However, I’m a little surprised at the strong “counting change up” sentiment expressed here. I suppose it’s a natural corollary to the “change first”, but it has never occurred to me. I’m neither young nor old (35 years) and I’m struggling to remember how I did it back in my high school cashier days.
Whenever you hand me my bills, I strongly prefer them to be large bills on top, so that when they get slid into my wallet, I can maintain my larger to smaller / left to right cash management system.
Two methods of coping with this depending on your mood:
Say, “please hand the bills to me first and then hand over the change.”
Grab the bills and let the change fall all over the place. Then stand there (in the way of everyone else) and wait for the clerk to pick up the change and hand it to you.
Easy fix: don’t hold out your hand flat. Hold it out as if you’re going to “pinch” the paper out of the clerks hand. Sometimes they drop the change on the counter in the process; that always fun to watch.
Well, I gotta say, that’s kind of a dick thing to do. It’s on the same level of dickishness as paying all in pennies - perfectly legal, but kinda dickish.
If I were deliberately doing it to piss off the checkout clerk or give her unnecessary trouble, I’d agree it would be a dickish thing to do. As it happens, though, I do it because I find it more convenient for myself, it doesn’t contravene store policy in any way, and it involves only a very minor increase of time and effort for the clerk (despite the hyperbole in my earlier post, she doesn’t actually “loathe” me for it), and a very minor delay for the other customers. If the supermarket really finds it too much trouble to provide non-round amounts of cashback, it can stop offering that option.
IMO, requesting a non-round cashback amount is nowhere near comparable, in terms of annoyance or dickishness, to paying a sizeable bill solely in pennies. I do sometimes hand over five pennies instead of a nickel, but I see nothing dickish about that either. Again, if the store doesn’t like it they can stop permitting it in their store policy.
I’d participate. I’ve been both a retail cashier and a casino cashier, and in my lifetime, I’ve handled hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) in cash. I’ve reconciled my till to zero every day, mainly due to being able to handle and count cash correctly. Maybe because of that, I expect certain things to happen when I do a transaction at a retailer, a casino, or another place where cash is the preferred medium of exchange. Often, I’m disappointed.
Either that or go to a store where the coin change is automatically dispensed through a machine into a little cup and the cashier just hands you the bills.
Agreed with the OP. This just happened to me earlier at a drive through, and I dropped maybe 50 cents on the ground. The clerk was like duh, and I am not going to contort myself to grab change off the ground when I can barely open my door, so I just left.
Probably lost twenty bucks worth of change over the years because of the “coins on top of the bills” thing. I don’t care, but it seems self evident which way works better.
I was a cashier for eight years. I gave coins first because I didn’t want it all over the place. I could also count out change ‘backwards’ like in the olden days, but usually only did so if a $50 or $100 bill was involved. It usually ended up with the customer looking at me as I did it like I was from Mars.
not that I am particularly paranoid but cash is the last means we have of doing anything without a paper trail. while I dont engage in any illegal activities that would require this there are simply times that cash works best for me.
and as to the op, I couldnt care less how it gets to my hand, after I drop the pennies on the ground its easy enough to sort out from there.
Well I didn’t expect this level of response I must admit, thanks for all the replies folks, clearly I am not alone!
Special thanks to **feathelou ** for describing perfectly the subject of the OP sub-rant. I make exceptions for old people but for anyone fit and able, do you really need to zip your coat up, put on your gloves, headband and scarf before you can move two feet away from the cash desk? Really? Why?
And while we’re bitchin’ about retail workers lets add another point…
Retail workers - You may think that everyone is an asshole and is rude and generally horrible to you and that’s why you have the no greeting, no smile, no interest in the customer attitude. But here’s a news flash for ya - you got this the wrong way round. Yup, there will always be assholes, but if you are friendly and attentive towards your customers you’ll find the majority are actually quite pleasant and sometimes even pleasant enough to make your working day better. Been there and done it ok, I know this. Grumpy co-workers always got the idiots, I rarely had a problem with anyone. Coincidence? I thoroughly enjoyed being able to make someone’s day that little better, easier or whatever. People really appreciated the effort I put into the service and I felt good about it (even though in the main it was a crummy job).
I ain’t a happy clappy ‘turn that frown upside down’ kinda person. Work sucks, maybe life sucks period. But I don’t believe in forcing your suffering onto others and I believe if I’m paid to do a job then I do it. I may hate it, but that’s my problem, not my customer’s.
I thought I responded to this OP yesterday, but apparently it got lost in the cyber-shuffle.
I am from the old school mindset. The cash registers I worked on didn’t tell you what the change was, so you counted out the coins up to the next dollar and then the bills. Always. The fact that the amount you owe your customer is now told to you almost forces the bills to go first.
I’m not nearly as annoyed about the New School at a counter as I am in a drive-through. You’re working with one hand and it’s an enormous pain in the ass to juggle coins on top of bills.
One more gripe about drive-through. PLEASE don’t make me ask for a drink holder when I order two or more drinks. I would think this would be obvious.
It’s not a corollary, as has been explained, the change first was actually a consequence of the “counting the change back instead of trying to calculate”. You’re reading it in the wrong direction.
I’ve been known to use a purse (one, I only have one) and I too take the money out first when I’m in my car. The only times I pay anything from my car is at the highway and that’s the reason they put up signs a couple km before stating what’s the price for a “type 1 vehicle”: so you can have it ready by the time you reach the toll. Makes for more fluid traffic than
reach for handbag
open handbag
root around for right wallet (I’m in a two-coin system right now and toll highways are one of the places where I have to use the right coinage)
open wallet on change side
get right amount in change if I can (if not, open notes side and take out smallest note that will cover the charge)
pay
say I don’t want a receipt
put everything back in place.
One reason I never, ever, ever use drive-thrus is that I have tiny hands and short arms and dangit, it’s always a bit of a circus and a lot of stress, and not much faster than parking.
It isn’t. In fact my friend who drve a mini-van full of kids, has exactly the opposite complaint- he doesn’t want a drink holder as they are prone to twist and spill. He wants them handed to him so that he can put them one by one into the proper cup holder.
Again, cashiers can’t read your mind. If you want a drink holder-* ask for i*t. If you want your coins handed to you first, ask for it. If you can’t be bothered to ask for what you want, then you have no bitch rights.
There’s a bunch of stuff that needs to be done on the customer’s side after a purchase, but stores are not concerned with that - after they’ve got our money, they just need us to get the hell out. NEXT! Never mind calling me by name and saying it’s customer service; how about some true customer service, and providing a place for customers to do stuff after the transaction is complete, and you’re juggling a bunch of bags, bills, coins, a receipt, your wallet, your change purse, your purse, your baby, your outerwear, your umbrella, your coffee, etc.?
