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How to piss off a cashier.


Dirtyhip

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I needed one can of tomato paste.  The cost is about a dollar.  I had some change, so I took that with me to pay.

When it was my turn I handed the cashier 24 pennies, two quarters two dimes and a nickel.  She looked at me with such contempt when I paid her with change.  I found her demeanor terrible towards me.  She was so pissed off to count the change.  She literally let out an audible sigh when I handed her a bunch of change.

Now, usually we shop and have a larger amount to pay for.  In that case we use a card.  This same cashier has been warm and friendly to me, when she rings up over a hundred bucks in groceries.  However, when I stood before her in casual clothes, bike helmet in hand and a bunch of change she treated me like scum.  Is this what poor people face everyday?  Non-people?  An annoyance?  

What have we become as a society, when you cant pay with cash and still be treated like a human being?

<sigh> No pizza for her!

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8 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I find scratching the barcodes off irritates them as well.  :) 

We bring recycled bags all the time.  They don't like handling a used tortilla or bread bag filled with produce. 

Very low tolerance for anything a little different.

6 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

Did she know how to count?

Yes.  She just was very pissed off to do it.

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I was 20 or so, dirt poor, motorcycle my only wheels.  I needed gas and the only money I had was the penny jar.

No self serve back then.

I told the guy 50 cents please, that earned a sneer.

When I handed him an envelope of pennies he tried to refuse them. I pointed out that the gas was already in the tank, and all I had was pennies. I assured him that there was at least 55 of them, I had counted out out 50 and tossed in some extra, just to be sure. 

So he counts them into his hand, tells me I'm short 2 cents.

Rather than argue I dug out a few more pennies, tossed them into his hand, and told him to keep change      

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1 minute ago, Further said:

I was 20 or so, dirt poor, motorcycle my only wheels.  I needed gas and the only money I had was the penny jar.

No self serve back then.

I told the guy 50 cents please, that earned a sneer.

When I handed him an envelope of pennies he tried to refuse them. I pointed out that the gas was already in the tank, and all I had was pennies. I assured him that there was at least 55 of them, I had counted out out 50 and tossed in some extra, just to be sure. 

So he counts them into his hand, tells me I'm short 2 cents.

Rather than argue I dug out a few more pennies, tossed them into his hand, and told him to keep change      

I am not sure how they can refuse legal tender.  This is money, assholes.  

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Wells Fargo took out their coin counting machines...I make committee deposits..as well as coffee machine and copier cash...lots of coin...I wrap..a PITA for me..but I can't wrap it all...yeah they aren't too happy counting coin..And..slip in a dollar coin :runcirclsmiley:one teller asked what country it was from :dontknow:...And this is a bank..money is their business.

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Both my wife's bank and my bank have coin counter machines with no charge for their use. You need a better bank.  That said I have never used either machine, all our change either goes to mission projects or a summer camp change drive. A crisis pregnancy center passes out baby bottles for you to put change in to help them out. We always fill a few bottles with change and put a check in the bottles as well. My wife doesn't accumulate much change because she is female. I never spend change so any time I spend cash I have change to throw in the pretzel jar.

As far as poor people being treated bad, they don't spend cash. They use their access card and from what I have seen get treated very well. 

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3 hours ago, Further said:

I was 20 or so, dirt poor, motorcycle my only wheels.  I needed gas and the only money I had was the penny jar.

No self serve back then.

I told the guy 50 cents please, that earned a sneer.

When I handed him an envelope of pennies he tried to refuse them. I pointed out that the gas was already in the tank, and all I had was pennies. I assured him that there was at least 55 of them, I had counted out out 50 and tossed in some extra, just to be sure. 

So he counts them into his hand, tells me I'm short 2 cents.

Rather than argue I dug out a few more pennies, tossed them into his hand, and told him to keep change      

Tsk. Biker scum.

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3 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I am not sure how they can refuse legal tender.  This is money, assholes.  

They can't. I keep a change jar in the kitchen and every few months I'll pull out a few bucks and buy a coffee or drink with it. Just today I pulled out $2 in quarters and bought a mess of live crickets for Darryl the lizard. 

I never get flak but wouldn't care if they did.

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4 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

They can't. I keep a change jar in the kitchen and every few months I'll pull out a few bucks and buy a coffee or drink with it. Just today I pulled out $2 in quarters and bought a mess of live crickets for Darryl the lizard. 

I never get flak but wouldn't care if they did.

