It happened again today and so I said something. Probably shouldn't have, but I did. Let me start with my two "change pet peeves".

The first is related to my years in an after school job. I was taught to "count change back" to the customer. Clerks today think they are counting back change, but unless they are more than forty years of age, they are probably just counting back the amount of change their machine tells them the customer is supposed to get. Shall I educate the younger readers of this tirade? As a clerk it is your responsibility to count back the change (not once but twice). Here's the example: Your customer gives you a $20 bill for a sale of $12.27. Your computerized cash register will flash to you that you should return $7.73 to them in change (trust me the math is right). Your job as checker is not to take the machine's word for it, but to "count back" change. To do this you should start with the amount of the sale ($12.27) and count the change back to yourself from the till--pennies (28, 29, 30); dimes (40, 50); 2 quarters (thirteen dollars); ones (14, 15); and a five (that makes 20)--that's $7.73. Then you count (the same way) back to the customer, which shows the customer that (1) you know what kind of cash they tendered to you, and (2) that you know how much change to give them, without really needing the register to tell you more than the amount of the original sale in the first place.

Which leads me to my other issue (the one that happened today--at a national fast food joint that will remain nameless here). At the drive through window, the clerks have been trained (I assume, because they always do it this way) to tell you how much change they are supposedly putting into your hand and then stack bills, register receipt, and top it off with a fistfull of change. Why does this irk me so? Because stacking the change the way they do often causes the coin-change to fall between the window and your car. This isn't so much if there are only a few pennies, but if the coin change is the better part of a dollar, you don't want to have to try to retrieve it from the space between the building and your car.

So, I said something--probably shouldn't have, but I'm tired of it. It may save 2 to 3 seconds of time, but it aggravates me. Why don't you just give me the change, then do a second hand-off with the bills and receipt. Thanks for listening.