So you’re one of those customers that likes to mess with the cashiers because you think it’s funny. I hope you don’t shop at my store.
Here’s a tip. The cashiers don’t think it’s funny and the managers have probably sat in the backroom and said “Someone should talk to him…I swear if he does that again I’ll say something…someone needs to talk to the boss”
We spend plenty of time with our new cashiers, we don’t need any help from the customers, even if it’s with good intention. We’ve trained them to deal with people like you.
Also, if you did that at my store, you’d likely hear them yell for a manager before you got to the ‘just kidding’ part. I train my cashiers to stop what they’re doing, close the drawer and call for someone as soon as that situation shows up. It’s a lot easier for someone who’s not in the middle of the situation to come out and say ‘what happened, what money went where’ then for the cashier and the customer to start shuffling things back and forth and for things to start getting even more confused.
If I was the manager that was called out (and I’m the highest person there, besides the owner, so I’m really the only person that can do this) and you told me you were just joking I’d very nicely say “Sir, please don’t do that, these cashiers work really hard all day long, they ring up a lot of customers during their shifts, they really don’t need anyone trying to confuse them on purpose, it’s not funny and it’s not helpful”. If you did it twice, I’d ask you not to come back again AND I’d assume you were deliberately trying to short change them and steal money from me. If you came in after that I’d call the police. It wouldn’t go over well when I say “I’ve caught him twice saying ‘I gave you a $20’ when he actually gave them a ten, hoping to get an extra ten, but when they called for a manager to fix the mistake he said he changed his story”. I know, it’s sounds WAY over the top, but too many people steal and often they do it in really creative ways so if a customer lied and said they gave the cashier a twenty instead of a ten, I’m not going to take kindly to it. I’m just going to work on the assumption that they were trying to steal and got caught and I’d have my eye on them every time they shop from then on.
I know you think it’s funny, but it’s not. Do customers come in to your job and ‘help’ you train your new employees?
Sorry for the ramble, but working retail all my life is really hard and I don’t understand why some people go out of their way to make it harder. There’s just no reason for that.
Even if you never hear back, it’s still a good idea. On the one hand, they might just be ignoring you or not checking that box OTOH, someone might have read it and said “Jeezus, we just got another email about Susan short changing customers/being rude/picking at her scabs”
IOW, just because you didn’t hear back, doesn’t mean it’s falling on deaf ears.
This doesn’t happen when the cashier leaves the $20 on the platform when they are making change.
I once went to a restaurant that pulled the OP’s nonsense on me. The first time I was embarrassed and was less than 100% sure that I had given them a $20. The second time I marked my bill, adopted a zoned out expression – and was short changed again. I lost my temper: “I gave you a 20!!!”, I shouted. I never got to the point of pointing out the mark I had made on my bill: they just refunded the difference.
The manager instructed the cashier to leave the bill on the register when the transaction was taking place, but frankly his tone of voice was off and the cashier seemed a little uncomfortable. I think the manager was playing ringleader and one of the two cashiers was embarrassed about it. The restaurant closed down within a year.
Honestly, I get your point and hope you get mine. Your cashiers will already know what happened before the ‘close the register’ part. If, as you say, you’d properly trained your cashiers, this couldn’t even happen since they’d have already verbally acknowledged the note tendered as discussed in this thread.
Besides, this is a ‘made you look’ type thing that never fails to get a smile and that you-got-me eye roll. I wouldn’t do it in a grocery line (which I think you run), fast food joint or to someone who is going to wet their pants with fright, more like a quiet bike shop or bar where the cash handler has been helping me and we’ve been chatting for a while.
As with all things humorous, tone and technique are of the essence. If I did it to you, you’d have a chuckle.
When I saw thread title, I thought it might be about this scam. (Turn down the volume before clicking this loud YouTube – why is there such huge volume variation in YouTubes?)
