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So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

Messages
12,017
Location
East of Los Angeles
Even bank tellers prefer to give out twenties. When I ask for anything else (after they ask, "how would you like that?) they often give a weird look if I ask for fives and tens... I've also noticed some younger tellers count better by 20 then 5 or 10, because they're so used to counting out twenties.
*sigh* It's a sad state of affairs when even the people responsible for money don't want to do the required math. lol
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Even bank tellers prefer to give out twenties. When I ask for anything else (after they ask, "how would you like that?) they often give a weird look if I ask for fives and tens... I've also noticed some younger tellers count better by 20 then 5 or 10, because they're so used to counting out twenties.

There was a time at retail stores if you were to pay with cash, the store cashier would count the change instead of just handing it all in one lump sum.
There have been times when the amount was not correct.
I would point this out . The young clerk would make the correction & follow up by telling me..."sorry-about-that” .
But somehow, it just didn’t sound like they were really sorry at all !
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Our problem is that we start out in the evening with $200 in the till -- four tens, eleven fives, eighty-five ones, and two rolls of quarters. If I've been to the bank that day, we have no twenties in the safe. When some guy -- and it's *always* a guy, I've never had a woman do this -- walks up to the window when we've just opened and throws a century at us for an $8.50 ticket, he cleans us out. I've told the kids to refuse hundreds in such cases, but if he insists, to give him as much of the change as possible in ones. We have more ones available in the safe than tens or fives.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
There was a time at retail stores if you were to pay with cash, the store cashier would count the change instead of just handing it all in one lump sum.
There have been times when the amount was not correct.
I would point this out . The young clerk would make the correction & follow up by telling me..."sorry-about-that” .
But somehow, it just didn’t sound like they were really sorry at all !

We don't count back the change for one simple reason -- it holds up the line. We have exactly half an hour to get people inside, stocked with popcorn and soda, and into their seats before the show starts, and especially if there's a lot of people, counting back change just holds things up and makes everybody else in the line angry.
 

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
There was a time at retail stores if you were to pay with cash, the store cashier would count the change instead of just handing it all in one lump sum.
There have been times when the amount was not correct.
I would point this out . The young clerk would make the correction & follow up by telling me..."sorry-about-that” .
But somehow, it just didn’t sound like they were really sorry at all !

You are old enough to remember when the great clerks would count your change back. You would hand them a $20 for say a $7.75 item, and they would say, "8 and 9 and 10 and 10 is 20." Meaning, you got $12.25 in change. It always seemed like they were smarter then me, unlike today!
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
You are old enough to remember when the great clerks would count your change back. You would hand them a $20 for say a $7.75 item, and they would say, "8 and 9 and 10 and 10 is 20." Meaning, you got $12.25 in change. It always seemed like they were smarter then me, unlike today!

Counting change !
I believe it was part of the retail training. On the selling floor, the registers were heavy brass/metal with punch keys
& a hand crank on the side. (1960s)
Once in a great while I would have a customer with a small plate credit card & I would process it manually with some contraption that would slide & print the
card number on several copies of paper. The sales check/receipts were handwritten on a sales pad.
I remember the odor of dollar bills in my wallet.

Not anymore.
Which reminds me of the movie, "The Graduate" & the one word line...

"PLASTICS” !
 
Last edited:

swanson_eyes

Practically Family
Messages
827
Location
Wisconsin
We don't count back the change for one simple reason -- it holds up the line. We have exactly half an hour to get people inside, stocked with popcorn and soda, and into their seats before the show starts, and especially if there's a lot of people, counting back change just holds things up and makes everybody else in the line angry.
Exactly. Ain't nobody got time for that!
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
I can appreciate that in some situations it’s not practical. I’m referring to retail stores.
Even during the holiday rush season, it was not only a courtesy but made sense to
insure that the correct change was given.

I recall one time a customer during Christmas time, handed me a bill & change & told
me to simply give him the change in even bills.

