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An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-22-2008
I couldn't help but chuckle about this, but on reflection it makes me feel like a geezer. I walked to the local convenience store to get pop and junk food, and the total came to $5.66. I didn't have exact change, so I gave the guy $6.16. He looked at me with a totally blank stare, rung up the order for $6 dollars, looked back at the pile of change, and said "What did you want me to do with this?" Then we had to take some time figuring out how much change I was due back.
Please tell me I'm not the only person who still "gets rid of" nickels and pennies to save a quarter. :blink:
An early sign of aging? - Chesspiece_face - 02-22-2008
Quote:I couldn't help but chuckle about this, but on reflection it makes me feel like a geezer. I walked to the local convenience store to get pop and junk food, and the total came to $5.66. I didn't have exact change, so I gave the guy $6.16. He looked at me with a totally blank stare, rung up the order for $6 dollars, looked back at the pile of change, and said "What did you want me to do with this?" Then we had to take some time figuring out how much change I was due back.
Please tell me I'm not the only person who still "gets rid of" nickels and pennies to save a quarter. :blink:
I think this is less a sign of aging and more a sign of moronic sales clerks.
An early sign of aging? - Kevin - 02-22-2008
Quote:I think this is less a sign of aging and more a sign of moronic sales clerks.
Pretty much. Carlos Mencia has a great bit about just this subject too that just makes me laugh every time I see it (of course most of his material makes me laugh a lot).
An early sign of aging? - LemmingofGlory - 02-22-2008
Speaking of geezers in the wilds of retail, old people trying to use self-serve checkouts can be hellacious. I was behind some old lady for a few minutes before I realized she was senile and jumped to another line. I have no idea what she was doing but it looked like a combination of screwing up her card's PIN and having insufficient funds.
An early sign of aging? - DeeBye - 02-22-2008
Quote:Please tell me I'm not the only person who still "gets rid of" nickels and pennies to save a quarter. :blink:
My wife does this, and it makes me angry. She'll root around in her purse forever trying to find whatever pennies, nickels, and dimes might be laying around in there so that she gets less change back. The cashier can never figure it out and it always holds up the checkout line.
Me? I usually pay by debit card or credit card. Otherwise I'll just slap down bills. If I get change back, it goes into a big jar I have on top of my fridge. I clean it out and roll the change every year or so and buy a case of beer or bottle of scotch for myself.
I am getting old because I am really starting to obsess about my lawn in the summer and how clear my driveway is of snow in the winter.
An early sign of aging? - Hammerskjold - 02-22-2008
Quote:Speaking of geezers in the wilds of retail, old people trying to use self-serve checkouts can be hellacious. I was behind some old lady for a few minutes before I realized she was senile and jumped to another line. I have no idea what she was doing but it looked like a combination of screwing up her card's PIN and having insufficient funds.
Self serve checkouts are a good idea on paper, but from what I've experienced and seen so far it's still got a lot of teething problems.
Many of the ones I've seen are either empty because no one wants to use them, or are staffed to assist customers using them. Making it sort of a Rube Goldberg oxymoronic device.
An early sign of aging? - Kevin - 02-22-2008
Quote:Self serve checkouts are a good idea on paper, but from what I've experienced and seen so far it's still got a lot of teething problems.
Many of the ones I've seen are either empty because no one wants to use them, or are staffed to assist customers using them. Making it sort of a Rube Goldberg oxymoronic device.
I agree that many of them don't work too well, but I do love them. Of course I've been a cashier and am used to how to deal with most of the stuff. But if I can get to one that doesn't have someone clueless at it or is empty they can be a big time saver for me as I can still scan and bag faster than many cashiers at many stores. But yeah they are by no means perfect.
An early sign of aging? - Hammerskjold - 02-22-2008
Quote:I agree that many of them don't work too well, but I do love them. Of course I've been a cashier and am used to how to deal with most of the stuff. But if I can get to one that doesn't have someone clueless at it or is empty they can be a big time saver for me as I can still scan and bag faster than many cashiers at many stores. But yeah they are by no means perfect.
I'll state upfront that if I had a choice between the two, my bias is I will usually pick a human over a machine. Unless it's a state of the art femmebot or something similar.
Having said that, it's more common nowadays for me to find 'operator' error when dealing with human cashiers vs wacky machine errors. Eg: the cashier charged me the wrong price for lettuce, because they don't know or don't care what the difference between romaine vs leaf lettuce etc.
