(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

So, a coworker in another department, an extremely nice man who sometimes comes to me for help navigating the building's byzantine administration, called me this morning.

Coworker Nice: Sam, I'm waiting on a FedEx envelope this morning.
Sam: I think it may already have come! Hang on. *checks, comes back with envelope* Yep, I've got it right here.
Coworker Nice: In that envelope is ten million dollars.
Sam: Um, what?
Coworker Nice: I'll be there to get it in a moment.
Sam: I'll hold it in my hands until you get here.

So Coworker Nice came up to my desk a few minutes later and said, "You wanna see?" and I totally did, because I was wondering if it was a bond or a check or what. Turns out it was a check, a check for ten million dollars, and Coworker Nice let me hold it and look at ALL THE ZEROES.

Because let's be honest, separating oneself from the material plane is fine and all but how often do you get a chance to hold a check for ten million dollars?

Seriously, there were a lot of zeroes. Like an unreal amount.

Comments

[elisi]

Holy Crap!

[londonsabre.livejournal.com]

Wow!

[firynze.livejournal.com]

O_o

o_O

I...uh...yeah.

Wow.

Not every day you get to do that.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

As I told Coworker Nice, it tops the time I opened an envelope with no name on it and pulled a check for fifty grand out.

[i-phianassa.livejournal.com]

So many questions! Why? Was the money for him or the company? Someone trusted FedEx with a $10 million check?!

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Someone trusted FedEx with a $10 million check?!

THIS WAS MY QUESTION TOO

[annemjw.livejournal.com]

How- Why did he have a cheque for ten million dollars? Sam this is not enough information.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL! We handle donations for arts and charitable organisations, it was a donation. Usually I don't actually get to handle the checks myself, mind you...

[winstonmom.livejournal.com]

I could use 10 million dolars right about now!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Who couldn't? :D

Aside from like, Bill Gates.

[carbonel]

A couple of orders of magnitude less, but I had a similar experience.

Back in the mid-1980s, I worked as an office temp for Honeywell, moving around the 40 or so facilities that that the company then had in the Twin Cities. One of my more surreal assignments involved working as a receptionist around the Christmas/New Year period. Just about everyone was on vacation, so my job consisted of answering the phone (and taking messages), and opening the mail and doing a few simple tasks with it. My putative supervisor, before she went on vacation and abandoned me, said that some donation checks would be coming in, and I should just leave them in the appropriate file folder.

Sure enough, some checks came in. The smallest was around $5,000, and the largest was $100,000. At that point in my life, that was over five years' income. I contemplated my capabilities for theft and money laundering, and decided that a) it was infeasible, and b) I was too damned honest, anyway.

But it was fun to think about it. And, as you say, to hold a check with that many zeroes, even if it wasn't mine.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL, yeah, I once opened an envelope with no name on it, just the theatre I worked for, and pulled out a check for fifty grand. That was a morality-testing moment for sure.

[priscellie.livejournal.com]

That would buy like 1600 ponies. Or two million pounds of bacon. Or one million pounds of bacon to feed to 800 ponies.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Forty million superballs.

[mythologian.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a friend who once commented on the weirdness of carrying hugh checks (like 40million+) from one office to another while working as a gofer in the movie industry.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

I held one for forty grand once, with my name on it. That was a Moment. (Compensation, not lottery, before anyone asks, and no, none of it is left.)

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen/held checks for upwards of half a million dollars, but nothing over a million dollars. It really IS a lot of zeros!

Of course the biggest check I've ever *written* was for the down payment on my house. That was a little painful actually - even knowing that it was just about twenty percent of the purchase price - so for that chunk of money I got twenty percent of my house. I now own about fifty percent of my house...

[karadin.livejournal.com]

But did he put his pinky to his mouth when he said Ten Million Dollars like Dr. Evil?

[almalthia]

That would have been AMAZINGLY surreal! :O

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

-- I mostly lurk here, but this is the kind of moment when I have to mention that when I was an intern, I once accidentally rerouted two million dollars to New Jersey.

It was supposed to go to Germany.

It's nice that checks can be voided, isn't it?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL! They do sound kind of alike...

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

Trekkie Monster: Here, me give you ten. million. dollars!

Princeton: Trekkie! where did you get all that money??

Trekkie Monster: In volatile market, only stable investment is porn!

Money!

[ooktavia.livejournal.com]

I've never seen a dramatically large check before; however I think large amounts of cash are quite exciting, too.
When I was being a go-fer for a charity that was getting ready to send a team out after the big tsunami a few years back, I got to go to Coutts (one of the oldest banks in the UK) and get out of the special bank account there the emergency money. I'd never held £6,000 in cash before. Or seen a £100 note. Or entered Coutt's hallowed portals, either.
I got the envelope with the money, got out of the bank and into a taxi and went straight back to the office. I did not let go of it for a single second until I put it into my boss's hands.
Five minutes after I gave it to her, I think I began to breathe normally again for the first time since I touched the envelope. I was terrified of anything happening to it- it seemed so vulnerable.

Re: Money!

[minkrose]

Cash is WAY more terrifying than cheques! I'm not sure I could have handled that at all. I don't even carry more than $40 in my wallet, ever.

[ysabet.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I think I'd spend a moment petting all those zeroes. Just because I could.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I pretty much did. But then a group of people came in and the phone rang, so I had to give the ten million dollars back.

[dreamwaffles.livejournal.com]

....holy shit! That's so awesome!

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

I just had to shove aside my notes and write that out by hand. I was less impressed by the amount of numbers than I was by it written out (I'm not good with numbers):



Holy Crap! This beats the one time that I held $2000 cash in my hands! If only someone would send me a cheque, for ANY amount, I'm not picky! :D

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's pretty overwhelming any way you write it :D

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Wow... the biggest amount I've ever handled was a cheque I had to write for just under 5 grand... that was a sweaty palm moment! I can't even imagine a $10 million cheque, never mind holding one!

[rednwhiterose.livejournal.com]

Did you make a photo copy of it? Cuz I sure would.....only because I'd be OMGWTF10MILLIONDOLLARCHECK!!?!?!?!? Must make sure we have proof of existence...but then again, I work for CPAs, so I'm paranoid about money.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I did take a picture of the envelope :D

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

Sam: I'll hold it in my hands until you get here.

One of my past jobs involved toting hundreds of dollars in cash in a manila envelope around downtown Manhattan at 11pm or so every night, so yeah, I have a teeny inkling of that feeling. :P

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I wanted to blog about it but couldn't until he got there because OMG TEN MILLION DOLLARS MUST WAAAATCH IT.

[firesprite1105.livejournal.com]

BADASS.

[toyniffler.livejournal.com]

A cheque for ten million dollars... Whatever happend to direct transfer into the company bank account? Is that kind of thing not done? Transferring that amount of money per cheque seems positively medeival! Amazing! Next time i hope it's the legendary suitcase filled with cash because that would be even cooler!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh man I totally want someone to walk into my lobby one day with a suitcase handcuffed to their wrist...

[ceilidh515.livejournal.com]

Where I work I'm a signatory on our checking account. When everyone else of consequence is out of the office I have to co-sign checks. The day I signed a check for $750K I was beside myself. All I kept thinking was, "Do these people not realize I can't even remember the code to the photocopier? How the hell am I signing checks this big?"

[kidsis.livejournal.com]

I worked for a casino and I was responsible for filling out the checks, but I was not authorized to sign them. I had a lot of fun writing checks for thousands of dollars....