Is it just me, or are we gradualy becoming more and more surrounded by STUPIDFUCKINGRETARDS everyday? Maybe it’s just the extra bile in my system as I get older, but I find myself getting pissed off at SHITFORBRAINMORONS at an alarming frequency of late.
Like yesterday. NYC has little ‘mobile post offices’, basically a truck with a guy that parks at specific locations for specific times each day. It’s great for people who work who don’t have time to run and wait at some distant post office, especially if all you want to do is buy stamps or something.
Anyway, I get there, tell him what I want, total was $7 and change, and I gave him a $20.
STUPIDFUCKINGRETARD: “Oh, I can’t take that”
RATIONALLOGICALME: “Oh, you don’t have enough change?”
SFR: “Oh, I have enough change, but I don’t want to run out. I might need it later on”
RFM: "You do realize what you’re doing? You’re not giving change to the customer you have right now, instead of possibly not being able to give change to some theoretical customer later?
No amount of reasoning with this SFR would get him to realize that has ALREADY RUN OUT of change if he’s just hoarding it, cause he’s afraid he *might * run out later. I mean, if I was trying to pay with a $100 and asked for singles, I can understand it. But this guy’s mentality just screamed 'I’m a moron!"
I find myself having less and less tolerence for SHITFORBRAINMORONS, much to my dismay.
But I don’t think this guy was one of them.
Been there, done that.
When I worked at a movie theatre as a cashier, I’d routinely get something like 20 $1 bills to use as change (plus some jingly money). If my first customer bought a ticket for $2.50 (this was a long time ago) with a 20, I’d have $3 left to make change with. That means it was unlikely I could wait on the next guy. If I could get a few people to pay with ones and fives, then I’d be better off to deal with any sort of bills.
Impugn my decision to start with ones only, but it wasn’t my decision.
Impugn my decision to not take the first paying customer, but I knew what to do to avoid an entire line of irate customers.
What’s qualitatively different between his not giving you singles when you want to pay with $100 and his not wanting to give you change when you pay with a $20? I agree he was being a dick, but it’s possible that there was something else going on (e.g., in the first fifteen minutes of running the stand, he’d given out 75% of his change or something), and he was trying to protect against the possibility of having to shut down altogether.
Indeed. But if you’d had a hundred and he’d refused to sell to you for the same reason, it sounds as if you would have considered it reasonable. That’s what confuses me.
This irritates me, too. Start the day with a bigger bank and you won’t have to turn people away! How hard could it be to give this guy an extra $100 in small bills to get through his day?
There is no real difference, except between ‘starting to run low’ vs ‘being totally wiped out’ of change. I’ve worked in retail. I know that being completely out of change is a hassle, but you work through it.
He had just opened up, btw - I was probably his first or second customer of the day. Besides - I really highly doubt that he heads out for the day with only $20 in change capacity. It’s a friggen’ post office, for cryin’ out loud.
He’s not the only example I’ve seen of this, actually. I’ve seen stewardesses on planes hoard certain drinks if they think they are short on their cart. So they deny people at one end of the section their choice of drink, so people at the other end of the section can get their choice.
Eh, when you encounter a moron in your day-to-day activities, just go out of your way to confuse them. Or, if you’re feeling generous, do a public service and do something to make them feel like they’re better than you. You’d be surprised how often it works, and it’s not something I’d imagine they get to do very often.
Of course, I wasn’t there, and I don’t know what the clerk’s circumstances were, but I’ve worked in a library where the amount of starting cash in the drawer was set high above in the bureaucracy, probably on the grounds that they don’t want you getting robbed (never mind that you can still get robbed later when your drawer is full). Furthermore, you save yourself tremendous headaches if you strategize your distribution of change rather than giving it out until it’s gone. Don’t take a bill worth more than twice the amount of the purchase, for example, especially a double saw – you can’t get rid of them because you’re often not allowed to take bills for which a $20 would be change. People who want to pay in $20s can deplete the fund quickly and then you are bottlenecked – you’re playing catch up and turning people away all day. So you play it cagey until the fins and saws start rolling in.
Again, based on my experience I suspect that the clerk either tried to explain this, and you wouldn’t listen because you were certain that you knew everything, or he didn’t even bother because some people just won’t listen to reason, so you stop trying after a while. He probably went home and said, “I had another STUPIDFUCKINGRETARD today who thought I should give out change until it’s gone.”
So, instead of running the risk of *maybe * having to turn people away later in the day, the answer is…to turn them away earlier in the day?
:smack: :smack: :smack:
My god, is this really such a difficult concept to grasp? What the hell are you supposed to do with change besides give it out?
Instead of giving it to the customer in front of you, you are ‘saving’ it because you might need it for some theoretical future customer down the road.
During the day, there will be seven people who come up to him to pay with $5 bills, each wanting $2 in change. Then there’s you, wanting $13 in change. He’s got $14 in change.
I agree with the OP. Change isn’t supposed to be some dwindling resource that you have to protect everyday. The economy would gridlock if it was. Instead, statistics say that you build more change as the average day goes on. If you don’t your monetary strategy is all screwed up and needs to be adjusted. That doesn’t mean that a run of events can’t wipe cashiers out of change. It can. However, if you aren’t actually out, the odds are in still in favor of building more the day goes on. A simple way to encourage that is to ask customers to pay in low bills if they can. Many will be able to and that will solve the problem.
DragonAsh as in the japanese hip-hop band? If so, nice.
I do see the OP’s point - the guy was refusing a sale now which he’s going to have to make at some point. It’s just changing who you sell to.
Excellent point. In your example, he should serve you.
Now one more question: which is likelier to happen:
a) He gets several people with small bills who need change before he gets his change replenished; or
b) He gets no more customers during the day?
d) He gets people throughout the day who pay with a mixture of small bills and large bills, is never in actual danger of really ‘running out of change’, and ends up with far, far more in small bills than he started out with.
I’ve worked retail, and yes, this one is definitely quite easy.
Revenant Threshold: Cool - someone recognized the name!
Try lots and lots of customers that you will definitely get.
You seem to think that the future patronage of customers is a worst-case scenario.
You have a pretty good idea what kind of business you’re going to be doing if you’ve been at the job any time at all. If you have worked retail, as you said, and have ever had to deal with a short startup drawer, then it is you who are failing to grasp a simple concept.
Would YOU want to carry around that kind of drawer driving out around NYC, especially if people knew about it?!?!
I was lucky that I worked in a supermarket, where change was almost always readily available from the cash office (not to mention a bank branch in-store). There were a few times, however, working late at night when the cash office closed, not to mention cash back from a debit card, or later a check, so a drawer isn’t always fun.
