Home > Uncategorized > Fight the machine!

Fight the machine!

April 3, 2010

Older people may find this funnier than younger people do.  But when a restaurant can’t serve food that is already hot, fresh, and smelling wonderful, because the cash register is down, I find it hilarious. 

We’re regulars, so we said; give us the food and we’ll pay for it after we eat.  Which is what we did.

I thought to myself; I’ll just go on YouTube and find a video to show people how to make change without a computerized cash register.  But I couldn’t find one!  Admittedly I only looked for a couple minutes.  Anyway, here’s how you do it:

Suppose a sandwich and a coffee comes to $4.30, and the sales tax rate is 7.5%.  (It’s OK to use a calculator for this step)  Multiply 4.3 times 1.075 for a total of $4.62.  The customer gives you a ten dollar bill.

You could ask the calculator to tell you what 10 minus 4.62 is, and then give the customer a five, a quarter, a dime and three pennies.  Or you could do it the old-timey way.  Here, do it with me:

“Sir, your total is $4.62, out of ten dollars…”

You just repeated the amount due and the amount the customer gave you.  This is crucial, because if the customer thought they handed you a twenty, you have let them know they should resolve it NOW.  Place the ten on the deck of the cash register while you count out his change.

Start counting out pennies, while you count up from the amount due to the amount tendered:

“…That’s sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five…”

And a dime, then a quarter:

“…seventy-five, and five…”

A little emphasis on “five” to indicate it is a dollar amount, then a five-dollar bill:

“…and five makes ten.  Thank you, and please come again.”

Eye contact and smile, hand them their change.  The customer nods, giving assent to the transaction.  Nod back, put the ten in the register, close the drawer, and turn to the next customer.

If you can count, you can make accurate change.  This method is bulletproof.  It is easy, friendly, and fast.  It even works without electricity.

Yes, I am aware that modern POS systems work against this method.  A mistake, in my estimation.  Many times I’ve had someone hand me the wrong change, carrying out machine instructions with no more autonomy than a receipt printer.  Unquestioning belief in machine output has broader consequences than just sandwiches and coffee.

Categories: Uncategorized
  1. Lucas
    April 3, 2010 at 14:32 | #1

    Should kids also stay off of your lawn?

  2. EdK
    April 3, 2010 at 21:35 | #2

    All part of the dumbing down of society.  The looks one gets from the register operator when you give extra coinage to get back all quarters instead of mixed change is depressing.  Makes those in charge happy because if you can’t question a machine, you’re less likely to question authority.

  3. April 3, 2010 at 23:25 | #3

    It’s been a generation since most people in retail had to provide change or figure out sales tax. (Remember when we had little cards with the sales tax amounts on them?)

    Was that a real sandwich and coffee for $4.30? Wow. Out here that gets you a coffee and a bag of chips, if the chips are on sale. OK, I’m exaggerating a little, but only a little.

  4. April 4, 2010 at 10:01 | #4

    That was just a made-up example; usually I get the quiche and a coffee, which still comes to under five bucks.  I don’t know how they do it, but the place has real food and low prices.  They bake everything right there in a huge open oven.  You can watch them making dough and rising it, and their salads and sandwiches are awesome. 

    Our cost of living here is really low, and quality of life is good.  Two universities, world HQs of two major insurance companies, and an auto plant, surrounded by agriculture.

  5. April 4, 2010 at 16:42 | #5

    A few years ago a teenage cashier at the largest supermarket chain in Rochester actually gave me change by counting back. She didn’t even look at the display, just did it.

    I was shocked.  If she had been in her 50s, I would have just smiled knowingly.  But a teenager?  I smiled, but for a different reason.  :)

  6. Evelyn
    April 4, 2010 at 17:33 | #6

    Good Going, George! Sounds like a great breakfast!

  7. April 5, 2010 at 19:44 | #7

    LOL Lucas!

    I love it when I give someone more change on top of the 10 to avoid pennies and a lot of change. They freak out and try to give it back. I usually just smile and say punch it in the computer, trust me…

  8. April 7, 2010 at 03:32 | #8

    Back around 1950 in primary school, we cut out our own cardboard coins from a sheet of cardboard and wrote arbitrary whole numbers on them, 8, 13, 17, 29, whatever, and practiced giving change with them. That’s how we learnt mental arithmetic (a lost art). Needless to say, long before digital calculators.

    Later, I was around 12, we learned to do it in Roman Numerals too, just for the hell of it.

    FWIW, I did a coupls of blog articles about doing arithmetic in Roman Numerals recently,
    http://www.savory.de/blog_feb_10.htm#20100219 covers multiplication and http://www.savory.de/blog_feb_10.htm#20100222 covers division.

  9. RayC
    April 8, 2010 at 10:08 | #9

    Reminds me in a warped way of Steve Martin’s comments on the Oscar broadcase when he announced the Best Picture category would now be double its usual five candidates. “Everyone in Hollywood was thinking the same thing on hearing the news,” he said. “What’s five times two?”

Comments are closed.