Have you ever noticed that the people who get impatient with your counting the change are nearly always short by a large amount? And when you point this out to them they get really mad at you? And then they ask you to just let them slide? There’s a general tendancy for change givers to have an inflated sense of entitlement.
Back in the day, I used to work in Loss Prevention for a major department store. I remember a woman who tried to buy a $120 purse solely with rolls of quarters. She got upset with us when we insisted that we break open the rolls of quarters. It turned out that every roll had one American quarter on the end, and the other 38 quarters in were Canadian.
Since retail grocery sales are such a low margin business, the management is probably in a CYA mode.
And even if not, have they never been stuck in line behind the dysnumeric lady with the $25 worth of nickels?
I know it’s because some people are dishonest. I felt bad that I was trying to make things easy by rolling up all the coin and in the end it only made things more difficult for the cashier and for those behind me in line.
You realize Surbey was talking about the “slide it under my bullet proof window” tray and not the cash register, right? Putting it in the cash register would be seriously fucked up. The only fucked up thing about this action was that the customer counted half of it then dumped it all into the tray (counted and uncounted coins alike) to be counted again. More frustrating than fucking rude.
I routinely pay for my gas with nickels. I use a wrist rocket to peg the attendant with them, one at a time.
You’d be amazed at how whiney they can get when you do that.
I can understand the aggravation of having to count piles of change for a large purchase while other customers wait impatiently.
But I have also done the “I’m dying for a coke and some chocolate” scrounge for change! Sorry! 
Once, about nine or ten years ago, I had a Walmart employee flatly refuse to accept my coins for a small purchase (“I don’t want all that change in my drawer!”). The amount of purchase? $5.12–and three dollars of that I had in one dollar bills. The remaining $2.12 I was going to pay in change–$1.25 in quarters and the rest in nickels and dimes*. To say I was pissed would be an understatement, but I needed the item right then and had no time to bitch it out, so I wrote a check. Later that day when I had more time to do so, I came back and complained to the manager. IIRC, he wrote her name down and put down “300 points.” Dunno what that was all about and I can’t remember all the details, 'cause I was seeing it upside down. But he apologized and assured me that it wouldn’t happen again (it never has).
*Yeah, I’ve forgotten some of the details, but I remember these amounts precisely, even all these years later!
You could consider it making company policy to say: “We do not accept more than $5 or 10% (whichever is greater) of a purchase in change.”
OMGFLollerskaters&Roflcopters, that was fucking funny.
I think you might be on to an interesting show pitch here…
I think I’d be OK with customers buying a small amount of gas with change. Most likely, they left their wallet at home and are using the spare change in their car to buy enough gas to get home.
I’m also OK with using change to buy something which is cheap. Newspapers, a 99 cent fast food item, a soda, etc.
I can’t imagine people using more than a dollar or two in change. Also, I’d really try to keep it to quarters if possible.
A large part of it is the customer’s attitude. An apologetic “sorry, this is all I have” will get you a lot farther than “take my coins, bitch.”
When I was a bank teller, one customer came in with about $30 in pennies. Change that, he wasn’t a customer at all. And it wasn’t our policy to take coins from non-customers. The pennies were rolled in hand-rolled tubes made from notebook paper, in rolls of (what he claimed was) thirty each. In point of fact, it was clear that no two rolls had exactly the same amount. When we told him that they needed to be in rolls of 50 each, and that we’d be happy to provide the rolls for him, he raised a huge stink. “How the hell was I supposed to know how many were in a roll? The other bank told me that they came in 30s.” He was either a bald-faced liar or a complete moron. Or both. I’m betting on both.
He finally went to see the manager, the man with the spine made of Smucker’s Grape Jelly. Idiot manager basically ordered us to take the pennies and reroll them ourselves. The task was split among all of us, tying us all up. The line of legitimate customers was stretching out the door. And the pennies? A lot of Canadian, a few washers, a variety of buttons, and every now and then a genuine US cent. And it totalled up to only about $26.
The whole time, this assclown was gloating because he “won.” Even now, some 20 years later, I want to track the guy down and smack him. With the manager.
I’ve worked my share of retail jobs, and some of them required working the cash as well. Most of the time I didn’t mind change at all – our bigger problem was giving all that change away to the people who pay for small things with large bills, so I welcomed those exact-change purchases.
However, when they start fishing out fistfuls of pennies scraped out of the bottom of their purse which invariably has clearly used tissues in it, I get annoyed – whether I’m behind the counter or her. It just seems to me that the polite thing to do is either roll them before you leave or stop off at a bank or change exchanger for some bills. Most of the time when I’m out and intend to get rid of some of my change, I work out approximately what I’m expecting to pay with tax and get out enough change to cover it while I wait in line. I’m almost always doing this when I go for a coffee or stop off at a fast food joint. Mind you I usually pay with ordinary pocket change, not piles of pennies and nickles; I’ve had to do that route a few times (I rolled them first though) and I always felt like an idiot holding everyone up while the clerk broke open the rolls and counted it all out Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but at least have the decency to be apologetic about it!
Yeah, it seems like that would really ruin the mood.
-foxy
Fuck that! Why pay them when pump jockey will do it for free?
Defined as “any sense of entitlement at all” ;).
Exactly. I don’t get THAT angry at customers that have to pay in change. If they say “This is all I have” or “Sorry but I left my wallet at home” No problem. Shes not the only one though, my gas station is notorious for having all kinds of people come up and dump their piggy banks in our drawer.
My favorite was when a guy came up and said “Man, I hate it when people pay me in change. It just really pisses me off. Some guy paied me tonight in 5 bucks in nickles and dimes. Ugh. Know what I mean?” He then asked for a pack of Camel lights and a lighter. Guess how he paid for his 4 dollars and some odd cents bill?!?!?! Thats right, change.
Maybe we should get rid of coins or at least make them manageable like other countries have.
My grandmother died in 2003. After 2 1/2 years of legal battles, nearly everything is resolved. My mother currently has $800 in pennies. Dollar for dollar, pennies weigh more than other coins (duh!). We had some plans for them, but after reading the OP, we’re heading for the gas station!
I haven’t had too many problems with coins in the recent past. I found the best place to take large amounts is a casino. Small amounts can be passed off a little at a time. However, stores tend to prefer it loose. I tried to use a roll of quarters and the cashier informed me that they would only accept it if I wrote my SSN on it. Not thinking fast enough, I simply dumped them all out and counted them for her (stacks of $1).
As for the $120 purse paid for with $6 American and $114 Canadian, how much was the customer scamming? What is the exchange rate?
$114 Canadian is worth a little less than $100 US.
You don’t have prepay? I thought that was pretty much standard these days.
During my two month stint at a gas station (thanks to that job, on top of other issues, I ended up on antidepressants!) I had occasional people pay in change. They’d always get pissy with me when it took a while to count it, too. Or they’d say that they already had. Too bad, I’ve got to, especially since I don’t activate your pump until after I know how much to put on it. Unless you’d LIKE me to get fired.
I’m not a cashier these days, which is fine by me.
I just took several years’ worth of change in to my bank last night. $1,108; all counted and in proper rolls. The teller didn’t open any of them, just stacked them in little color-coded racks. I assumed they got set aside and counted at some point, but I’m not sure.
That didn’t include any pennies. I was gonna wait until I had $100 worth, but after hearing about ethanwinfield’s grandmother, it doesn’t seem like such a milestone anymore. ethan, any idea how long she’d been keeping them? It would take me decades. I wonder if there might be enough old and/or rare coins to interest a collector.