Are you suggesting that Duck Duck Goose should actually get change from his or her own wallet and keep it in his/her apron as change for customers who cannot be bothered to either take the damned change their purchase warrants or keep change in the first place? Surely you aren’t suggesting that someone working at Walgreen’s should front every loser who shows up in line and doesn’t want to spend an extra cent or two? I have a hard time believing I’m not misreading that. Maybe it is only a few cents a day, but what right does the customer have to Duck Duck Goose’s hard earned money? I doubt those same customers would feel ok if she took a penny from each purchase and put it in her own pocket before giving them the rest of their change. (aside- Duck Duck Goose is a girl IIRC but I cannot say that I’m positive, hence the his/her.)
Firstly, not all businesses feel the same about these types of things. My first job, at a movie theater, required that our drawers matched our sales tickets every single night. Any discrepancies - over or under - resulted in a write-up. They neither approved of us shorting customers or stealing from the business. Therefore, letting someone go for less than what they owed was not acceptable.
Secondly, if Karl finds this happening almost every day, the problem is with Karl and not with the rest of us. Karl, keep your change and use it when necessary, or start using a debit card like the rest of us. Don’t be an ass. I’m with the people who would be behind you in line pissed because you were wasting MY valuable time by trying to convince the cashier to let you go without paying full price or searching the floor for an errant penny. Isn’t your own time more valuable than that?
Why do you think your entitled to said penny? The way you’re acting in this thread, I can’t see how anyone would give you money, under any circumstances, ever.
I totally agree with you,in retail if your till has extra cash in it in addition to that rang up then you must be short changing the customers OR not ringing in items that have been sold.
Either of these can get you the sack in the U.K.
Whats so difficult with the poster having the forethought to have a small stash of small change on them for just that eventuality rather then expecting everyone else to pander to their own lack of general preparedness.
elelle, you made iced tea come out my nose. Pennies ensues. I swear. You are a card.
Flew into Houston airport last night. Got myself a nice pulled pork sammich with fries and cole slaw and an unsweet tea. Darned if I didn’t come up 2 pennies short. I coulda given her a quarter to pay full fare. I thought of this thread and asked, " How are you fixed for pennies around the register? Need the quarter?" She slid a few off the counter and said no problem.
Then she fixed me with a steely gaze and quietly said, " You’re a Doper, aren’t you? "
Why are you expecting people to make up for your shortfall, it smacks of a sense of entitlement? If they let you slide - great, be thankful, if not no loss on your part. To be upset about this is out of place, the transaction took place that you agreed to enter into, now you want to change the terms.
Get it:
They let you slide = your benefit, be happy and thankful.
They request you honor your part of the agreement = normal, don’t get upset, you entered into this knowing your requirements, be a man (or woman?) and honor your part of the contract.
Also perhaps you should hang on to some of that change for just such a occasion or use a credit card.
I skipped page 2 because I wanted to blame someone other than the “stoopit clerk” or “arrogant customer with an overinflated sense of entitlement” for the obsessive need to balance the drawer to the penny. I blame Enron and other corporations who bilked their employees and customers, whose actions caused the creation of the Surbanes-Oxley Act, which is the bane of anyone who deals in any kind of cash based transaction between vendors and buyers, service providers and subrscribers, retailers and customers. I don’t know if anything similar to SOX is frustrating Canadian business people, but it sure is making US folk very edgy when it comes time to balance out the monies.
yes, but there wasn’t a government act that authorized auditing firms to be assigned to your company to make sure you accounted for every little cent and to make sure all the paper money was lined up facing the same way and that your coins were polished shiny as can be. I have been doing my job pre and post Enron, and while there have always been checks and balances and crosschecks and doublechecks, since Enron, more accurately since SOX, more time is spent on the tedium of documenting and cross referencing every cent than ever before. There is a collective groan of exasperation whenever the word comes down “from the mountain” that SOX needs another four weeks of documentation. So in our daily functions, we make sure every penny is where it should be. SOX will have everything perfectly balanced, or know the reason why. “Why is this not balanced?” “Because all our customers that day didn’t have enough change so we forgave them each a penny ot two.” Yeah, that’ll go over well.