Actually, in the US, they can.  There is no law requiring a private business to accept coin or cash payment.  Just because it is legal tender, does not mean it has to be accepted.  

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5 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Actually, in the US, they can.  There is no law requiring a private business to accept coin or cash payment.  Just because it is legal tender, does not mean it has to be accepted.  

Yep, I've read of some restaurants that take only cards, whereas some take only cash in the US. Not taking cash reduces the potential for robbery. Besides, why do we want to piss people off. They are only doing their jobs, and most have a bad day at some time in their life.

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18 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Actually, in the US, they can.  There is no law requiring a private business to accept coin or cash payment.  Just because it is legal tender, does not mean it has to be accepted.  

 

12 minutes ago, sheep_herder said:

Yep, I've read of some restaurants that take only cards, whereas some take only cash in the US. Not taking cash reduces the potential for robbery. Besides, why do we want to piss people off. They are only doing their jobs, and most have a bad day at some time in their life.

Yeah good point, now that I think of it I've been to such places. But... Any place that still accepts cash shouldn't have a reason not to accept change. Unless they have one of those signs indicating they can refuse service to anyone. Then the granola eating coin jingling hippies get denied.

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Honestly, I really did not think that paying for a can of food with change is such a horrible thing.  They use the change when they break larger currency.  

I only brought 24 pennies.  I could have brought more, but I chose not to be annoying.

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Next time you will have to be the guest we get once a week that I laugh at.

Tell them the red light from the barcode reader is run by a machine that puts radiation into your food and you want to be as healthy as possible. They need to ring your items by entering the barcode number into the computer instead of scanning the container. 

That should piss them off to not worry about the little change you gave them. 

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7 hours ago, sheep_herder said:

Yep, I've read of some restaurants that take only cards, whereas some take only cash in the US. Not taking cash reduces the potential for robbery. Besides, why do we want to piss people off. They are only doing their jobs, and most have a bad day at some time in their life.

I work at the front desk of a hotel, and we will not accept cash at check-in. If they want to pay cash at check out, that's fine, but at check in, we require a valid credit or debit card. In addition to reducing the risk of robbery (or the amount taken in the event of a robbery), in our case it also helps keep out the "thugs" who come in smelling like pot, have their pants down to their knees and just look like trouble. They pull out a wad of bills and start counting out what the total room cost is, and it just breaks my heart (NOT!!) when I inform them that we don't accept cash at check-in. When they throw a hissy-fit, I just hand them one of my manager's business cards and tell them to take it up with him.

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13 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I needed one can of tomato paste.  The cost is about a dollar.  I had some change, so I took that with me to pay.

When it was my turn I handed the cashier 24 pennies, two quarters two dimes and a nickel.  She looked at me with such contempt when I paid her with change.  I found her demeanor terrible towards me.  She was so pissed off to count the change.  She literally let out an audible sigh when I handed her a bunch of change.

Now, usually we shop and have a larger amount to pay for.  In that case we use a card.  This same cashier has been warm and friendly to me, when she rings up over a hundred bucks in groceries.  However, when I stood before her in casual clothes, bike helmet in hand and a bunch of change she treated me like scum.  Is this what poor people face everyday?  Non-people?  An annoyance?  

What have we become as a society, when you cant pay with cash and still be treated like a human being?

<sigh> No pizza for her!

 

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14 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I needed one can of tomato paste.  The cost is about a dollar.  I had some change, so I took that with me to pay.

When it was my turn I handed the cashier 24 pennies, two quarters two dimes and a nickel.  She looked at me with such contempt when I paid her with change.  I found her demeanor terrible towards me.  She was so pissed off to count the change.  She literally let out an audible sigh when I handed her a bunch of change.

Now, usually we shop and have a larger amount to pay for.  In that case we use a card.  This same cashier has been warm and friendly to me, when she rings up over a hundred bucks in groceries.  However, when I stood before her in casual clothes, bike helmet in hand and a bunch of change she treated me like scum.  Is this what poor people face everyday?  Non-people?  An annoyance?  

What have we become as a society, when you cant pay with cash and still be treated like a human being?

<sigh> No pizza for her!

Maybe the look of contempt was also one of dismay because young people can't count without a calculator!

According to my cousin Eleanor, who is now 81 and worked as a cashier/cook at a 7-11-like store part-time until about age 75, the younger workers can't count change!