But in the larger picture, you are most likely in the right track. The technology is not perfect, but at one point the same could be said for that newfangled laser scanner. Chances are this will be the way of the future, at least for the larger stores.
By that time, we will astound, amaze (and probably bore) our grandkids on their jet powered segways with tales of people manning something called a 'cash register' in the long ago.
Damn kids and their rocket segways messing up my astro-lawn...
An early sign of aging? - ShadowHM - 02-22-2008
Quote:My wife does this, and it makes me angry. She'll root around in her purse forever trying to find whatever pennies, nickels, and dimes might be laying around in there so that she gets less change back. The cashier can never figure it out and it always holds up the checkout line.
Me? I usually pay by debit card or credit card. Otherwise I'll just slap down bills. If I get change back, it goes into a big jar I have on top of my fridge. I clean it out and roll the change every year or so and buy a case of beer or bottle of scotch for myself.
I am getting old because I am really starting to obsess about my lawn in the summer and how clear my driveway is of snow in the winter.
:lol:
In my family, I am the one who roots around for the change that will reduce the number of coins that come back. And my husband is the one who keeps slapping down the $20 bills. So his pockets wear out all the time and mine don't. :rolleyes: And yes, he also eventually rolls up the coins and buys something that I am perfectly entitled to share with him too. :P
I am getting old because I am starting to seriously consider a life without either driveway to shovel or lawn to manage. I don't feel like spending energy on either anymore.
P.S. I still get a kick out the look of surprise on some cashiers' faces when, after counting out the change that I gave them and inputting the total to the cash register, they find that they get to hand me a single quarter. :whistling:
An early sign of aging? - LemmingofGlory - 02-22-2008
Quote:Self serve checkouts are a good idea on paper, but from what I've experienced and seen so far it's still got a lot of teething problems.
Many of the ones I've seen are either empty because no one wants to use them, or are staffed to assist customers using them. Making it sort of a Rube Goldberg oxymoronic device.
How 'bout this one?
I was once in a self-serve checkout behind a very foreign-looking person who was buying produce, fresh jalapenos. And the way produce worked, you press the "Produce" button and select from a menu (with pictures) the food that you're buying. The menu is alphabetized, but there were shortcuts to start at whatever letter you need, right? Now, the menu was in English. He had Jalapenols. He started in the A's, moved on to the B's... went well past the J's into the S's and the T's...
I would've changed lines if any of the other checkouts were less busy. That particular day everyone decided to take items-hanging-off-the-sides shopping carts through each of the self-serves. People are such bastards.
-Lem
An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-22-2008
You can strike me up in the geezer column when it comes to these things too. The only time I will use one is if I sense it might save me 20 minutes or so. I actually like bagging my own groceries, but I don't like having to do it in the presence of a balance that has to sense just the right amount of weight. And as anti-social as I may be, I still like customer service from a human being when I'm out shopping. My dad used to say the only reason McDonald's isn't a vending machine is that people like to get their food from a human being, and I think more and more that he is right. Plus if I walk out after doing a self-serve checkout, I'm always expecting some security guy to come and tackle me.
Of course, I do my grocery shopping at 4 AM. The night shift manager at Meijer knows me by name, and the only wait is trying to find a cashier someplace. It's a different world when you are a night person.
An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-22-2008
Quote:I am getting old because I am starting to seriously consider a life without either driveway to shovel or lawn to manage. I don't feel like spending energy on either anymore.
P.S. I still get a kick out the look of surprise on some cashiers' faces when, after counting out the change that I gave them and inputting the total to the cash register, they find that they get to hand me a single quarter. :whistling:
That's what neighbor kids are for. You can pay them a ridiculously low sum of money and then chuckle while watching from the window as they screw up your yard. :D But now I don't feel old anymore, just young and poor. I'm still looking forward to the day when I finally have my own yard, even though I will probably let the grass grow knee high and get infested with mosquitoes and thistles.
An early sign of aging? - Jim - 02-23-2008
Hi,
I am OLD, I'm 66 years young [I like to say it that way] I do like to rid my pocket of spare change when I can. However, I have a Jar full of Penny's that I use for Holloween night...the kids love pulling out a hand full of penny's & their parents like it too, it's safer than candy these days.