So you thought this would be a good place to drop an uninformed silly mini-rant about an unrelated issue? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, has fuck all to do with this thread. Or are you suggesting that clerks who, like you, can’t even spell Sarbanes-Oxley, are thinking about some esoteric federal law when they refuse to discount a customers bill for the customers preference in change?
When I worked as a counter monkey in college a decade before the enactment of the Act, we were required to account for every penny in our drawer. Come up short (or over) three times and you got the ax. I put my own money in many times to make up for shortages. Don’t ask what happened to the overages…
Yeah, I think I was one of the first people in this thread to note that I was required to balance my till to a high degree of accuracy (though I had 10 cents leeway). That was in 1993. Well before Enron and Sarbanes Oxley.
If there’s any company out there forcing cashiers to endure rigorous cash balancing procedures in the name of SOX compliance, they’re doing something they’ve always wanted to do and just using the big, scary government bogeyman to make it go down easier with employees. SOX requires appropriate auditing and compliance to financial processes, but it certainly doesn’t define what they should be down to the level of ‘all cash drawers must balance to the penny’.
I said already (twice, I think) that if the owner sets it up, no problem. If the clerk gives his own penny, no problem. (Why did this need explaining again?)
I understood you to be saying that if the clerk offers me a dime instead of nine cents from the register and I know it’s a clerk, not the owner, I ought to insist on the nine cents, under the assumption that he is stealing.
Honestly, does this clerk giving customer a penny thing really happen enough to create a problem with the corporate profits? Do you think everyone that goes to the register everywhere every time needs a penny and gets one? I’ve never asked for that “free” penny, but nice clerks and ones at places I frequent never make a fuss over it, usually just hand me the even amount of change back even if I don’t go searching for a penny or whatever. I never expect it but it’s nice when it happens. When it doesn’t, then I just have more silver change to get a soda later from the breakroom at work. I don’t see why either side here is making a big deal of it.
I’m actually quite a good cashier, my till is always exact to the penny, except in those stores where change refused by customers is put in the drawer just the same. Places with a Take A Penny tray, well, my drawer was perfect.
It’s just been my experience that many people, when purchasing small items with cash, will refuse their pennies (and sometimes larger amounts of change- see my post about gas station customers driving off because they couldn’t be bothered to come inside for the $.50 owed them (although that might have changed now that gas prices are over $3 again)).
This has never posed a problem at any of the stores- most managers were familiar with the fact that some people hate pennies, and won’t take them. What am I supposed to do then, if I don’t have a Take A Penny tray? Put them in my own pocket? I’d rather not be accused of stealing.
It would depend, for me, on what I knew. If the clerk simply offered me a dime, I’d take it under that assumption that he was authorized to do so. But he offered me a dime with a wink and an oblique assurance that the owner will never miss it, I’d say no thanks, give me the nine cents.
This thread makes me feel like my brain is about to explode. If you want to buy something, you have to give the cashier the right number of credits in order to receive your item. If you don’t have the right number of credits- no item. Sometimes if you smile nicely the cashier may throw you a bone and let you have the item anyways.
The rules are so simple. If people want to make their own rules they can move out to the wilderness and start working on their manifesto.
I think we’ve hit on why the penny hasn’t already been abolished. Those most likely to consider a penny totally worthless have gone to credit, where it doesn’t matter if you pay $100.00, $98.87, or $101.7684. They wouldn’t mind mills returning, nor even payment in 300th’s of a cent, since it’s all squiggles on a receipt anyway.
The penny should be done away with. Period. It is absolutely silly that in this day and time any type of labor is worth dealing with a coin worth as little as a penny…