She says that if the cash register rang-up $7.51 and the customer gave a young cashier $8 in bills plus one penny so they'd get 50 cents back, the cashier would stare at the penny and be totally lost.

I even saw that teaching gifted and talented kids - as smart and harder-working than when I was in high school - who were so dependent on calculators they would divide a very big number by a very small number, get an answer less than one because they hit the wrong button, and it wouldn't occur to them that the answer was not possibly right!

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1 minute ago, Dirtyhip said:

So we get pennies, whenever a dollar is broken to give back change.  Then, you get stuck with a whole bunch of pennies over time. What in the hell are we supposed to do with all the pennies in our life?

Move to Canada.  We did away with pennies. 

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I spend the saved pennies over time. I save them in a sandwich bag. When I get to the point of needing to spend them, I'll put the bag in my trunk bag. Then I will spend some of them when I make purchases. There have been occasions when I collected an excessive number of pennies and other coins. There is machine at the grocery store that will exchange coins for cash vouchers or gift certificates. There is a fee for cash vouchers but if you get a "Home Depot" gift card voucher for over $14, there is no fee.

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I know how to make a cashier laugh - at least in France!

I was at a store in Cannes, France and above the cash register was a sign that said "Caisse" - which I now know means "Checkout" but my "fluent" French never involved learning that word: back in the 1970's U.S. Chemistry majors had to pass fluency tests or fluency-level classes in French, German, or Russian as part of their degree requirements in order to provide a pool of people who could read the important foreign journals in the days before computer translators.

So I pointed to the sign and, in French, asked the cashier if her machine was broken because "cassé" is French for broken. I grabbed my leg as if broken and said, "Je suis cassé ma jambe!" - "I broke my leg."

She laughed and tried to explain that it meant "Checkout."

 

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6 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

So we get pennies, whenever a dollar is broken to give back change.  Then, you get stuck with a whole bunch of pennies over time. What in the hell are we supposed to do with all the pennies in our life?

Good point. I have what must be tens of dollars of accumulated change. If I get the energy, I may take them to one of those machines you see in some grocery stores that sort them and give you dollars for them.

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15 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I needed one can of tomato paste.  The cost is about a dollar.  I had some change, so I took that with me to pay.

When it was my turn I handed the cashier 24 pennies, two quarters two dimes and a nickel.  She looked at me with such contempt when I paid her with change.  I found her demeanor terrible towards me.  She was so pissed off to count the change.  She literally let out an audible sigh when I handed her a bunch of change.

Now, usually we shop and have a larger amount to pay for.  In that case we use a card.  This same cashier has been warm and friendly to me, when she rings up over a hundred bucks in groceries.  However, when I stood before her in casual clothes, bike helmet in hand and a bunch of change she treated me like scum.  Is this what poor people face everyday?  Non-people?  An annoyance?  

What have we become as a society, when you cant pay with cash and still be treated like a human being?

<sigh> No pizza for her!

Coins are awful.  I've advocated for, at the least, the end of the penny.  But we have coins, so folks need to accept them as part of the process. What is sad, though, is that the cashier is likely in the "poor" category.  For her, it seems her empathy appears to be lacking where it would be a good idea.

On the flip side, I feel like an azz paying for something under a dollar with a CC. I do it, but I still feel like an azz. Shockingly, it can still be faster than the exact change route. Depends on their chip reader speed.

Tom

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I throw my change in a bucket...... lots of pennies.  After a couple of months one of the grandkids and I take all the change to a local store that has a change counter machine at the front door.  We turn the change into a store credit and then do and buy something for the grandkid.  They love pennies.

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2 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

So we get pennies, whenever a dollar is broken to give back change.  Then, you get stuck with a whole bunch of pennies over time. What in the hell are we supposed to do with all the pennies in our life?

Put them in a jar, and give the amount to charity at the end of the year.:whistle:

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

Coins are awful.  I've advocated for, at the least, the end of the penny.  But we have coins, so folks need to accept them as part of the process. What is sad, though, is that the cashier is likely in the "poor" category.  For her, it seems her empathy appears to be lacking where it would be a good idea.

On the flip side, I feel like an azz paying for something under a dollar with a CC. I do it, but I still feel like an azz. Shockingly, it can still be faster than the exact change route. Depends on their chip reader speed.

Tom

I am old, and I seldom pay with credit card unless the amount is over $25, and no I normally do not write checks when shopping. I dress pretty sloppily, so carry some coins in my pocket is no problem. :whistle:

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