I'm glad I did not skip Math class back in the 50's because today it does come in handy. Here is a Test:
Why did the Clerk Ring up the order of $5.66...for $6 dollars <_<
Total came to $5.66
Gave the clerk $6.16
Quote:I couldn't help but chuckle about this, but on reflection it makes me feel like a geezer. I walked to the local convenience store to get pop and junk food, and the total came to $5.66. I didn't have exact change, so I gave the guy $6.16. He looked at me with a totally blank stare, rung up the order for $6 dollars, looked back at the pile of change, and said "What did you want me to do with this?" Then we had to take some time figuring out how much change I was due back.
Please tell me I'm not the only person who still "gets rid of" nickels and pennies to save a quarter. :blink:
An early sign of aging? - Taem - 02-23-2008
Quote:I think this is less a sign of aging and more a sign of moronic sales clerks.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the "morons" I have had the displeasure to work with are recently graduated, straight out of high school kids whom were never taught how to do such a simple task such as counting back change, much less 'complex' arithmetic when making a sale. These kids are hired in the temporary position of host/hostess and rely completely on what the register tells them in regards to balance and change due; God forbid they should ever have to figure out the tax on a checks net sale.
I honestly have no idea what they teach our children in high school anymore. I thought the No Child Left Behind act was suppose to raise the standards, but apparently certain critical elements are left out of the equation.
In my on opinion, the "standards" in California have dropped dramatically with the influx of non-English speaking aliens. Why do I say this? Because I have to take my children to a school with mostly white children because they speak English, whereas the other two grade schools in my area are predominantly filled with Hispanics who speak either mixed English or only Spanish. The teachers in these schools teach bilingual so it's no wonder why only English speaking students do so poorly in these schools. For the effects of bilingual teaching on the standardized tests, read this article. This quote caught my eye:
Quote:In New York, school administrators have been accused of pushing thousands of low-scoring students into high school equivalency programs, where, although they never earn diplomas, they donât count as dropouts.
Here is another interesting article that links poverty to poor test scores. I am not implying that all Hispanics living in America are poor, not even, however I know that there are a lot of illegals that come here because the wages in Mexico are so bad. They come here and don't mind taking to the fields because here in America, they can easily make 10-100x what they would doing the same job in Mexico. I work with many Hispanics that work two minimum wages jobs just to support their families. A lot of these people send money back to their families in Mexico giving them even less to live on here.
I think the correlation is clear: if being poor is an indicator of how the standardized test might score, then it stands to reason that when these minorities enter high school, something has to give to accommodate everyone. Critical teaching elements must be left out so as to educate those with lower than average test scores so that they might pass the NCLB standardized tests and the schools might get their money from a fund that is already deplorably low to begin with.
An early sign of aging? - ShadowHM - 02-23-2008
Quote: I'm still looking forward to the day when I finally have my own yard, even though I will probably let the grass grow knee high and get infested with mosquitoes and thistles.
Don't try that in Toronto. :shuriken: I did that, as an experiment, one summer while I was not there, but at the cottage. I left instructions that the front yard had to be kept mowed, but that I didn't care at all what happened to the back yard. By the end of July a letter from the city had arrived, stating that my yard was in contravention of a bylaw and that I would be fined if I didn't make sure that it was mowed. <_< Unmowed grass can (and did) grow to six feet and the 'not-grass' parts were only three feet or less. :rolleyes:
An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-23-2008
6 foot tall grass in Toronto... that's funny to even think about! As a kid, I would camp at a large BSA reservation near the Mich/Ohio/Indiana border. Some of the pathways from place to place were little more than a strip of mowed grass. The surrounding grass was probably 3-4 feet tall (maybe shorter... not sure how tall I was back then :P). I remember seeing them mow paths with a machine that looked suitable for harvesting wheat. The mosquitoes in that camp were so unbelievably thick But then, they are just an annoyance. For adventures deeper into the camp one was supposed to wear knee socks and long pants, unless one wanted to have a scoutmaster with a pocket knife and lighter digging ticks out of his leg. I never had this problem, but one of my friends seemed to be a tick magnet.
I remember a lot of very dry summers when I was kid, but there were always two weeks when thunderstorms were an absolute certainty: the week of scout camp, and the week of the county fair.
