Check Please! I Need Change Back.

Charge it!

"You Don't Want to Pay With a Credit Card?"

Yes... I was asked this over the weekend because I paid cash at a restaurant while I was out with the ladies.  Not by the girls mind you, but by the waiter!  I kid you not!  

He brought the credit receipts back before he brought my change. As a matter of fact, when he came to drop the others' receipts, he let me know that he wasn't sure if the restaurant had change!

Really?!  This was a chain restaurant!  You can't tell me that on a Friday night this business didn't know how to keep change on hand! If so, they need new management. It's Retail Finance 101.  Without the appropriate cash on hand and in reserve, you cannot operate your business to its potential.

So to make the situation even stranger, when he did come back he gave me a rounded dollar amount back. My bill was $21.79. I gave him $40. I got $19 back. Most people would say "shut the hell up, you got extra money back!"  While I completely understand this way of thinking, I was a little put off that A) he didn't count my change, B) everyone using that register was going to be in trouble for the short, especially if it had been done over and over again in the same night, and C) I was the problem child for paying cash!!

I began pondering whether or not we as a society were going in this direction.  Are we really using the plastic to pay for everything?

So, guess what I did.  I ran my own little test.

Objective: Discover whether others take issue with me for paying cash and see how the cash payment is handled.

Cash: The evil paper!

Action: Go out and pay cash at a minimum of two other establishments.
Results: Three tries, same results. They fumbled.

1.) They each had to recount the cash I had handed them--twice! 

2.) None of them knew how to count back change. (Start with the amount of the bill, loose coin to round up, then bills until you get to the amount originally given for payment.)

3.) Instead of service with a smile, which is how each had started, I got a look of disdain. I was yet again--times three--the problem child for paying cash.

Wow!  

That's all I can figure to say.  Wow!

What were to happen if the digital age got iced? Would anyone know what to do?

WAY back, we had to get driver's license as well.

I remember having to carbon credit cards to take payment (yes, I'm that old, so shush). 

One of the first things I was taught in retail, was how to count change back.  You don't count a person's change that you are giving them, you count from the purchase price to the amount paid.  Is it really that difficult?  

Am I the only odd one?