Working as a waitress was tough, Long hours and long days with little pay in tips. I thought it was the worst job in the cafe but I never realized how much cafe accountants do until I had a chat with one. Managing the money, projections, and doing reports for the cafe seems like a big task. I knew it was important, but I didn’t know how tough it was as well.
After a long shift, it was time for me to leave the cafe. My ride was on his way so I sat in the office with Carl, the cafe accountant. I never really had long chats with him so I figured why not. I asked what he was doing and he said he was trying to figure out where five thousand dollars went in a report he was given by the manager. I was shocked that that much money was gone. He told me it was normal for that money to be missing in the report, it was his job to figure out where it went and if it was spent wisely or not. Then he told me “It’s usually well spent.” I was curious, what happens if he didn’t find the money? He told me either way, he has to write a report on the money. If he finds it, it’s a good report and he explains where the money went and how that helped the cafe. If he doesn’t find the money, his report is more of an explanation of what he searched through and what records they have of money spent and not spent. After that, if the money still isn’t found it’s more of a detective work of asking the management about it so he knows it wasn’t stolen. I asked if money had ever been stolen, it seems kind of scary for money to just up and disappear like that. He said he’s never dealt with theft. Most of the time, for him, it is just the owner buying an appliance and just forgetting to mark the receipt as an expense. I was shocked still! A few minutes later, he leaned back in the chair and said “I found it!” and it ended up being the owner buying a chair and table set to replace one that had broken in the shop. He hadn’t recorded the purchase at all. What a wild ride!
Eventually, my ride came and I had to go. It was interesting to see how fast something could go from a huge store loss to a sigh of relief when it was found. I always thought that table 6 being demanding of their coffee being cold was the most stressful thing, but I see know that being the cafe accountant really is way worse.