I won’t say this is the most completely stupid thing I’ve ever read on these boards, but it’s right up there.
Walgreens has 6000 stores. If we start giving away 25 cents a day to penny-less customers, that’s $1500.
A day.
Which is $547,500 a year.
Explain to me why Walgreens should simply give away $547,500 a year to people who aren’t suffering from Juvenile Diabetes, or Breast Cancer, or Heart Disease, which are our corporate fundraisers. No, you like us to donate half a million dollars a year to…people who don’t want to be burdened with too much change in their pocket.
How about all those times I wanted to get back change. Y’know, feel wealthy and important with change jangling in my pocket, maybe pick up a little something in the vending machine, or find that rare Buffalo nickel to round out my collection.
But nooooo, the clerk has to scoop a penny out of the “leave a penny, get a penny” tray and look like a big hero, giving me all paper money in change. Hey, I promised Mrs. J. I’d find her that North Dakota commemorative quarter with the ‘D’ mark. For cryin’ out loud!!!
Wretches.
By the way, now I’m envisioning a new VISA ad on TV. It’s set at the drive-through smokes and liquor store. Everyone is happily sliding their VISA card through the card detector, the cars are rolling on merrily, occupants glugging down freshly purchased beer, lights twinkling, trained monkeys doing handstands, when KarlGauss shows up at the counter with $20 in hand to pay for a $13.99 purchase. When the clerk won’t front him the penny in change, he insists on scouring the floor for one. The lights short out, the monkeys fall in a heap and there’s a 12-car pileup at the entrance. Everyone glares at Karl.
Moral: Never mind cash, use your VISA card or be ostracized forever, ya mope.
Much as I loathe small change, it’s never occurred to me to blame it on the clerk for failing to undercharge me. Isn’t this what you guys over there have penny trays for, anyway? Me, I’m all about the abolition of anything smaller than 5p (or 5 cents). It’s nearly 30 years since we got rid of the ha’penny, in which time inflation has easily covered the gap up to the value of 2p today. Begone!
Moreover, it’s far worse here in the UK, where our small change is positively pendulous in the pocket - a 2 pence coin weighs about the same as a 50 cent piece (although at present exchange rates this isn’t entirely unreasonable).
This is the good thing about mom & pop shops. I seem to frequent a lot of Asian-owned shops and it’s a very common practice for both the customer and the merchant to say fhugetaboutit when it comes to a few extra pennies. I’ve even had the lady at the bagel shop round my change up to a $5 bill when the register said I was owed $4.77. She just couldn’t be bothered to pick four singles, two dimes and three pennies (that’s nine things to pull out of the register) out of the change drawer when there was a long line of people behind me and bagels to be sold!
It has gotten me into the habit of walking away from any change that I’m owed if it’s less than a quarter.
But I can understand why mega-corporations might have a problem with it since it can add up to some real cash if the pennies are only going in one direction.
Well, either in the drawer or on the counter in a tray (or pile). When I worked at Borders, which didn’t have a tray, I just kept it in front of me on the shelf. But I’d have to say that in the many retail establishments I worked (which handled a lot of cash) my drawer was never short, it was always over (or at least over in the sense that there was a little pile of money sitting somewhere).
Where I work, you can be written up for having extra money(even pennies) lying around. And a penny tray is strictly against the rules, as it is clutter, and supposedly provides temptation for the employees to steal from it. :rolleyes: We are supposed to politely insist that the customer keep their extra change, or ring it into the register as a sale.
My experience has been the same. There are a lot more people who don’t want * their 4¢ change than there are people who want their 99¢ in change rounded up to $1. Maybe WalSmart should try it, they might make over $3 million in a year instead of losing $547,500.
*based on 50 people abandoning 4¢ per store, per day and 25 people getting back an extra penny.
Whenever I’m a few pennies short, I take the money from the Tip Jar instead. If the cashier objects, I fake a retarded smile and wander away.
However, if no Tip Jar is available, I just accept the fact that I’ll be carrying around a few extra pounds of change for the rest of the day. It’s not the cashier’s fault.
Yeah, exactly! I needed the loonie and three quarters for my fucking laundry!
One time I told the clerk that, and he took the toonie back and gave me a loonie and four quarters without deducting my missing penny. rubs hands I’m gonna be rich!
Jeez, you tell me who’s steamed up over the fucking penny.
Tell you what, YOU get over it. I will do my best to shop at a place where giving me a one cent discount on a ten dollar purchase doesn’t signal the end of the world. A fucking 0.1% loss. (Forgetting about all the times I leave them my pennies and all the “found” money that RedRosesForMe mentioned).
Til recently, being “forgiven” for the penny seemed to be the rule. Now it’s the exception. And I think it’s because many businesses have fostered an atmosphere of paranoia where the new mantra is “every cent must be accounted for” rather than “Try to please the customer - he has a choice”.
Am I the only one who read this and thought, “Oh my GOD! There’s actually an Anal Store?” It took me another reading or two to parse it the other way.
I don’t know what goes on there, but I’m never shopping at the Anal Store. :eek:
(Ladies and gentlemen, my thousandth post. Way to give some dignity to my first big posting milestone!!)
How do you make it through the day without drowning in your own fluids, let alone interacting with other humans?
This OP is the whiniest, most self-absorbed thing since The Hills went off the air.
