Now I'm not annoyed by everyone who does this: in fact, back when I used to pay cash (um, before debit cards - a belated welcome to the 21st century, people), I used to give extra coin to get a round number of change back from time to time. But often people end up giving me unexpected amounts. For example, I rang up a transaction the other day in which the total was something like $13.06. So instead of giving me $14, the lady rooted around in her purse and finally emerged with two coins on top of her $13. Not scrutinizing the offering too closely, I took her two coins as exact change and rang her up, ending the transaction. However, what I failed to realize was that she had given me a dime and a penny instead of the nickel and penny I had expected. So, she wasn't just going to avoid receiving 94 cents, she was going to avoid receiving 4 pennies by adding a penny to get that fat nickel. Problem was, I closed the register and needed to call a manager in the event I had to reopen it. After I explained this to her, she refused to backpeddle one bit (or even half a bit, which is still technically more than 5 cents). So we waited around 5 minutes (with her glowering at me the whole time) for a manager to arrive and open my register to Retrieve. Her. Nickel.
Think of all the time spent for this nickel: her rifling through her purse for loose change (which is probably the most annoying waste of time when a busy line wraps behind a customer), me putting the change into the till, the combined payroll for myself and the manager torn away from our other duties to attend to this nickel and the paperwork printed by the register when it's opened apart from a cash transaction, which is signed by the manager and myself, filed and then processed by somebody at corporate. Add to that the time spent in writing this increasingly boring blog entry (including this clause right here; and this one too - this could go on forever) and this lady's nickel has cost everyone involved about $98.22 (Canadian) in wasted time.
Think of all the time spent wrangling with cash - and the coins in particular. Now the call to abolish the penny makes more sense to me than ever (I saw the guy on Colbert). Though it probably won't happen with a President who most recently represented the Land of Lincoln. On this issue, he won't give us the change we believe in (get it...change? I'll stop now). Or better yet, just use the debit whenever you can and leave some cash in reserve for when you absolutely need it. Of course, Amy has a pathological dependance about using cash, so I constantly have to replenish the supply for her purse and the car. My thinking is that I should be paid for that work, too: how about a nickel per hour?
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