I wasn’t sure so I wrote down on paper to see if this was correct ( all the time the customer was
telling me how dumb I was I couldn’t figure it out in my head)

I told him, “I’m sorry but your figures don’t add up. "
He took the correct change without saying another word.
And I was not short at the end of the day on my register ! :D
 
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Messages
13,466
Location
Orange County, CA
Our problem is that we start out in the evening with $200 in the till -- four tens, eleven fives, eighty-five ones, and two rolls of quarters. If I've been to the bank that day, we have no twenties in the safe. When some guy -- and it's *always* a guy, I've never had a woman do this -- walks up to the window when we've just opened and throws a century at us for an $8.50 ticket, he cleans us out. I've told the kids to refuse hundreds in such cases, but if he insists, to give him as much of the change as possible in ones. We have more ones available in the safe than tens or fives.

:p

BigMoney_zps7lmttnvd.jpg
 

GHT

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,793
Location
New Forest
Following on from the large note denomination, I am determined not to let my bank brow beat me into issuing me with a tap & go smart bank card.
If such technology hasn't reached your country, (lucky you,) it's a bank debit card that requires no pin number, you just tap the terminal with your card, it reads your details, in the blink of an eye, and away you go.
What's not to like? Where to start? If the terminal reader can access your details, what's to stop some nefarious character from coming up with their own 'card reader' and do the same? What's wrong with cash? Whenever you pay with plastic, or have your, so called, loyalty card scanned, you leave a footprint. Your purchase was timed, dated and logged, which is exactly the information your bank wants about you, so that it can be sold on. That's why those who use cash are less plagued with junk mail/email than those who pay by plastic.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
We'll never have that kind of reader at work -- we barely have mag-strip scanners that work, I can't see us spending the money to upgrade any time within the next decade.

I almost always pay cash at the grocery store, but if I can't avoid using a bank card, I am careful to buy a lot of bizarre, random things together that will confound the Boys. A can of Drano, four rolls of fly paper, a travel-size pack of sanitary napkins, half a pound of smoked haddock, and a forty-pound box of cat litter.
 

swanson_eyes

Practically Family
Messages
827
Location
Wisconsin
Lizzie, by the end of next year your company will have to have those chip and PIN readers in place. We'll finally catch up with Europe. And Canada.
 

theknight

New in Town
Messages
9
Location
Manchester
People gabbing loudly on trains...gawd! Or even louder on their phones, seem to think the entire carriage needs to hear their stupid conversation.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Businesses that use crappy VOIP phone systems that distort and break up during conversations and make every legitmate business call sound like you're talking to some dope with a cell phone standing on a subway platform at rush hour. GET A COPPER LAND LINE.
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
Lizzie, by the end of next year your company will have to have those chip and PIN readers in place. We'll finally catch up with Europe. And Canada.

As my girlfriend says to me whenever and wherever that happens "did their parents not teach them to use their 'inside voices'?" I am stunned by how loud and insensitive people can be in public places in which a reasonable person would use a low-volume level to speak. Amtrak has gone so far as to create "quiet" cars, where no cell phones are allowed and only quiet conversation is permitted. It's heaven.
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
Businesses that use crappy VOIP phone systems that distort and break up during conversations and make every legitmate business call sound like you're talking to some dope with a cell phone standing on a subway platform at rush hour. GET A COPPER LAND LINE.


Yes and a variation on the theme is the incredibly obnoxious practice of having a machine call you to do something or to push a number to wait for someone to come on the line which completely reverses, in the most arrogant way possible, the burden of who has to wait for whom. Time Warner Cable does this which only increases my loathing of that company.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
You know you’ve been on hold a while when you go through 4 different songs of “hold music”.

At times, not sure if it qualifies as “music” though .:p
 
Last edited:

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
Yes and a variation on the theme is the incredibly obnoxious practice of having a machine call you to do something or to push a number to wait for someone to come on the line which completely reverses, in the most arrogant way possible, the burden of who has to wait for whom. Time Warner Cable does this which only increases my loathing of that company.
When they ask you to push a number, say, "representative," that will often get you a real live person!
 

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