# Fuck you Safeway checker! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 12, 2007, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824 "2007-02-12T06:17:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/81 "2007-02-12T20:38:02Z")
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] Something like _oportet edo rudis gens._ (literally “one should eat rude people” AFAICT). [/QUOTE] Cool. How about “I came, I saw, I ate a moron”? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/82 "2007-02-12T20:41:42Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Cool. How about “I came, I saw, I ate a moron”? [/QUOTE] If they’re violent and there were a pair of them then it would be _Et two brutes_ ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/83 "2007-02-12T20:48:12Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] How about “I came, I saw, I ate a moron”? [/QUOTE] _Veni, vedi, rudi una balatro_, I think. ---
**Author:** ![shamrock227](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@shamrock227](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shamrock227)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/84 "2007-02-12T20:52:00Z")
[QUOTE=Count Blucher] _cue sappy commercial music_ _Insert Picture of unshaven slacker cashier_ Sally Struthers Copy: “You know, its not easy going through life Stupid. The inability to do basic math has made management positions an almost unattainable dream for Johnny. Without a job, he’d be robbing someone’s house just about now. Here at Safeway, we want to help. We’ve given him a job. Now, won’t you do yours? With a job, he has pride in himself once again. Look at the smile on his face and how clean he keeps his polyester apron.” " And, for just $27 extra per transaction, you can keep little Johnny employed at Safeway. Won’t you help…?" 😃 [/QUOTE] That’s less than a dollar a day, folks. Come on, you can spare less than the cost of a cup of coffee, can’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/85 "2007-02-12T20:55:13Z")
[QUOTE=shefDave] Agreed, all you’d do where I work is input another cheque for $27 to finish the sale and everyone - the till and, most importantly, the customer - is happy. In terms of difficulty to fix it’s a 3/10 at most. [/QUOTE] I don’t think you can do this either. At the supermarkets I visit, it appears that when a check is input, the clerk has to pass it under the receipt printer. I think they print the store’s account number on the back of the check and scan the customer’s account number on the front. If the clerk simply entered a fake check to balance the transaction, he wouldn’t have anything to print and scan. I think in some places, the customer gives the clerk an unsigned check so that the register can print the amount and payee on the check, after which the customer simply has to sign it. That would have avoided the problem described in the OP, since either $58.60 or $85.60 would have been printed, although in the former case, you’d have to provide another check to make up the balance. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/86 "2007-02-12T21:05:08Z")
[QUOTE=Eonwe] Wait, there’s a huge disconnect here. So, there is a $27 dollar difference between what you paid and what he entered? So he then asks you for $27 so that he can enter $27 more dollars (after confirming that yes, you did actually pay the full amount)? Since what you paid does not have to have any direct bearing on what he enters, why couldn’t he just have entered another payment for $27? Without the manager? He was going to do that anyway, if you handed him an additional $27? I just don’t understand how this could have gotten as screwed up as it did. [/QUOTE] It’s just possible (unlikely, although possible) that Safeway has a system where the check numbers and their dollar amount print out with the end-of-shift report, and if the numbers don’t match up, the employee is written up. That is, the report says: Check 2242 - 43.65 Check 124 - 32.73 Check 9009 - 8.86 Why? So that the managers can be sure the teller isn’t taking checks and giving back cash in change (which costs the store and puts them at additional NSF risk) or accepting checks for more than the purchase amount and pocketing cash, or some combination of the two. And also because half your employees are likely to be idiots. But mostly because it means I spend less time trying to track down where the error occurred if the till doesn’t balance - we just find and mark off each check on the report. It might be that it’s therefore been pounded into this cashier’s head that the check amount for that check number better match what’s handed in at the end of his shift. Entering Check 875 - 58.60 and Check 875 - 27.00 will get him a write up. This is the only way I can find a reason for the second manager to void the check entry with his key, instead of entering “Check 27.00”. Still ABSOLUTELY no reason to be rude or swear in front of a customer. But it could explain why the CSR froze and panicked. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/87 "2007-02-12T21:07:44Z")
