You still owe me three cents. Pony up.

[underemployeed]

I tend to be a hardass about it, depending on my mood. I might make an exception if I see you rooting for change and you've been polite so far. Act at all like you expect me to eat the cost, then forget it. What drives me nuts is that it's almost always over tax. You can pay your own damn tax, thank you.

That is exactly how I do it, If they humor me and look for change and I have pennies other people left I will tell them not to worry about it, also helps to be a regular, or have a rewards card (we get penalized if not enough people using them).

I love/hate this converstation.

SC: "Can't you cover me?"
me: "No sir, I'm sorry I can't"
SC: "Why not?"
me: "I'm responsible for my drawer, and would have to make it up."
SC: "It is just a couple pennies"
me: "3 Pennies times at least 200 people a day that ask, makes $6.00, I make $7.30 an hour"

Bonus Points for them wearing ID badge from Oil company that pays ridiculously well and they driving am expensive car.

[ottid]

Forgive my ignorance, but weighing your ending till that just seems odd, I mean it seems like it would be really easy to take advantage of it.

Am I changing by hair colour to blond, because I just don't get it...

We weigh the money of one of our tills every night. This is generally because this till has ridiculous amounts of money in it due to it being the Lotto till, so it has to have a large amount because we are to pay out anything less than $1000, so if someone wins $990, we should be able to pay that out, though in some cases I have seen people being given checks because we just can't give out that much, such as we have already given out a number of large prizes.

What really annoys me is the fact that we have that large amount in the actual till draw, rather than having enough to deal with most customers, ie those that are buying tickets and small prizes, and have the rest in the safe out the back, or at least somewhere that the customer can't see if they look into your draw.

Back to the OP: I would also expect to pay the 3c, but in NZ the smallest denomination is 10c. Now I just had a thought, if someone pays $9.95 out of $9.99 on an eftpos/debit card because that is all they have on their card, will the till just void it to 0, like it would if you paid $9.90 in cash for something that was $9.94...?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Modern Retail Math Problem (for US till counters):

At the end of the night, your till weighs 5 pounds and 5 ounces. What is the exact number of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollar coins in your till?

Coin weights:

Penny 2.500 g
Nickle 5.000 g
Dime 2.268 g
Quarter 5.670 g
Half Dollar 11.340 g
Dollar 8.100 g
Eisenhower Dollar 22.68 g.

Please note the following:

1 nickle weighs the same as 2 pennies. So is 5 g worth 2¢ or 5¢?
10 dimes, 4 quarters, and 2 half dollars all weigh the same, which fortunately is the same value.
2 quarters, and 1 half dollar both weigh the same, which fortunately is the same value.

It is interesting that the weights of the dime, quarter, half dollar and Eisenhower dollar are proportional to their value. Determining the value of till filled with just those coins is simple. It's when pennies, nickles and the modern dollars get added that the problem becomes more difficult. But I suppose someone has done a study and has come up with a reasonable estimate.

[dalesys]

...It is interesting that the weights of the dime, quarter, half dollar and Eisenhower dollar are proportional to their value...

That's because they were defined (& minted) in silver (alloy). IA, I thought you were old enough to remember those.

[EricKei]

I suppose an unscrucopulous cashier could always mix a few heavier coins with cheaper ones just ot make sure they were never "short" (eg, add a couple of nickels to hundreds of dollars worth of pennies)...

As for voiding the difference -- not in the US, at least. I'm all in favor of getting rid of the penny, however...what's the point in using a coin with minimal value, AND costs more to make than its face value...? >_<

[ottid]

When we weigh our money it's done on a denomination by denomination amount, I tell the machine I'm doing 10c coins, and it knows the weight. When I'm doing notes that have been bundled and rubberbanded I'm surprised it doesn't over count, but because the rubberband doesn't weigh exactly the same as note, apparently it doesn't count it.

[Ironclad Alibi]

IA, I thought you were old enough to remember those.

Indeed I am. I even have a few in my coin collection. I just never throught about their relative weights before. And it's always good to have something new to learn.

[EricKei]

...I'm surprised it doesn't over count, but because the rubberband doesn't weigh exactly the same as note, apparently it doesn't count it.

The scale has likely been calibrated to ignore the weight of the rubberband (when it's empty, see if the weight shown is negative; if so, this is the case). -- Scales in deli's are usually set up like this, so that the weight of the container does not count towards the weight of the food being packaged.

[ottid]

The scale has likely been calibrated to ignore the weight of the rubberband (when it's empty, see if the weight shown is negative; if so, this is the case). -- Scales in deli's are usually set up like this, so that the weight of the container does not count towards the weight of the food being packaged.

Not all of the notes are rubber banded though, otherwise that would make sense. And I can put 3 bundles of 20's on at a time, so it would have to figure out before hand what negative it needed.

[mattm04]

If it is really busy, and the Cust. is a few cents short I MIGHT let it slide. Though that can backfire, epically with some of the people who are bussed in from the local assisted living place. Try to cut them a 2 cent slack then they will spend as long as it takes for the two pennies.

[Chromatix]

In Finland we use a system called Swedish rounding. This is because Finland does not use the €0.01 and €0.02 coins. The good thing is that because the next coin (€0.05) is an odd number, the rounding method is obvious and unambiguous, and averages out in the long term.

If you're paying by card, you're charged the exact amount. If you're paying in cash, it gets rounded. The till displays the rounded amount in case you're paying cash; the Chip&PIN box displays the exact amount.

(NB: I do have a €0.01 coin somewhere. I got it while travelling via France, which doesn't use rounding. I have been literally unable to spend it since.)

One good reason that weighing coins might go astray is that old copper coins were actually made of copper, but now they are made of aluminium with a fairly thin copper plating. Aluminium weighs a lot less than copper. The difference between silver and nickel-alloy is much smaller, and real silver coins are now probably extremely rare in circulation, so for "silver" coins they can probably just set it for the nickel-alloy weight.