Short Changed In the Coffee Shop
A colleague of mine is continually short-changed at the Yonge and Bloor Tim Hortons. With the purchase of a coffee she should be recieving a couple cents of change in return. Several times now, however, the cashier has simply closed the till and stated that there’s no more pennies. As my colleague rightly points out, were she the one who came a couple of cents short, there’s not a chance in hell she’d be given her coffee.
If the tab is $1.42 and the cashier is out of pennies, the only right thing for the store to do is take the hit on the pennies.
I don’t fault the cashier, who’s likely making little more than minimum wage and standing in the front lines at one of the busiest Tim’s in the city. She doesn’t have the authority to give away change from the till and would likely be fired for even attempting to do the right thing. This is poor management.
If your business involves hoards of transactions involving small coinage amounts, all in the hours before the banks open, would it not make sense to have a surplus of change on hand at all time? Why must it constantly become a surprise that all the small change has been doled out? $20 and a few minutes of forethought would save the store from creating minor irritations with each and every customer that is trying to rush to the office in the morning.
Or above the franchisee level, if the corporation’s goal is fast and speedy delivery, why even deal with fiddly amounts of change. Adjust the costs of everything to nice round amounts with the tax baked in. Want a large coffee and two donuts? That should be an even three bucks, or three and a quarter. Don’t make me fish for $3.28. Don’t make me count out nickels and dimes. Don’t make me wait while the cashier counts out twenty-two cents in change for me. And certainly don’t short change me.
A penny here. A penny there. And now you’ve got my two cents.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:42 am
“Several times now, however, the cashier has simply closed the till and stated that there’s no more pennies.” Sheesh. I’ve never come acoss *that* business practice before, and I certainly wouldn’t expect it in what sounds like a fairly big chain.
July 27th, 2006 at 10:14 am
I’ve only experienced generosity when it comes to pennies — if something comes to $2.28, for example, and I give $2.30, I often get a nickel back. Maybe people are just friendlier out here in the small town and countryside of Georgetown and Acton, Ontario. Maybe you should shop here!