Failure to Make Proper Change in a Monetary Transaction... What's Going On?!

okay, 2 days in a row now... 2 large Chains, cashiers who have difficulty with a minor transaction.. both of them young men, 21-25 years old.

yesterday, KFC: my order totals to $16.25, I have some "ones" piled in my pocket, so I offer $20, six $1 bills, and a quarter.. the young man looks at me strange, starts handing back the "ones" and the quarter, while holding the $20 bill.. "um, it's only $16.25"

"I know, I want $10 back", I say.. he looks at me funny, enters the money into the register.. oh, okay.. $10!

today, at Target: 4 small items total $17.27... I hand the young man a $20 bill, a quarter, and a nickel.. young man punches it in, starts to gather a lot of coins to hand back.. I notice the register says $2.99, the amount he is trying to collect.

"I think you entered something wrong, the bill is $17.27, and I gave you a $20, a quarter and a nickel"

"no, you gave me a penny"

"it was a nickel, maybe a dark nickel, but it was a nickel.. it doesn't even make sense to give you a penny.. I should be getting $3 and 3 cents back".

he picked up the coin he had just laid down.. yup, nickel.. he fumbled a moment, and gave me the change.. "okay, $3 and four cents", as he handed me $3 and 4 pennies..

no, I didn't bother giving back the extra penny.

I don't know if the schools are failing, the minimum wage is too high, or these guys have played too many video games.. but these examples are not isolated, these types of transactions happen to me regularly.

Strange because most all the registers today if you punch in what you give them it will give the change amount. Now if they have to do it in their head it will shut down their brain....

Given the nature of this message board (hookers) I assumed this would be about you laying 4 Benjamins on the night stand and you being surprised when she didn't give you $75 back for your $325 session

Of course in the hobby, it isn't that they can't make change they just choose not too

I guess you shouldn't ever go shopping when the power goes out...

It's the attention span process, or the dwindling ability for it. Yes, it's mostly the younger generation, but it's slowly creeping into all of us. You may not notice it, but it's happening.

I'm watching the AMA (American Music Awards), and Justin Bieber is onstage, and...I want to fight him, because he has on a ridiculous outfit. I don't know WHY I'm watching it, because I haven't watched such junk in 20 years...since Michael Jackson was winning awards for Beat It and Bad.

This show REMINDS me how much I loathe young people, and want to fight ALL of them. But seriously...actually, they are annoying, and loathsome.

All they do is rely on technology.

J-Lo is like, 45. Why is she hosting a show for kids!

All these kids are on my lawn...and should GET OFF!!! [shakes fist in the air]

It's the new math ...

It's the new math ... Originally Posted by pyramider

yes, and it seems young hooker math is more fucked up than older hooker math

Ha! I can't stop this.. another today, but this one was a middle-aged woman.. items only $3.66 in total, I handed her $5.16 (which included 6 pennies I wanted rid of).. she looked at me funny.. "um, I said 66 cents, Sir"..

"yeah, dollar fifty back", I countered..

"oh, okay"..

gotta watch these people.

This used to really bug me too, until I realized that it is simply a matter of how society has changed. The two main changes that impact this are 1) cash registers now will calculate the change that should be given and 2) the majority of people no longer worry about using change when they pay for things; they just pay with bills and then throw any coins they received as change in a jar at home. So for every one customer like the OP, a cashier will see many (100, 500, 1000?) customers who don't bother to pay in a way to minimize the change they get back. It is not that the cashiers are stupid; it is just that they don't encounter the situation often enough that it becomes second nature to them.

This used to really bug me too, until I realized that it is simply a matter of how society has changed. The two main changes that impact this are 1) cash registers now will calculate the change that should be given and 2) the majority of people no longer worry about using change when they pay for things; they just pay with bills and then throw any coins they received as change in a jar at home. So for every one customer like the OP, a cashier will see many (100, 500, 1000?) customers who don't bother to pay in a way to minimize the change they get back. It is not that the cashiers are stupid; it is just that they don't encounter the situation often enough that it becomes second nature to them. Originally Posted by tandyscone

really good point... and maybe I'm too hard on these cashiers, because I deal with much greater sums of money involving Clients, and my math skills were honed early as a kid, computing batting averages and such.. I don't know, it's just odd that these people collect money and make change for a living, and it seems such a challenge!

and yeah, I can't say I run into people like myself often, that make a point of unloading change whenever possible.. my family members hoard change, but it annoys me to have over $2 in coins.. unless it's for a specific reason, like the rare need to hit a laundromat.

It is a sport with me when I go out, give them the cash and tell them how I want it back, 9 times out of 10, they get all screwed up.

With technology they no longer have to think as much

Einstein said I believe "Never memorize something that you can look up"

They have calculators in school now, spell correct etc..

Man, I really hate carrying change. I definitely don't carry it long enough to pay for something with it. It just gets dumped in a jar. any time I move I dump the accumulated cash at a bank.

As for counting issues, I had a job that had me posted in Latin America for about half a year. One day I went to the farmers market and grabbed 2 items. One was 30 pesos, the other 40. The girl serving me took out a piece of paper, wrote 30 and then 40 below it. She drew a line, totaled up the ones column (0+0=0)... and then seemed stuck on the 4 and the 3. She ended up pulling out her calculator, typing 3+4, and then filled in the 7 on the paper. I was just totally shocked.

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/asimov.html

Ha! I can't stop this.. another today, but this one was a middle-aged woman.. items only $3.66 in total, I handed her $5.16 (which included 6 pennies I wanted rid of).. she looked at me funny.. "um, I said 66 cents, Sir"..

"yeah, dollar fifty back", I countered..

"oh, okay"..

gotta watch these people. Originally Posted by Chung Tran

Use CC. no annoying change or snall bills. no confused teens in your wake. most transactions under $50, no sign.