99¢ begal

one of the hassles of paying with cash is getting change back at the register. the checkout person has to open the cash drawer and then get the right number of coins and the right number of bills and put all the change into your hand and count the bills back. this is while you're trying to put all this in your wallet or purse and put the change away and pick up whatever it is you bought and get out of the store.

so one solution that helps a little bit is the self checkout lines. they're even a little bit more convenient even if you're paying with credit card. you have a little more time to put everything away and no one's standing right behind you waiting for their turn. usually there's eight or more self-checkout stations and just one line of people. so if you take an extra 10 seconds to put your money away it's not a big deal. also in the self-checkout Lanes your change comes back in a little dish automatically. and your bills spit out all at one time and are neatly stacked. for dealing with cash this seems like an ideal situation. everything comes back neatly ordered and you have a little extra time to put it away. this all sounds great until it doesn't work.


for that situation the store has come up with an ingenious plan. they have one of the store employees stand and watch everyone as they're checking out. if there is a problem they come over to help you. so this brings us to the point of this story. the other morning at the grocery store a single bagel got carried up do the self check-out line. it was 99 cents. after ringing up the lone bagel a $20 bill was deposited into the machine. little gears whirred and little happy noises came out of the machine making it seem like all was right with the world. and sure enough $19 in bills came out the bottom. then the machine made an internal clanking noise but no Penny came out into the small dish.

 so remember person that is going to come over and help us? well they came over and were told that the penny did not come out. this helpful employee looked at the receipt and looked at me in disgust and said, one penny? Yes, was the reply. the real concern here is not over the penny but rather that the machine may be broken. they went over to a regular cash register and fished out a penny and said well it's probably because it was just a single penny it got hung up in the machine.

 If something doesn't work it needs to be fixed. either there's something problematic with all the machines or with that individual machine, but something needs to be fixed. if you want people to use technology it's got to work. It doesn't matter how many employees make a screwed-up face over that one penny, they're going to go over to the cash register and fish one out until they fix the automated machine.














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