Loose Change

For the third time in two days, I’ve completely blown a cashier’s mind by giving them extra change.

I tend to carry a lot of loose change with me, especially quarters. I work at a place where 20oz pops from the soda machine are $1.25. Thus, if I see an opportunity to give a little extra change in order to round my change up to a quarter or two, I try and do it. For example, if I buy something and the total comes to $1.80, I will try and give the cashier an extra nickel, so that I’ll get a quarter back. Without quarters, I can’t buy a drink at work.

After work today, Mason and I stopped by Sams to pick up some computer supplies. While there I bought two large Cokes. The total came to $2.56. I pull out a ten dollar bill and quickly find six pennies to go with it. I have learned that have to dig out the pennies before you hand them the bills — the days of a cashier making change in their heads are long gone, so if you hand them the $10 they hit the register buttons so fast that there’s no way they will then take your pennies. (I can’t talk much — I have used my phone in the past to figure up tax on a purchase and the proper amount to tip.)

I hand the guy $10.06 and he hands me back (drum roll) $7.48. I must’ve had a dumbfounded look on my face because the guy eventually said, “you gave me four pennies.” Even though I didn’t, I dig two more pennies out of my wallet. The guy then looks at me and says, “I cannot open the register,” and points at it, putting the blame on the register. And if you think about it, this guy’s job is operating a cash register. Technically, opening a cash register is pretty much ALL HE DOES. It’s like the guy who carries out groceries telling you that he doesn’t carry out groceries. Of course I know what he meant — he couldn’t open it without a transaction, and to be honest I wasn’t willing to wait around for the next person to come along and order just to take a crap shoot and try and get correct change again the second time around. So, shaking my head, I walked away.

At lunch today the exact same thing happened. Our total for lunch was $17.77 (stupid expensive Panera Bread). I tossed in two pennies and still got 23 cents back. Deju vu from yesterday, when the same thing happened at Taco Bell.

After rethinking over all three experiences, I noticed that none of the cashiers ever said back to me the amount of money I was handing them. Cashiers used to always say, “out of five?” or whatever, which gave you an opportunity to say, “oops, that’s a ten!” Maybe I will start telling people how much money I’m handing them. “That’ll be $2.76.” “Here’s three dollars and one penny.” Or maybe I’ll just tell them what the change should be. “Here’s three-oh-one, you owe me a quarter.”

Or maybe I’ll just start drinking water at work which would solve the whole problem.

UPDATE: I wrote this entry last week but didn’t get a chance to post it until just now. Twice since then I’ve had the opportunity to use some extra change. Each time I said aloud the amount of money I was giving the cashier, and each time I got a shiny quarter back. Coincidence? Not sure, I’ll have to do some more field studies, but (so far) it appears that it’s working.