These days, I’m most likely to be called back by cashier saying I’d forgotten to wait for my change. :rolleyes:
I’ve had short-changing attempts made against me. An attractive waitress in Santa Cruz, Calif. once gave me change from a $50 as though it were a $20. (She may have made the attempt because I’d drunk wine and acted slightly tipsy.) An attempt was made by cashier at a large Nevada casino. The cashier at a car dealer where I was servicing my car asked a question to distract me at the precise moment that she handed me incorrect change. Et cetera. Don’t know how often I’ve been shortchanged without knowing it. :smack:
I you did it to me in my shop I’d assume you were trying to cheat me, or that you were some sort of sadistic prankster. And Og help you if the boss overheard/saw you do that.
Not everyone finds “jokes” about money to be funny.
I did some cash-registering as a young lad in West Texas, and the $20 scam that was common then and there was when a scammer customer would make a small purchase with a $20 bill, then after you’d given him his change he would say something like, “Oh, can I get a couple of fives instead of a 10? Thanks, Oh shit, wait, I need some ones, can you do that? Ah man, I just remembered, here let me have …” By the time he was finished, he’d have his $20 back and then some. They were always pretty obvious about it too, or so it seemed to me. We were instructed just to shut the drawer and say, “Nope, sorry, no change.”
You are trying to get someone to panic, deliberately. You’re bullying the cashier because you can. The cashier is already under stress, and you think it’s fun to put more stress on him/her.
And sure, YOU think it’s funny, but the cashier doesn’t. It’s like getting hit on, as a cashier. The cashier can’t make too much of a fuss about it without losing his/her job. Do you think cashiers LIKE being cashiers? That when they were growing up, this was their life plan? No, they are there because they need the money, and this is the best job they can get. Now, a customer like you comes along, and you think it would be fun to mess with their heads. You are in a position of power over them, you can get them in trouble or even fired. And you think it’s funny to scare them.
Please confine your interactions to machines only from now on.
No reason you can’t still be witty, though. You’ll have the cashier in stitches with a well-timed “working hard or hardly working?” and should an item fail to scan, you can bring the house down by quipping “I guess it must be free, then!”
Actually it was both. Tatum O’Neal played Addie in the movie and then Jodie Foster played the character in the television series based on the movie. The short changing scene was used in both the movie and series.
You are misinterpreting both the smile and the eye-roll. I didn’t even think it was funny reading it in the thread. “Made you look” is pre-teen behavior.
The one time this happened to me, the cashier actually rang it as a $20, then only gave me change for a $10. I objected. She said, “No, you gave me a ten.” I pointed out that she rang it as twenty and she said, “Yeah, I goofed.” Yeah. When you gave me the change.
She said she couldn’t do anything without a manager and she wouldn’t be able to process any other transactions (there was a line). I told her to call the manager. It was a bad scene all around, because the manager had to count the drawer–twice–while all the customers were waiting and I was standing there making snide remarks like “Paying by check? That’s a GOOD idea…”
In the end I got my money back, but unfortunately had spent most of my lunch hour waiting (and being snide).
Meanwhile a few of the customers put down what they were intending to buy and left. (A really bad idea to only have one drawer per floor open during lunch hour.)
Never saw that cashier there again. (Oh, the drawer? It was WAY off. Not in the customers’ favor, either.)
As a cashier, I got customers attempting change scams pretty often. I also got plenty of situations where the customer was genuinely confused.
Of course, I’d screw up now and then as well. I might process $1000 a night in mostly $2.00- $4.00 chunks, and I was evaluated on speed. I never tried to scam anyone, but of course every time I made a mistake the customer would assume it was deliberate. Sometimes, the mistakes are genuine.
James Michener’s early novel “The Fires Of Spring” has a character who works at a carnival being extensively trained on how to shortchange his customers (example: the two dimes and a nickel that are being slide down the counter will be two nickels and a dime by the time they reach the customer).
Someone tried that on me once. I gave him his change back (it was probably $18 or so) and then he tried to get two two $5s for a $10. When I held out my hand waiting to get the $10 back to put in the register, he got all flustered and just ran out the door.
A local store (as opposed to a chain) did this to me last year. Cashier insisted I gave him a $10 when I gave him a $20. I called the manager over and she sided with the cashier. I was told “we’ll call you if the register is over by $10 at the end of the night.” Needless to say I have never shopped there again and I tell the story whenever the store’s name comes into conversation.