Nice, With A Small Problem

[filkertom]

The trip out to Anthro was a lot of fun. Didn't start out that way -- stuff at home delayed me awhile, and then just as I was getting out of town I discovered that Cingular's network didn't think I had a phone or something, and that was another freakin' hour on hold.

Once I got going, though, it was a lovely drive. The directions were kinda wonky -- they led me into the northern part of Pittsburgh, and I mean the residential area. Somewhichwayhow, I got to the hotel without too much incident, and it is a lovely place, and the con folks are all good, and my set last night went well, and the people who work here at the Westin are all great.

With one exception.

There's basically an Uno Express just off the lobby -- they make about a half-dozen varieties of individual deep-dish pizza, not quite as good as an actual Uno's but a good hunk above Pizza Hut or Domino. The girl sitting behind the counter looked kinda bored. I asked if the pizza could be charged to the room. She said, "Yeah, but the thingie's down." The computer.

Fine. I wanted pizza. I looked around. "Do you have a knife and fork?"

"No, we're out."

Fine. $5.89. She gave me back a dime. "We're out of pennies."

"You're also out a customer," I snarled back, and left.

I mean, cah-mon.

Comments

[alymid.livejournal.com]

must be something in the air - I needed to take a cab to work this morning -
the first one just didn't show up - apparently a flat tire that no one from the cab company thought I should know about

2nd cabbie (2nd cab company) - after taking the longest and most circuitous route to my job - 12.71 fare - I hand him a 20 and he says "Sorry no change". We went back and forth, and he said - sometimes he just doesn't have change. I left him with the 20 cause I am too stupid to just not pay. But I called the cab company and his boss made him come back and bring me change. Really dumb - if he had just had change he would have gotten a decent tip.

Out of pennies

[baronet.livejournal.com]

In my imaginary world, if she is out of pennies then she would offer to give you a dime and a nickel. Then she is giving you the change that you deserve and a microscopic tip as well. Some of the time, if she asks right, I bet the customer will say "nah, keep it". The rest of the time, the company is paying 4 cents because they didn't have enough change on hand.

The trick would be making sure that the company eats the loss and not the girl at the counter. It isn't fair to make her pay 4 cents of her own money for each customer if she doesn't have any control over the problem.

[ericcoleman]

I was in the airport in Raleigh NC getting some breakfast.

I do want to say that the breakfast was yummy. The service was ... keep in mind that this place was not too busy.

This is an airport restaurant. People tend to be in a hurry.
It took 10 minutes to get my order in. The food came fairly quickly. I finished and it took another 10 minutes to get my check. When she gave me my check she started walking away, even though I had money in my hand. I gave her the money and 10 minutes later she came back with my change. My comment

"I hope that you are not planning on doing this professionally"

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

I think it's ridiculus that we still use pennies at all. Millions of them disappear from circulation each year, and the govt. has to make replacements, which cost 1 1/2 cents each to produce. 50 years ago, the smallest resolution currency was a penny, which is equivalent in value to the 2006 dime. Let's just dump it and make room in the cash register drawer for the dollar coin.

[kengr]

Yeah, it's not like we have penny candy any more.

Of course, this would cost a lot of people a lot of money. Because instead of charging $X.X9, they'd have to charge $X.95 That's a 4 cent loss on every sale.

It'd also cost the states a lot in sales tax, except in the two states that don't have sales tax.

Then there'd be the flood of people turning in their jars of pennies to get them turned into money that was still in use.

And let's not go into the fun of all the reprogramming that'd be necessary.

In short, ain't gonna happen... About as likely as the dollar bill being dropped.

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

I don't think prices would have to change at all. Gasoline is always priced in 1/10 cent increments. Sales tax here is 6.5%. Pricing could stay just as it is, and then the total could be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel - no problem. Yes - point-of-sale computer programs would have to be re-written but it makes so much sense!

(And dropping the dollar bill makes sense too, btw)

[kengr]

Actually, US currency is *legal* defined thusly:

10 mills = 1 cent
10 cents = 1 dime
10 dimes = 1 dollar
10 dollars = 1 eagle

Which is why a nickel is labeled as a 5 cent piece, the Quarter & half dollar are labelled as such too.

Eagle seems to have gone out of use about the time the double eagle coin was dropped (the $20 gold piece).

Mills are still used for tax assessment (X mills per $YY dollars assessed value on property).

But prices for *packaged* goods would have to change. They can't charge you 1.59 for a bag of chips if there aren't any pennies.

Just adding together things and then rounding would piss folks off, because it'd be cheaper to buy items seperately than together.

So prices for "per each" type items (as opposed to stuff like gas that's sold by volume, or meat which is sold by weight) would have to change to be integral numbers of nickels.

the sales tax losses will happen part due to the increase "granularity" of currency, and more from the prices going from X.X9 to X.X5.

You *do* realize that if it wasn't for adding machines and cash registers, we wouldn't have the .X9 prices anyway? Because it'd be too much trouble for the people *selling* stuff.

[armb.livejournal.com]

In the UK we used to have 1/2p pieces, and dropped them without problems, but pennies are probably going to stay.
(We also dropped the one pound note some years after pound coins came in.)
Cashpoints (ATMs) now give out tens and twenties not fives and tens, and we have two pound coins, so fives might be dropped eventually.)

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I agree with dumping the penny, but I must point out that it only costs 81/100 of a cent to manufacture a penny.

The cost of manufacturing each coin denomination can be found at the bottom of this page: http://tinyurl.com/k57mb (usmint.gov).

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

Actually that data is dated. The price of zinc (the main ingredient in pennies) has gone up considerably since 2000. See http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/01/news/newsmakers/penny/index.htm

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Wish I were there in Pittsburg with you, bad service or not! I have a few friends at that con and -right now- the stress of where I work is killing me.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

There is always another con or local gather to look forward to.

(and no, I'm not at AC either. Bummer.)

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Bad service: First thought, "What do you expect for minimum wage?" Second thought, "Why do all of these 'Express' outlets suck so bad compared to the real stores?" Third thought, "That's strike one/two/three/I'm outta here" (hey, morons slip through sometimes, if the food's good give them another chance). Last thought, "I've had days like that," (one day I just wasn't thinking right, miscounted change, rang up wrong merchandise, got people's names wrong, etc, wasn't until I got home I found out I had a temperature of 102 ;-)

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

I work retail. I've worked retail for 27 years! For me (and I bet for Tom as well) it's not that they were out of pennies/the computer was down/they were out of silverware it's the attitude of the chickie at the counter. If she had said "I'm sorry, the computer's down right now. Sorry for the inconvience" "We seem to be out of silverware, let me see if I can get you some", "I'm sorry, we've run out of pennies" instead of "Yeah, whatever" they would not have lost a customer. It's all in the attitude, and way too many place hire kids and don't teach them ANYTHING about customer service.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Pre-frickin'-cisely. She seemed to think it was amusing, a circumstance she could shrug it away a la Adam Sandler or something (not knowing I hate Adam Sandler).

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Standard operating procedure, when I was in food service, was to always round the customer's change to the nearest nickel once the pennies ran out.

Of course, it was also SOP to give a flying fuck about the customer.

Oy, how times have changed.

[moose]

On behalf of the polite people in Pixxburgh, I apologize.