An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-23-2008
Quote:I'm glad I did not skip Math class back in the 50's because today it does come in handy. Here is a Test:
Why did the Clerk Ring up the order of $5.66...for $6 dollars <_<
Total came to $5.66
Gave the clerk $6.16
I've noticed that clerks at UDF and other places with a lot of small orders will often put in an even dollar amount, instead of entering the amount of money they are given. I think that is pretty silly. It saves one or two key presses at most, and increases the chance of human error or a dispute with customers. But I don't really care if they enter the amount given or count back change in a formal manner, as long as they get it right. This guy just honestly had no idea why I was giving him the extra 16 cents. I guess if he had entered the amount in the register, he probably would have figured it out. I think he was about to give me my 16 cents back, pull 34 cents from the till, and give me those as well. :D
An early sign of aging? - Jim - 02-23-2008
Hi,
Ouch for the Clerk...he will come up short on his count at the end of his shift...by $0.34 :blush:
Unless...he keys in $6.16 & the register will show the amount of Change to be given, I think that is what they do in the Supermarkets, hmmm not sure ?
Quote:I've noticed that clerks at UDF and other places with a lot of small orders will often put in an even dollar amount, instead of entering the amount of money they are given. I think that is pretty silly. It saves one or two key presses at most, and increases the chance of human error or a dispute with customers. But I don't really care if they enter the amount given or count back change in a formal manner, as long as they get it right. This guy just honestly had no idea why I was giving him the extra 16 cents. I guess if he had entered the amount in the register, he probably would have figured it out. I think he was about to give me my 16 cents back, pull 34 cents from the till, and give me those as well. :D
An early sign of aging? - Nystul - 02-23-2008
Quote:Hi,
Ouch for the Clerk...he will come up short on his count at the end of his shift...by $0.34 :blush:
Unless...he keys in $6.16 & the register will show the amount of Change to be given, I think that is what they do in the Supermarkets, hmmm not sure ?
His drawer was balanced for my sale. The register rang up the total as $5.66. I paid $6.16, and eventually got 2 quarters back. He entered $6.00 as the I amount I paid him, and the register showed to give back $.34. It's not necessary for the clerk to be able to calculate the change they owe a customer on a computerized register, but he still must be able to count the change. ;) I assume that this guy can figure out that a dime, nickel, and penny adds to 16 cents. He apparently just did not grasp the concept of why I would give him change when the $6 would already cover it.
An early sign of aging? - Monkey - 02-24-2008
Quote:You can strike me up in the geezer column when it comes to these things too. The only time I will use one is if I sense it might save me 20 minutes or so. I actually like bagging my own groceries, but I don't like having to do it in the presence of a balance that has to sense just the right amount of weight. And as anti-social as I may be, I still like customer service from a human being when I'm out shopping. My dad used to say the only reason McDonald's isn't a vending machine is that people like to get their food from a human being, and I think more and more that he is right. Plus if I walk out after doing a self-serve checkout, I'm always expecting some security guy to come and tackle me.
Of course, I do my grocery shopping at 4 AM. The night shift manager at Meijer knows me by name, and the only wait is trying to find a cashier someplace. It's a different world when you are a night person.
They field-tested the auto-checkout at the Kroger by my college, so we all became "early adopters". We were a bunch of college-age gamers and the clerks were quite apathetic, so we flew through in comparison.
I've moved a couple of times since then and now prefer the human if there's one readily available. The self-checkout is slower for many reasons:
1. Bad UI. The self-checkout doesn't expect (like the cashier's system does) rapid data entry. It lags up frequently. Sometimes doing reasonable things it doesn't expect will make it hang until the overseer (who is usually off somewhere else) returns. Meanwhile, the cashiers in my current area aren't apathetic and like to go fast.
2. Cloth Bags. The self-checkout system won't let me bag my groceries into cloth bags ("Please put the item or items back..."). Also, I can bag while the human cashier scans.
3. Alcohol. To buy beer at the self-checkout, you have to go get in a little line at the self-checkout overseer's stand and have your ID reviewed and painstakingly entered. And if the overseer is AFK as in #1, you're screwed. The human cashier is not only much faster at this process, they'll also frequently take one look at my face and bypass the whole ID business.
Finally, by choosing the human cashiers,I'm helping to preserve entry-level jobs in my area. Grocery stores will undoubtedly scale down the human cashiers as much as they have evidence to support. By adding a little traffic whenever the humans don't look busy, I help slow that process.