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield] I disagree most wholeheartedly. Don’t shop there again, but under no circumstances should you fuck with someone in a minimum wage job’s ability to earn a living. [/QUOTE] In other words the owner, who has done nothing wrong, should suffer by losing a possible recurring customer, while the employee who caused the customer to take his business elsewhere should continue to get paid without so much as a verbal reprimand? Um, no. You do no favors to the disadvantaged by continuing to subsidize their incompetence. By writing a letter of complaint, the owner has a chance to address the problem by either educating the dumbass as to how he should have handled the situation and/or by letting him go and spread his retail sunshine somewhere else, preferably a competitor. ---
**Author:** ![shefDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shefDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shefDave)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/88 "2007-02-12T21:09:11Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] And on re-reading, your cheques would balance but your cash would still be out. See why this isn’t a good idea? It’s hard to figure out later. [/QUOTE] No, I think you were right the first time. The cashier took a cheque for $80\* but only input $50\* into the register. Then **thirdwarning** suggested inputting the $30\* left over as cash to finish the sale. When you balanced the register the total amount in it would balance, but you’d be $30 over in cheques and $30 short in cash. Hardly a disaster but still a bit messy. \*_numbers rounded_ [QUOTE=Dewey Finn] [QUOTE=shefDave] Agreed, all you’d do where I work is input another cheque for $27 to finish the sale and everyone - the till and, most importantly, the customer - is happy. In terms of difficulty to fix it’s a 3/10 at most. [/quote] I don’t think you can do this either. At the supermarkets I visit, it appears that when a check is input, the clerk has to pass it under the receipt printer. I think they print the store’s account number on the back of the check and scan the customer’s account number on the front. If the clerk simply entered a fake check to balance the transaction, he wouldn’t have anything to print and scan. [/quote] I suppose it depends on the store and the till software really. As I said, where I work we have to print the backs of cheques as well, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t put the same cheque through again for the 2nd amount but print the other side of it. I accept that you might not be able to do it like that in all places. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/89 "2007-02-12T21:13:45Z")
Another thought - don’t some places now do checks as essentially immediate debits? So when they print on your check, they aren’t endorsing it for later deposit (like they used to), but printing the authorization code for the debit, just as if you’d done it on a card. If the “debit” was authorized for the lesser amount on the back of the check, the CSR might well not have been able to fix it on his own. AGAIN, no reason to be a dick about it. If anything, he should have voided the whole thing right away, called a manager and explained he needed a new check, and instructed the customer to void the old one or fixing his register to reflect the authorized debit. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/90 "2007-02-12T21:23:23Z")
[QUOTE=shamrock227] That’s less than a dollar a day, folks. Come on, you can spare less than the cost of a cup of coffee, can’t you? [/QUOTE] That depends: are they buying the coffee at Safeway…? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/91 "2007-02-12T21:50:39Z")
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield] under no circumstances should you fuck with someone in a minimum wage job’s ability to earn a living. [/QUOTE] [arnold]You make me laugh . . . I fire you last.[arnold] Why should Buddy Dummyfucko be permitted to stand in the way of a more competent and better adjusted person holding that job? Fire his ass and open up the position to someone who can do the job. ---
**Author:** ![guppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7feea3/32.png) [@guppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guppy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/92 "2007-02-12T21:54:41Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Another thought - don’t some places now do checks as essentially immediate debits? So when they print on your check, they aren’t endorsing it for later deposit (like they used to), but printing the authorization code for the debit, just as if you’d done it on a card. If the “debit” was authorized for the lesser amount on the back of the check, the CSR might well not have been able to fix it on his own. AGAIN, no reason to be a dick about it. If anything, he should have voided the whole thing right away, called a manager and explained he needed a new check, and instructed the customer to void the old one or fixing his register to reflect the authorized debit. [/QUOTE] Bank’s have a process to reconcile these checks that they go through every day. If there is a mistake they will fix it to reflect the correct amount of the check and the OP would be overcharged. ---
**Author:** ![blinkingblinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/93 "2007-02-12T21:59:13Z")
The moron in the OP is someone who learned maths with a calculator and not with their brain. These people believe everything the calculator/computer/cash register tells them. The kind of people that in a class when the teacher asks what is 27 times 5 , will answer ‘32’. A Milhouse would answer ‘low battery’. It is a certain generation of people who learned maths in this way. