I’m a gas station attendee. Please don’t buy 3 packs of Cigs and 2 packs of gum and pay me in change. REALLY. I don’t have the time.
Today we were 30 cents cheaper on gas than everyone else in town. It is also Senior Citizen day, so we were packed. And this woman decides that I look like a Wellsfargo bank. But instead of counting out her 12 dollars and some odd change before hand she does it at the counter. She gets about half way and says, “Oh well, I’ve lost count, here you do it”. She then dumps the rest of her change in my drawer, not the change cup, but the actual drawer the seperates her and me. She then gets huffy while she has to stand there and watch me count this. I coulda kicked her in the face.
This also goes for customers that insist on paying me in huge amounts of ones. I had a women last Thursday pay me 43 dollars in singles. She also got mad when I made her wait there while I counted it.
You might, just might, be in the wrong line of work.
While I agree that it’s rude to expect you to count it because she can’t be bothered, or unreasonable to be annoyed that she has to wait while you count out her singles, I can’t side too firmly with you on the not paying in change. I hate to admit it, but there have been plenty of times where the only money I had was money I scrounged together from seat cushions and pants pockets so I could buy gas or cigarettes. And I’ve found that a common reason for paying in a lot of singles is being a waiter/waitress and having a hundred of them lying around from tips. Money is money and while it may be inconvenient for you, and sometimes time consuming, if that’s the only way I have to pay, I’m going to do it.
I’ve done retail. I know how frustrating it can be, but I can’t say I ever got mad at a customer for paying that way.
(OK, sorry, there was one time, but the guy was for a four dollar item in pennies, and he smelled really, really awful. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t meant having to smell him for the extra amount of time.)
Anyway, I don’t understand “I don’t have the time”. You’re there, whether she pays in singles or pennies or with a fifty dollar bill. Your job is to take the money, however it’s paid, and to put it in the register. Even if she handed you twenty bucks for a 20 dollar gas purchase, you’re still going to be there five minutes later.
Uh, me too. Pretty frequently, actually.
But then, I get all crazy and roll it up and take it to the bank to be exchanged for folding money – except one night last week, when I made a purchase with a roll of quarters, which was all I had handy. I still asked if it would be an inconvenience, though. (Though I don’t ever remember having too much change when I worked a register.)
I can’t imagine walking up to a till with a substantial amount of loose change. You don’t find yourself out and about with two pounds of coin, right? So you have the option of sorting it at home or making a nuisance for someone else.
Well I’m talking about, say 5 bucks max, and it was usually in the morning before work or something, when I realized I had run out of cigarettes the day before pay day. I will admit that I sort of neglected the part where the OP mentioned it was three packs of cigarettes and some gum, which means it was probably about twenty bucks worth of change. That’s a little excessive (partly because tills often don’t have enough space for that kind of change).
Still, I stand by the rest of my post.
Usually when I’m paying with a big sack’o change I just throw it all on the counter for the cashier to count. No sense in me counting it once then him or her counting it again.
I mean, it’s not like they’re paying you to count money or anything. :rolleyes:
BTW, yyou’re not THIS GUY are you?
You’re an employee in an establishment that offers goods for whatever legal tender the customer wishes to exchange them for. If you can’t deal with that, you need to be in another line of work.
The first time I opened this thread, I thought it was going to be about people paying small amounts with large bills (50s or 100s). Instead, we get some guy bitching about getting TOO MUCH change. Lemme tell you, while counting change can be a pain, it’s great to have lots of change in your drawer, unless it’s at the end of the shift and you have to count it all again. I’ve worked in a convenience/deli/liquor store in Las Vegas, and of course we had slot machines in the store, and of course when someone hit the jackpot on the machines they’d want to sell the change back to us. It was a nuisance, but it was great to have all that change in the safe (we had a time release safe that we could deposit money into, and take money out of). I’ve had people pay for a ticket of several hundred dollars all in single dollar bills, too. A nuisance to count out, but we really liked having all those ones in the drawer (this was at a dress shop, and the customer was a waitress).
It’s one of the irritations of working retail, but it’s really one of the very minor ones. I’ll take a customer who has lots of small change over one who smells or hits on me any day.
::drums fingers impatiently::
I gotta ask. Was she a stripper?
Fuck you. I’ll pay you in pennies tied in an old gym sock, and you’ll fucking count it, and you’ll fucking LIKE it.
Why can’t I be the queen of the zinger? Damn - a day late and 100 pennies short.
Giving a clerk buckets of change is OK. Inconveniencing the customers behind you is not, nor is getting impatient while the clerk counts your pennies, buttons, and lint. Don’t like the fact that the clerk has to count it all out? Tough fucking shit, you should have found a CoinStar machine first.
I always end up with so much change in the bottom of my purse that it could legally be classified as a weapon.
Every once in a while I’ll clean it out and roll up the change (usually 20+ dollars). I then write my name and phone # on the rolls. I’ve tried to take the rolled coin to our local grocery store and found that the cashiers are instructed to open the rolls and count all the change. 
I now use that Coinstar machine at the store to cash in my change. It takes a small percentage as a service fee, but it’s well worth avoiding any hassle at the checkout.
They both are. One’s just a little more talented when it comes to picking up their tips.
Um…you people insisting that the OP is off-base, when you pay in your twenty dollars worth of change with people in line behind you, do you also dump the change directly into the cashier’s tray and then demand they count it? This customer was just rude.
Whenever somebody brings up some rude as shit customer - rude not just to the clerk, but everyone else waiting, of course - it seems like some people just flip out, because they have mistaken their place in this basic human interaction as that of the Lord of All Creation, and how dare you question that? (Here I’m talking to the ‘count it and like it guy’ here, not the people who merely said they occasionally pay in change).
Some people take the maxim “The customer is always right” to mean “The clerk is a valid target for abuse.” Some people seem to revel in that. I guess it makes them feel big.
Amen to that. I’ve done public service in both private sector and government settings. Most people are pleasant, or at least not rude or belligerent, but sooner or later you have to deal with the jerk who thinks he’s entitled to use you for a punching bag just because you’re on the other side of the counter.
I’ve noticed that - have they not worked these shit jobs before? Have they not had to count 25 bucks in change for some lady to pay for her pizza on a super busy Friday night? “We didn’t have cash but still wanted pizza!” Fuck you, lady. When I don’t have cash - I don’t buy stuff. Unless it is an emergency, the change jar stays put. Then when I have enough, I roll it and turn the change into wonderful dollar bills. Easier for me, easier for everyone else. If you’re buying a pack of smokes or something cheaper with quarters, that’s not bad. But if someone wants to give you over 10 bucks of change and get mad that you have to actually count it? Yeah, I need to make sure you’re not ripping me off, change giver. You say it’s right, but how do I know? It’s a bigass pile of change. It’s nice to have change in the drawer, but I’d rather not get 20 dollars of it at once.
I don’t mind being payed in change, eve when I have to count it. And by “I don’t have the time” I mean that I have other customers I gotta get to.
You see, when a customer hangs up their pump, I hear a beep. After 2 minutes, I hear more beeps that don’t stop. Its an alarm that triggers for each pump saying “Hey, someone didn’t pay yet , pay attention to their pump”
So, in the process of watching this woman fumble for change, all 8 pumps have triggered their alarms. I am not standing in this crampt little booth with 8 seperate sirens going off about 12 inches from my head.
I don’t like being payed in change, but sometimes you can’t help it. Its when she just threw it all in there, when she gave up on counting, thats when I flipped.
Oh and Shakes, I’m not that guy, and I’ve got my own ideas about THAT man.
I drum my fingers all the time, mostly for no reason