The ones at all the stores near me (Coinstar brand) don’t take any cut if you get it in the form of an online gift card. They have several options, including Amazon and iTunes.
Combine that with my Amazon Visa, and a couple of times a year I get about $100 of “free” stuff. (yes, I know if it’s MY change it’s not really free, but it feels like it is.)
But regarding change:
I wait tables. I don’t mind too much change, as long as it’s ONLY for the “change” part of your bill. That is to say, if your bill is $21.46, I don’t mind getting forty-six cents, but if you leave me a twenty, and then four of five bucks all in change as the tip, I’ll will get very annoyed.
On the flip side, please don’t pay with a $100 bill for anything less than a $60 check. Especially if you are my first table of the day, and I haven’t acquired a bankroll yet. (Most chain places like where I work don’t have cash registers except at the bar. We keep all the cash we have until we “cash out” with s manager at the end of the night. You pay with a large bill, and then we have no change for the next customer who pays with jsut a $20 and only needs a couple of bucks back.)
Seriously, why the fuck do you even HAVE a $100 bill? To get that, you must have made a very large (as in, at least several hundred dollar) cash withdraw from the bank. Why did you do that? You DO know almost every place in the world now accepts debit and credit cards, right? And they are completely free from your bank?
There are lots of places here that don’t even accept fifties or hundreds at all because of counterfeiting. I’m not sure how they get around being required to accept legal tender (maybe it’s only banks that are required to accept any and all legal tender), but they do.
Maybe it’s different in Canada, but I don’t think there’s any sort of a requirement that a place of business accept legal tender. There’s that line on bills that says, “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private,” or some such, but I think that just means, “This is real money.” If I go to buy a new car and try to make the down payment in pennies, I’m pretty sure I’m getting thrown out on my ass.
For that matter, most online and mail-order stores don’t have an option to mail them an envelope stuffed with bills if you want to buy their stuff. In fact, they generally specifically forbid you from paying cash.
The wording on the bill is, “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”
If you are standing at a cash register attempting to make a purchase, there is no “debt” involved. The store is making an offer to sell you goods, and you are agreeing to purchase the goods. At this point, the store still owns the merchandise, and they can accept or reject any form of payment they choose.
Lissener, a lot of creaky people were taught to make change in a way that is fairly reassuring to the person getting change. You “build up” from the amount of the purchase to the amount that the person handed to you. That’s usually the opposite of what people do.
For example, if a purchase is $2.73 and the person hands you five dollars, first hand the person 2 cents and say "“2.75 plus a quarter is three dollars plus two dollars is five dollars.” You probably know what I’m talking about.
You would make a lot of old people happy and surprise them too if you did it this way. No one ever does anymore.
Who can blame you for ranting here if you were polite IRL? They may act like jerks, but their feelings can be unbelievably tender. And it frustrates them beyond words not to be able to think clearly.
I have asked three of my grandchildren for a long time to show me how to burn a disc of music or use an ipod. They never find the time. (I need hands-on guidance.)
How clever! I wish I’d thought of planning for that! Oh well. Too late now.
A friend of mine had the painful experience of having a young cashier’s register stop working and watching her try to figure out the change.
Her: “OK, so it came to $17.33…froooom…ahhhhh…tw-en-ty…ummm”
Him: waiting patiently
Her: "So that’s, ahhhhh…tw-ooooo…"puzzled frowning
Him: trying to be helpful “two-”
Her (cutting him off): “No, I can do it.” pulling out a piece of paper, scribbling, erasing, scribbling
Him: trying to be supportive “Take your time.”
Her: sigh “Looks like I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
Her: pulling out calculator from drawer
Now that my parents are old, I’m going to have to come to the conclusion that the old people out there that are bothering you with their incompetence have *always *been incompetent. They were incompetent when they were young whippersnappers, they were incompetent when they were middle aged, and they’re incompetent now.
There was some comedian who floated the idea that with cashiers like that you should really blow their minds. If your purchase comes up to $13.72, give them $16. 47 and watch their heads blow up.
There’s one small book-selling company here in Toronto that still has the cashiers calculate change without a computer or calculator. It’s amazing how fast you can learn basic subtraction if you need to.
But this is exactly what us whippersnappers (all 32 years I’ve got) don’t get. Why would you wait for them at all? Get in there and fiddle around with it! Computers are getting more user-friendly by the second. It’s not like we’re asking you to go in there and mess around in DOS, and I still remember my college days on Linux. That would probably blow your mind. It’s not difficult to burn a disc and it’s waaay easier to use an iPod. And if I didn’t know how to do something and wanted to do it I’d figure it out.
This isn’t fully directed at you, Zoe, but this attitude. People in my family have the same attitude, but when my mom wanted to learn Gmail, she sure as hell did.
As for the cashier thing. I always post in defence of cashiers. There’s genuinely stupid cashiers and there’s tired cashiers. When I was a cashier, I was on my feet for eight or ten hours, except for breaks. One person after another came through and it was a dreadfully busy place. At the end of the day I’d be hard-put to tell you my name, let alone figure out change.
Most old people think if they screw up they will blow up the computer. To do that actually requires a cat and a keyboard.
I am 10 years older than my wife and she wants help on every computer move. I help her with spelling and punctuation too.
Someone asked what pizza without saucewas called. No one was arguing that white pizza didn’t have cheese.
From the Wiki pizza entry:
*White pizza (pizza bianca) uses no tomato sauce, often substituting pesto or dairy products such as sour cream. Most commonly, especially on the east coast of the United States, the toppings consist only of mozzarella and ricotta cheese drizzled with olive oil and spices like fresh basil and garlic. *
Dead Badger: You may well live on the Cape Of The White Calzone, but honestly, everywhere else if a server asks a patron if they want cheese on their pizza they’re going to get a very odd look indeed.
Jack Batty: I’ve got family in the pizza biz in western New York … white pizza is, and has been, pretty common there too.
What Exit?: White Pizza has cheese though.
Jack Batty: Hey I didn’t say I was in the pizza biz, what the hell do I know?
In order to maintain a healthy weight that is also proportional to my height, and because I love pizza, I frequent many places that offer cheeseless pizza as a regular menu option. It is not abnormal. Even Amy’s makes a frozen no-cheese roasted vegetable pizza.
You are looking at “two pizza menus” as you type to “verify reality”? I’m looking at two local menus that offer cheeseless pizza AND they are online where everyone else can see it too.
The wiki pizza entry even notes that An authentic recipe uses neither cheese nor anchovies. in regards to authentic sicilian-style pizza.
My “open your eyes” comment was not foolish. People find what they are looking for. I look for healthy versions of foods I love and I find them, and I’m not alone in this. Not everyone eats with abandon.
To get that, you must have made a very large (as in, at least several hundred dollar) cash withdraw from the bank. Why did you do that? You DO know almost every place in the world now accepts debit and credit cards, right? And they are completely free from your bank?
