My POS system crashed during a lunch rush and I almost lost it

Last Tuesday at noon, my old Square terminal just froze up right when I had a line of 8 people waiting for tacos. The screen went black and wouldn't reboot for 10 minutes. I had to grab a pen and paper to write orders by hand, then punch them in later when it came back. Three customers walked out because it was taking too long. Has anyone else had their payment system fail at the worst possible time and found a backup that actually works?

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2 Comments

eva_ward884mo ago

Eight people, that's barely a rush. I've worked at a place where we had 40 orders backed up and the power went out for three hours. We just pulled out the carbon paper slips and wrote everything by hand, then keyed it all in after. Pen and paper never crashes. Three customers walking out over a ten minute delay, that's on them. They probably would've complained about the taco temperature anyway. A backup exists, it's a notepad and a calculator. Not every system failure is a crisis, sometimes it's just a Tuesday.

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roberts.jordan4mo ago

Real talk @eva_ward88, you're totally right that a pen and paper backup never lets you down. Sucks when customers can't cut you some slack over something that's out of your hands.

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