busy week with new challenges

Last week at work was exceptionally busy, but I also got a chance to demonstrate my leadership skills.  I work in customer service at the Municipal Court of Phoenix. We have one supervisor and two leads. I was recently promoted to be one of the leads.

I supervise seventeen clerks who work at the customer service windows. The clerks are important because they interface directly with the customers, so they are the "front line," representing the city to the public in a positive and helpful light, and diffusing anger and frustration sometimes felt by members of the public who owe money or have been charged with a crime. The clerks answer questions for customers, and they send customers to the correct courtroom. They also take payments in person and by mail for tickets, fines, and restitution, and they are responsible for handling money that comes in.

As lead, I'm not assigned to a customer service window. I help clerks deal with particularly difficult customers and issues. I also audit the daily deposit. I begin by running a report, which adds up all the money taken that day by all the clerks.  Each clerk also has a cash deposit sheet, which describes how many bills of each denomination were taken by the clerk. If there is a discrepancy in the cash deposit sheet, I look at the videotape of the day to see if the clerk made a mistake in handling the cash. Ultimately, I make sure that the total amount of cash that is reported to have come matches the amount of cash actually taken in by the clerks.

Last week, the other lead, who is more experienced than me, was unexpectedly out for the whole week. At the same time, several clerks were also unexpectedly out. The most understaffed day was Monday, when we had four clerks and a lead out. As a result, I had to do the job of a clerk, processing mailed in payments. On one day, I took 80 mailed in payments, a job usually done in one day by four clerks. I also had to deal with double my usual duties as lead - taking complaints, dealing with difficult issues and customers, all in addition to auditing the daily report.

I worked overtime the whole week in order to get things done. I learned that I can handle difficult situations, and I'm able to pick up the slack at work when others are out. I was proud of myself for rising to the occasion.

My first post

My name is Arturo Mendoza, and I'm a student in the Urban and Metropolitan Studies School at ASU in downtown Phoenix where will hope to complete my degree no later than 2011. I'm originally from Guadalajara, Mexico. As a kid, I took public transportation to school, and I traveled all over the city on my own. I made money taking lunch orders from executives and delivering lunches to their offices. It was a very different upbringing than what is typical for most of my classmates at ASU.

I've lived in downtown Phoenix for the past 25 years. I can walk to work at the Phoenix Municipal Court, where I've been for just over two and half years. I'm an assistant supervisor in the customer service department. I'm using my current job as my internship due to the fact that I'm a full time employee and thus not able to intern for a different agency. I really like my job, and I want to continue at this city or one that is more pedestrian friendly and cosmopolitan, like San Francisco or New York, which I visit frequently.