FYI, vending machines with bill acceptors usually have escrow and no escrow settings. The vendor can select, depending on manufacturer: give the dollar back, keep dollar give coins back, no money return for dollar bills. Call the vendor and have them change the settings or threaten to call another vendor.
If it makes you feel any better, our vending machines are never stocked with anything. Well, except for the one lonely bag of peanuts (which seems to be the same bag that has been there for over a year now) and a full row of all-dressed potato chips. I think I’d chew off my own leg before I resorted to eating either.
But since this thread has taught me that vending machine peanuts can be exchanged for oral sex, I may just go rescue the bag of old peanuts. They’re BBQ flavoured. Mmmm… tingly.
Will Repair, that’s cool. I didn’t know that!
At least the peanuts don’t have to be presalted.
Where I worked, every break area had a machine the size of a Porsche stocked with snacks, all stuck into shiny coils. It offered a 50-50 chance of actually delivering your snack on the first try. With the tantalizing yummything hanging there, almost satisfying the customer, most folks would pound on the evil beast with fists of fury. Large men would give it a forearm shiver or a full body block.
It occurred to me, the stingy thing should have a SHAKER BUTTON. Yeah, a big yellow button that would judder the whole thing until the captive snack came out.
I talked to one of the guys who stocks the machines. He got complaints every day from people who had to buy two snacks to get the first one to fall. “What’s the problem?” he said, “You paid for two snacks, you got two snacks.” He didn’t know how close he came to getting a forearm shiver to the throat. Be calm, Nott. The enlightened man does not leap to violence. Breathe, Nott, feel the breathing.
The vending machine in our office is amazing. Icy cold pop and melted chocolate bars out of the same machine.
If I’ve got a chocolate craving (which is really rare), I usually head upstairs to the empty part of the office to minimize the chances of someone seeing me with chocolate smeared all over my hands and face.
Nu uh! It’s a perfectly normal course of action, esp when you have no change. It’s the smallest bill! I’ve only been here 7 months, and I’m gonna be mighty disappointed if that counts as too long.
I almost bought something out of a vending machine the other day. I wanted Gatorade (was feeling queesy), but the machine didn’t have it. The only thing that sounded palatable was on the top shelf, in a glass bottle. I had no faith in the designer of the machine, and I didn’t feel like gambling on whether or not the bottle would break when it hit the metal floor in the machine. So, I went thirsty. 
I had to post my all time favorite kid story, which showcases bad vending machine design. Antigo Wisconsin boy stuck inside vending machine. I mean how fucking funny is that? Grandma turns her back for a second and there’s the kid inside the machine. The story ran with a picture of the kid in the machine, which is why I will always remember this incident.
Speaking of vending machines, I just accidentally bought a pack of beef jerky instead of Doritos. :mad:
Who the fuck buys beef jerky out of a vending machine anyway? Time-traveling pioneers?
One vending machine at work had so many buttons and was so confusing, that when I put in a dollar I found that I had voted for Pat Buchanan.
13 years ago I went to our factory in the Netherlands where all the coffee machines worked off smart cards. I’m still waiting, people. We even have smart cards for our badges, why they can’t find someone to build a machine to accept them is beyond me.
Well, ok. But do you still feel a pang of trepidation upon putting a 10,000-yen (US$100) bill into the ticket machine at the train station?
If not, then congratulations. You’re one of us.
You know, the store I used to work in had an Aquafina machine whose top shelf was all Starbucks coffee drinks in glass bottles. They never once broke when being dispensed (and they were, all day long), but that didn’t stop nearly every single customer who used that machine from telling us that we shouldn’t put glass bottles into a vending machine cause that’s a guarantee they’ll break.
Do you think that we wanted them to break? We’d have to replace it with something and then we’d be out the money. They don’t break. If they were the sort of thing that would break when being dispensed from the top shelf, then they wouldn’t be stocked on the top shelf.
Not once in the 60 hours a week I was there over a period of nine months did we have a bottle break.
Well, I haven’t traveled far enough by train to warrant sticking 一万円 into a train station, but I’ve done it at a gas station. At first there was definitely some trepidation, but I was really happy when 5 and 1 sen bills came back, rather than the thing spewing 500円 coins at me like a slot machine on crack. Maybe the states can figure out how to get return bills to come out of the same slot that you put them in as well.
BTW, do you think it’s funny that ハイテンしょン (high tension) means exciting instead of stressful? Still cracks me up whenever I hear it.
Urban cowboys.
I do, but only when it’s not teriyaki-flavored (too many carbs.) An ounce of beef jerky or pork skins can be a great snack in the middle of a long day.