For small amounts I always just added the coins and said the amount I was handing them as I did so. Probably my own little quirk there.
I usually only tell them the change when it’s the wrong change they’ve given me (either for or against) but they never believe me until they re-total it.
Does it give anyone hope for the future that my daughter’s 2nd grade class did a whole unit this year on counting money and making change?
I, on the other hand, was 22 and working in a truck stop before I learned how to do it.
You need the Chicago Reader’s permisssion, not mine. But I give my permission. Now get theirs.
That’s what I always do. And I’m a cashier, unfortunately I don’t get much use of it since I rarely have people pay in cash.
Hi guys. Two words - credit cards. This (among other reasons) is why I use credit cards.
Not quite so true anymore, as the new tens have gone all orangy.
I’ve probably been the dumb clerk before. Back in high school I worked at a grocery store and always had people giving odd amounts of money so as to get a certain exact amount back. I’m sure I figured it out just fine, but I always wondered why people have to do it with every freakin’ transaction. It struck me as very anal retentive that if the total is 5.89, they still gotta give you that penny so they can get an even dime!
And some people, especially the young and inexperienced, aren’t prepared for anything that might throw them for a loop, especially when they are working at a hectic fast food place. They might not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but a lot of us are a bit dense when we’re 15.
Personally, I never give exact change because I like getting change back and put it all in a big jar to save. It adds up over the course of a year and I put a few hundred in the bank when it’s full.
I was in England in 71(?) when they changed over from shillings and pennies to new pence. I had to explain the new money to several older shopkeepers. It’s finny. because anyone who understood guineas, pounds, and shillings should be able to understand anything.
You were able to explain British money to them, based on an American five-dollar bill?
You’re good.
When I was going to school at UC Berkeley, studying chemistry and working in the comic book shop, one of the managers told me that the owner was sure that I was stealing from the till because I was the only one whose balance sheet consistently matched up at the end of the day. (It couldn’t possibly be because I’m smart and I can do math and make change correctly. I was actually the only employeee NOT stealing from the store, you fat, sweaty asswipe!)
:rolleyes:
If you don’t see what’s wrong with this, you would still be the dumb clerk. But I’m sure you can figure it out fine. 
With me, it’s just the parking meters, not anal retention. The meters won’t take pennies, so I get rid of those suckers as fast as I can.
I didn’t want to do this. I hoped and hoped that someone else would. But I knew deep in my heart that everyone else on this board knew what this post meant, and if I wanted answers I would have to suck up my pride, expose my disgusting ignorance, and just ask it.
Please tell me what that post means. I know that there is no such thing as an actual 13 cent coin…but I am not 100% certain what you do mean.
shakes head sadly
It’s about the fact that the clerk didn’t know there wasn’t a thirteen cent coin and actually thought one would be forthcoming.
I think.
With the technology available to us today, learning the old method of counting back change simply isn’t necessary to be able to work a cash register. We try to keep up with customer demand- these days, customers want to get in and they want to get out, and they certainly don’t want to wait for a cashier to count out the change in their head. Not to mention that making the change in your head isn’t always as simple as it may seem. When you have a line of customers, all eyes are on you because you are the one they depend on to get them out of the store as soon as possible. Sometimes people get flustered. This situation doesn’t arise often at my store, because it’s rare that the cash registers fail(they run on a generator so even if the power goes out, they keep going), but there you have it. Like Hypno Toad, I know what a customer’s change will be before the it displays onscreen. I realize when a customer’s total is 4.89 and they hand me a five and four pennies that they will get .15 back. Experienced cashiers know most of these things. Just because we are not using a certain method of counting change back does not mean that we’ve lost all meaning of the transaction. Sure, there are dumbass clerks. Trust me, I know. But there are also plenty of perfectly intelligent ones. Same goes for customers.
Yes, Hypno-Toad was joking about the 13-cent coin, but the clerk either was playing along (good actor) or really thought he was going to produce one (dumbass).
Sigh…I must be the only weirdo in the U.S. who can go on vacation to France and end up working the cloakroom at a displaced-in-time-and-space 1950s high school dance, complete with actual French Elvis impersonators. (Hey, my hosts - a friend of 20+ years’ standing and his lovely wife, who met each other on the rock acrobatique competition circuit - took me. What could I say?)
So the coat check cost 1 euro. In the dark, though, it’s hard to tell the difference between a 1 euro coin and a 2 euro coin, especially if you’re really, really tired and trying to speak a language that you really don’t speak very well. This was not the sort of place (the gym of a community center in a hideous 1960s concrete suburb on the outskirts of Paris) one would normally run into American tourists, and it was loud enough in there that nobody could hear my terrible accent, so I’m sure lots of French people now think I am a complete moron.
Dave and I drove down to the Orlando, Florida area Christmas 2005. On the way, we stopped at a Waffle House in Jacksonville for coffee. I asked for a small coffee to go, and the clerk told me he didn’t have any small to-go cup lids. I asked if he could just give me a small coffee in a large cup. He did. He poured coffee into a small cup, then put the small cup into a large cup. And put a lid on it.
Then, when I went to pay, he said “That’ll be $1.67 [or whatever it was].” I handed him $2.00 and waited for my change. He went for a calculator, and I said “The change is thirty-three cents.”
He looked at me and said “I’m new.”
New? To MATH?
More likely that she made a mistake between the ‘0’ and ‘00’ keys. Rather than hitting ‘1’, ‘0’ and ‘00’, she hit ‘1’, ‘00’, ‘00’ and just never processed the fact that the price staring her in the face didn’t match the bill she’d been handed.
A couple of years ago, I bought a pack of cigarettes at a gas station and gave the clerk a check for $2.50. She was talking on her cell phone during the entire transaction, not paying much attention, and proceeded to give me $17.50 in change. I didn’t point out her error, said thanks, and walked out.
As well as the 20’s and 50’s (light greeny/yellowy and pinky, respectively). Only 1’s, 5’s, and 100’s are still the same color.