“I’ve been going over the checkbook and I see you’ve made some mistakes with Mario’s pay,” Sherry said.
“How can that be? I don’t make mistakes.”
“Ha…ha…very funny. See this?” she pointed. “This is a check you wrote to Mario for $150 two weeks ago.”
“I see it. What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“Here’s another one from last week.”
“Where’s the mistake?”
“You’re paying him for three days of work.”
“If a man works for three days he should be paid for three – oh, I see what you mean. For the last two weeks he’s had a job pouring concrete so he’s only been working Saturdays and Sundays with me. I’ve been overpaying him by $50 a week.”
“He never mentioned it to you?”
“Are you kidding? This is Mario we’re talking about— someone who owes me hundreds of dollars in loans. He would never say a word about it.”
“How are you going to take care of this?”
“He’s back to working three days with me this week. I’ll take it out of his pay.”
“Mr. Dennis, you made a mistake on my check this week,” Mario said yesterday when I paid him. “You only paid me for one day and I worked three.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but for two weeks before that I accidentally paid you for an extra day each week. Didn’t you notice that?”
“Uh. . .yeah.”
“Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”
“Mr. Dennis, I figure it this way. I don’t mind if you make a mistake once or twice but when it gets to be a habit, I got to say something.”
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