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Kids These Days
Feb. 11th, 2016 03:55 pmThis afternoon after lunch, I took a bottle of propane over to Hanneman Service to be refilled, and while they did that, I walked across the street to get the mail and to go into Family Dollar where I needed to pick up a small item. The item cost, after tax, $6.16. I did not have exact change, but I wanted to minimize the amount of change I got back, so I handed the clerk $11.26 so that I would get a $5 bill and a dime instead of three $1s and a handful of coins. The clerk handed me back the $1 bill. I asked him why and he insisted that he'd just end up having to give it back to me in the change anyway.
I said, "Just type $11.26 into the machine; it will tell you how much change to give me." He wouldn't do it. I rolled my eyes, and because there were people queued behind me, said, "Just give me back the coins and type in ten dollars. I don't want to hold up the line." He seemed puzzled but did what I asked and gave me the $3.84 in change.
It's certainly not a big deal, but I found it oddly annoying. When I was growing up, I learned how to make change without aid of a computer. Considering the worthlessness of most coins less than a quarter, minimizing change seems like a good thing to me. But it's hard to do so when the person behind the counter can neither do math in his head nor type the numbers into the register and magically return the right amount.
If there hadn't been anyone in line behind me, I would have let him type the $10.26 into the machine and then given him the four ones and the one I'd originally tried to give him and say, "Can you change this into a five dollar bill for me, please?" But it wasn't worth it and I hate making others wait unnecessarily.
I said, "Just type $11.26 into the machine; it will tell you how much change to give me." He wouldn't do it. I rolled my eyes, and because there were people queued behind me, said, "Just give me back the coins and type in ten dollars. I don't want to hold up the line." He seemed puzzled but did what I asked and gave me the $3.84 in change.
It's certainly not a big deal, but I found it oddly annoying. When I was growing up, I learned how to make change without aid of a computer. Considering the worthlessness of most coins less than a quarter, minimizing change seems like a good thing to me. But it's hard to do so when the person behind the counter can neither do math in his head nor type the numbers into the register and magically return the right amount.
If there hadn't been anyone in line behind me, I would have let him type the $10.26 into the machine and then given him the four ones and the one I'd originally tried to give him and say, "Can you change this into a five dollar bill for me, please?" But it wasn't worth it and I hate making others wait unnecessarily.