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/94 "2007-02-12T22:22:19Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking] The moron in the OP is someone who learned maths with a calculator and not with their brain. These people believe everything the calculator/computer/cash register tells them. The kind of people that in a class when the teacher asks what is 27 times 5 , will answer ‘32’. A Milhouse would answer ‘low battery’. It is a certain generation of people who learned maths in this way. [/QUOTE] Would this be the same generation who never bothered to learn proper grammars? 😃 (Hint: the period goes inside the quote.) ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/95 "2007-02-12T22:24:20Z")
[QUOTE=PunditLisa] Would this be the same generation who never bothered to learn proper grammars? 😃 (Hint: the period goes inside the quote.) [/QUOTE] Sorry, **PL** , but it doesn’t in Britian and Australia. Check his/her location. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/96 "2007-02-12T22:44:43Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] Sorry, **PL** , but it doesn’t in Britian and Australia. Check his/her location. [/QUOTE] Are you serious? Crap. Is this a derivative of Gaudere’s Law? ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/97 "2007-02-12T22:45:45Z")
[QUOTE=PunditLisa] You do no favors to the disadvantaged by continuing to subsidize their incompetence. By writing a letter of complaint, the owner has a chance to address the problem by either educating the dumbass as to how he should have handled the situation and/or by letting him go and spread his retail sunshine somewhere else, preferably a competitor. [/QUOTE] Adding to that, it’s best that the employee learn what’s not acceptable early and change his behavior. That gives him a better shot at advancing in a better career path. > [@Trunk](#): > > You can wait for the world to change. Or you can do what you can to change it. You’re advocating that people do nothing to change their world even if they can. I agree with you that complaining in general doesn’t help. . . unless you can complain to people who have the authority and power to change the situation. Then it’s a good thing to complain because then everyone in the situation has a better chance to do the right thing. I used to live in a place where people complained effectively to the right people all the time and the level of service was very high. I then moved to a place where no one complained about anything because they felt that nothing could be done and the level of service showed it. A change in the demographics where I currently live brought more people who have the willingness to complain in a productive manner and things changed around here for the better. I am grateful to people who complain. They take their time out to help make things better for everyone. This, of course, assumes that the complaint is valid. > [@Jodi](#): > > Sorry, PL, but it doesn’t in Britian and Australia. Check his/her location. Yahoo! I learned that at the Dope in another thread. Thanks, people. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/98 "2007-02-12T23:41:43Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] Y… we were taught to put the customer’s money to the side, on the counter, in view of the customer. Then, we’d count out the change and give it to the customer. THEN, and only then, we would put the customer’s money in the cash drawer… [/QUOTE] Bingo. The old mechanical tills had a shelf area above the cash drawer for just that purpose…and a crank for when the power failed…and you damn kids get offa my lawn! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/99 "2007-02-12T23:44:58Z")
So, why didn’t you turn around when the checker made the smartaleck comment? It wouldn’t take more than five minutes of your time to have a meeting with the checker and the supervisor in the store manager’s office. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824/100 "2007-02-13T00:17:38Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking] The kind of people that in a class when the teacher asks what is 27 times 5 , will answer ‘32’. A Milhouse would answer ‘low battery’. [/QUOTE] No answer is better than the wrong answer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-safeway-checker/391824.md?page=6)