help, or I’m leaving,” she warned him.