A Quick Note...

[AssultTank]

Fans at the Falcons games are guilty of this...

Sometimes I work the registers at one of our upper level mobile booths.
At opening, I have $200 in Ones, $50 in fives, and $50 in quarters.
People come and get just a bottle of soda which is $3.75(The Georgia Dome sets the prices, not us.) and will pay with a $100.
I've had one with the nerve to ask for twenties right at opening. I just said, "Sorry, I only have ones." Then I proceeded to count out his $93 in change in ones because he didn't have any other bills.

[BrenDAnn]

Wow, this turned into a lively discussion! Swordsman, I wish we had that policy at the c-store. Unfortunately, well, you know how corporate thinks. Whiskey, I tend to make faces too. They have to expect it! Ooh, I'd love to give them $1's back, but I'm sure my manager would see it as "bad customer service"...ugh. You can't win, and you can't scream "WE'RE NOT A F***ING BANK!" at the idiots either...Whadaya do?

[Tsiyeria]

When I was working at the vitamin store, I had a guy come in and try to pay with $100, for about a $20 purchase. Unfortunately, since it was a really small store, I only had a $100 drawer, AND he was my first cash purchase of the day.

I was also about 16, so guess who had to run down to the bank at the corner and leave the store closed during open hours because douchebag didn't want to?

Ugh. Just ugh.

[Swordsman422]

Tsiyeria, I love your avatar!

We don't have a bank in our shopping center anymore. When some out-of-date douche bullies one of our younger employees into taking his "hunnert" and pouring out the drawer for him, I have to go store-to-store begging for a breakdown. One day, if some asshat does that and I'm too late to stop it but he hasn't gotten his change back, I'll tell him to wait while I go find some kind soul to trade it for twenties.

A lot of local yokels either don't have bank accounts and get their checks cashed or get paid under the table in cash. This means that every Friday, the unwashed, baked-neck, clay clad masses coming in our store with rolls of "hunnerts" in their pockets looking for hobby parts, filling the shop with a workweek's worth of body odors as they spit tobacco into empty water bottles and wipe their mud-caked boots on my floors. And come check-out time, they get chuckles out of peeling a bill off that roll like they're the hero of a Bullseye Barbecue Sauce ad.

The sad thing is, these guys are probably very hard workers doing the jobs no one else wants to do, struggling to make ends meet, just like the rest of us. And they forget about it the moment they get a little money.

[Eisa]

i'm of the opinion that a cashier should be able to refuse a small purchase when the idiot of a customer tries to pay with a larger bill.

go to the bank, ask for smaller denominations, whatever it takes, but don't burden a business with your stupidity.

(this doesnt' apply to eisa or anyone who asks for the smaller denominations and gets larger ones instead)

but we all know how corporate thinks...

Yeah. I ask for it to be broken down, they still give me hundreds...it's like, well...yeah, this helps...but ONLY when buying my $3-500 worth of schoolbooks. [Which is a rant all its own... Although not on the poor people in the campus bookstore.] And yeah-if I have to break a hundred and can't go to the bank or whatever, it's NEVER at the beginning or very end, always at a fairly big store so I can be pretty sure they have change...and always at least $20, but usually more...in the $30-$40 range.

On the other hand, only having hundred dollar bills at the moment...it makes it a lot easier to resist impulse spending.