Rounding is great. The only problem is the miserable bastards who make a point of buying $20.02 worth of petrol.
I’m totally onboard with eliminating pennies (and paper dollars) at a national level. But, as so many have said, I wouldn’t want a cashier taking that decision upon himself.
That said, I never count the change I get back, so I wouldn’t even notice, probably. And, if I did notice, I wouldn’t be mad because I’d assume it was an error. I’d mention it, because I’d assume that a cashier wanted to keep his till even. If he said, “I don’t bother with pennies…” then I’d get a bit prickly and respond, “Well, you’re going to bother with mine – they’re mine and I want them!”
My thoughts exactly (except substitute the US for Canada for me). And I wonder if this cashier applies this the other way as well – if I’m paying with exact change, and offer him X dollars and 67 cents, would he decline to accept my pennies and say "oh no, I’ll just take your X dollars and 65 cents. What if I offered him two quarters and 17 pennies – can I still keep my pennies?
The funny thing is that if he gave me 65 cents when my change was really 67 cents, I’d most likely assume he made an honest mistake and being two cents and all, I probably wouldn’t say anything especially if other people were waiting. So I’d walk away thinking he was not a very good cashier. Maybe people aren’t complaining about it because they think he’s not very bright.
May I hijack your thread with another penny comment? It really chaps my backside whenever I see those signs on tollbooths that say “No pennies.” A private business can say “no pennies,” but as long as the government is supplying me with pennies by minting them, they can darn well accept my pennies as payment for government services. Yeah, yeah, I know the money is minted by the federal government and tolls are usually collected by local or state governments, but eh, they take advantage of federal highway money and I think it meets the reasonable person’s definition of “a public service provided by the goverment and paid for with our tax dollars.” This reaction of mine is completely abstract and cranky – I don’t want to pay tolls with pennies, why would I be carrying all those pennies around in the first place?
I wouldn’t use the word “upset”. I’d be vaguely annoyed, and would assume the cashier was pocketing the pennies at the end of the day. This not being the kind of thing I’d complain about, if I had been shorted, I’d probably just take my business elsewhere, unaware of the “not giving pennies” policy.
I would love it.
Shit, he doesn’t even to round up for me. $.79. Just give me the three quarters.
I fucking hate pennies. If I can’t leave them in a “penny tray”, I throw them in the trash. No joke. I literally throw away money because the value of them isn’t worth the pain in the ass of keeping it around.
Many times after giving a clerk 3.00 for a 2.99 purchase, as I am walking off they will call back “sir you forgot your penny”- if I wanted it, I wouldn’t be walking off. Some may find the assumption you don’t want the pennies to be presumptuous and annoying, I prefer it. It it presumptuous, but in a good way- don’t want 'em, don’t want you to ask me if I want 'em either. Long ago when working at a grocery, it would amuse me to no end when people would wait for me to go to the front desk to get a roll of pennies to give them back two cents. Surely two minutes of your life is worth more than two cents- uh, no to most people, especially the elderly it surprsingly isn’t.
I’m also all for the elimination of pennies. This drives my girlfriend nuts, but I throw pennies away. I save all my silver coins in a jar, but pennies are just useless to me, some sort of metallic clutter for the pockets. If I make it home with them they go in the trash. If I notice while I’m leaving, I roll them along the parking lot. I figure I’m just spreading good luck.
That is an interesting point about the gas pumps though. How would you fix going over a few cents?
I like my pennies. You all can pry them from my cold, dead hands.
The day I get my panties in a bunch over a *penny * is the day I go home and eat a bullet. If I’m poor enough or bored enough to care, life isn’t worth living.
In every cashiering job I’ve worked, you have to balance the drawer at the end of the night/shift. If you aren’t giving out pennies, they are left in the drawer and add up as you do more transactions without dispensing pennies. That leaves an overage when you balance, and what are you going to do? Pocket it? Fix the numbers and add the change as if the drawer balanced? Sounds borderline illegal to me.
Did no one in this thread notice that the cashier isn’t simply shortchanging everyone when it comes to pennies? He’s rounding down, and up, when appropriate. Sometimes you’d get get a couple pennies (a couple pennies!!) less, sometimes a couple more.
I wouldn’t mind a bit if the US eliminated pennies - I have a tin about half full of the little buggers right now, and they are worth so little it’s a pain in the butt to roll them. However, until they are eliminated they are mine. Don’t assume I’m not going to notice if you don’t give me all the change due me. If you are “rounding” out the amount, post a sign to that effect so I can decide in advance whether or not I want to do business with you.
I’m another “drop them in the parking lot” person. Finding a penny makes some peoples day! And I’ll admit to picking them up myself.
Yes, I think most of us noticed. It still isn’t his job to make that decision.
When the day comes that the gummint does away with pennies, fine and good.
Until then, I’ll take the change. How does the clerk know what I’m doing with those pennies. Maybe, just maybe, I take them home and put them in a jar that holds a kajillion of them, and I’m saving up to pay for my kid’s operation.
I seem to remember a bit of trivia about penny’s, something like Americans throw away 1000.00 in pennys every single day. that it costs more than a penny to mint a penny as well.
I suspect this is like the metric system, even though the change would make everyones life simpler the general population is to stupid and stuborn to go along with it.
personally I couldnt care less about getting pennies in change, the only value they hold for me is when I drop them on the ground someplace I know little kids will come across them. seems 6 year olds are the only people who still want the damn things.
Thats when “take a penny” comes into play.
“Swedish rounding” - 
my (half-Swedish) dad always told me the only people tighter than the Swedes are the Scots (and my mom’s of Scottish descent on her dad’s side)!
I agree that the money is mine to decide if I do or don’t want it, not the cashier’s. How about having a charity jar by the register, so that the customer can throw it there if s/he doesn’t want it. Whatever’s in there at the end of the week/month/whatever can be given to the local rescue mission - thereby also garnering some goodwill for the merchant.
Thank you for stealing the words right out of my fingers. 
I friggin HATE pennies - they are such a pain in the ass. I WISH all stores would use this system and just abolish pennies altogether.
On other thing about rounding - it makes $-.99 prices on small items even more of an insult to your intelligence than it already is.
As for the petrol pumps, it works the same as anything else. If you are a sad enough person to pump an extra two cents in, then bully for you, you’ve got two cents’ free fuel. A lot of people do it though.
But I do likes me my rounding, and I wish Australia would get rid of the 5c coin as well. It’s next to useless. You can’t even use them for tolls on the harbour bridge anymore, and I think some bus companies refuse them as fares (I’m unsure of the legality of their doing this, though I can hardly blame them). In any event, I’ve got a coin jar at home that I dip into every day for train fares and coffee vending machine coins, and in the evening I empty my pockets back into it. Of course, I don’t take the 5c coins out, so over time, they become more and more concentrated in there. I couldn’t imagine how shitty it would be if we still had 1c and 2c coins (they’ve been gone over a decade now).
Well, I’ll tell you one thing pennies are great for, and that’s teaching kids to count. Put 100 in a baggie, make little towers of 10, trade them for dollars, nickels, and dimes…it works great.