I was just at the snack vending machine. I put my dollar in, made my selection, watched the coil spin, and instead of my bag of chips dropping, it’s left hanging at the end of the coil. Fuck! I gave the machine a little shake and it remained stuck.
So, figuring I’ll probably want a bag of chips again tomorrow (or some other point in the future), I went ahead and slid another dollar in and made the same selection. The coil spins, the first bag drops, and of course the second bag is left hanging. Fuck! Again, I give the machine a shove, and this time the bag drops, along with a Mr. Goodbar from a lower coil in the machine.
I take the 2 bags of chips I paid for. But what to do with the “free” Mr. Goodbar?
More to the point (seeing that I already took it), what would you do with the free Mr. Goodbar?
a) Take it. The next person to come along is just going to take it anyway. Plus, don’t they owe you for pain and suffering?
b) Leave it. You didn’t pay for it, so you have no right to it, no matter what the next person does.
a. It’s not like it’s worth the vending machine company’s time to send someone out to collect it. They build a small amount of machine-malfunctioning loss into their prices.
The vending machine already tried to screw you. You just fought back and won round #2 plus a bonus. That sounds like a fair fight to me so I say you take it. It is just a temporary victory anyway. The machine will be back to take your money again when you can least afford it.
This has become less of an issue lately as I’ve noticed more and more vending machines have a sensor in the bottom. If the coil spins and it doesn’t sense a drop in a reasonable time frame, it spins the coil again. This usually means you get two of whatever item but I imagine the owners prefer the loss of 75 cents in gross revenue to someone going to town on their delicate machine.
I think the correct answer would be to feed money into the machine, select Mr. Goodbar and see if anything drops. If it does, yay you! if it doesn’t, then, well you still have that first Mr. Goodbar.
The reason I say this is the next person who wants a Mr. Goodbar, probably isn’t going to get one.
Ah, yes. I meant to add that into, or after, option d.
In any case, I did take it, but I gave it away to my coworkers (who like chocolate a whole lot more than I do), so I feel I am at least karmically neutral on this one.
If any of the coils are empty, deposit money and spin the empty coil, that’ll keep the “inventory” count in the machine accurate, and you can feel comfortable that the “bonus” candy bar has been paid for
Ditto. Seems like we’ve had a few of these threads lately. I didn’t read the other thread but I remember thinking the same thing a few days ago when I read the OP about someone getting few extra dollars from the McDonalds cashiers.
If you’re asking about it on a message board you’re thinking waaay to hard about it. Keep the money, move on with life. If you have to ask then the guilt is bothering you so call them and let them tell you to keep the money and move on with life.
Leaving it is no good. I wouldn’t eat a candy bar I found lying in the drawer part of a vending machine. I was an impressionable kid when the Tylenol poisonings happened and I’m just too paranoid.
Taking it or giving it away affects the vending machine folks equally.
Technically contacting the vending machine folks is the ethical thing to do, but in the larger scheme of things just not worth the effort. If the vending machine guy was right there I’d probably give it back to him, but he’d probably just eat it! I can’t imagine they could put it back in the machine, so it’s a loss for them no matter what.
I voted leave it, but only because I don’t like Mr. Goodbar, and it’s not worth my time to try to find someone who does. If it were something better, like say Twix, I’d just take it.
You need to make these things clear in your OP *before *my head explodes. I saw this thread and was like, “Is there seriously consternation over this kind of thing?” I’m all for starting frivolous polls, however. reassembles head
That’s not necessarily true. I figure the only reason the Mr. Goodbar fell out was because someone had tried to buy it earlier but it hung on like the OP’s chips. If that’s the case, there was no need to correct the machine’s inventory.
If that’s the case, you might ask around if anyone had tried to buy a candy bar and gotten screwed by the machine. The first person who correctly identifies the culprit as Mr. Goodbar gets it.
