5 ms·

> everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them It's not just pennies, it's all coins. In a former life I worked in retail and

by basscomm 11mo ago

> everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them It's not just pennies, it's all coins. In a former life I worked in retail and almost nobody would fish around in their pockets for exact (or even near) change. They'd always hand me bills for their purchase even if they had just completed a transaction and had the coins in their pocket. That was in the 90's, and I still see it happening today, even though I'm no longer in the retail world.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
Retric 11mo ago
I’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.
- Symbiote 11mo ago
  In most other countries, since prices are shown including all taxes you can often have the money ready while waiting in line etc.
  - guntars 11mo ago
    Another aspect of the idiotic "we don't know what your tax is going to be" system (they do know it, actually) is that prices will typically end with .99 and the tax will push it over the next dollar and cause a bunch of change to be returned, instead of a single penny.
- dylan604 11mo ago
  > but not waste time during a retail transaction. we could just go back to writing checks while we're at it.
- zahlman 11mo ago
  It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. I will never "tap" my debit card as long as I have any legal option. Everyone else can wait for me to exercise my consumer rights, by inputting my PIN, verifying the amount displayed on screen etc.
  - Retric 11mo ago
    Wasting people’s time is rude here not illegal. Courtesy may seem outdated to some, but it can occasionally come back to bite people. Being overly rude to waitstaff is something I’m concerned with around promotions because of how they might treat people inside the company. Without better information you extrapolate.
    - zahlman 11mo ago
      ... How is this related to what I said?
      - Retric 11mo ago
        > It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. If you’re checking it at a grocery store it’s likely there’s someone in line behind you waiting to pay, it’s a fairly common aspect of physical transactions. Waiting for you to count out your pennies is the kind of thing that evokes rage in people because it’s so rude.
        zahlman 11mo ago
        > If you’re checking it at a grocery store it’s likely there’s someone in line behind you waiting to pay I usually use the self check-out which is usually not at all busy when I get there. > Waiting for you to count out your pennies I was explicitly talking about using a debit card, and as I established repeatedly throughout the thread, my country hasn't used pennies for over a decade. But on the occasions that I pay cash, I do try to make exact change, because that's courteous to the cashier (and also just satisfies my aesthetic sense). I'm quick about this, because being the sort of person who posts on Hacker News, my mental arithmetic is pretty good. > is the kind of thing that evokes rage in people because it’s so rude. I've had people in front of me "waste" far more time than that because they had to cancel items (and deliberate over what to send back), struggle to pull things out of their cart, etc. It doesn't bother me. If I urgently needed to be somewhere else I would have planned my trip for another time. It already takes quite a while because I walk both ways (which I also enjoy quite a bit by the way). People ITT are talking about the value of time, but I can't reasonably value each second equally. Time is not nearly as fungible as money; ten seconds saved on an outing is just not going to translate into ten seconds spent on my projects. Nor can I make myself feel as though every moment not spent on acquiring capital is equally wasted. And I deeply resent the implication that using XYZ technology to save time is a moral imperative.
- ocdtrekkie 11mo ago
  I used to do this for vending machines but now it’s common to need more than eight of them per transaction so it's kinda silly.
triceratops 11mo ago
That's incredibly bizarre. If I have coins my first instinct is to spend them ASAP so I don't have to carry them around.
expedition32 11mo ago
Nowadays I pay for everything with my phone but back in the day I too hated using coins. Having to calculate and fish out coins? Ain't nobody got time for that.
- basscomm 11mo ago
  > Having to calculate and fish out coins? Ain't nobody got time for that. It's not that hard or time consuming if you actually use your change instead of letting it accumulate. I typically have less than a dollar in coins on my person at any given time because I spent it. If you're paying in cash, you either take time to count the change you're going to spend, or you take time waiting for the cashier to count the change you're going to get. Or you go cashless and avoid the whole thing
- zahlman 11mo ago
  It's amazing to me that there are people with this mindset. I enjoy the process.
zahlman 11mo ago
I pay exact change whenever I can. And on the occasions where I can only make (exact change + simple amount), I often get deer-in-headlights looks from cashiers who can't do mental arithmetic and apparently haven't learned how to get the machine to understand payments of more than one physical bill or coin.
- zahlman 11mo ago
  I legitimately don't understand why people object to this strongly enough to downvote it without comment.
  - ssl-3 11mo ago
    The majority of the comment was spent on being disparaging towards people who work in retail. (Entering a discussion about that kind of topic can be a pretty sure way to invoke Godwin's Law, so the most sane and civil option is to downvote and walk away.)
forinti 11mo ago
I like using coins because I'm always looking for commemorative coins. It's an interesting investment: you can immediately double or triple your money. Unfortunately, you rarely find them. I also keep the obvious fakes.
- technothrasher 11mo ago
  The best unexpected coin I found in the drawer when I was working at a liquor store was an 1844 Belgian 1/2 Franc in with the dimes.
jwrallie 11mo ago
People are very lazy to do basic math. I always minimize the coins I am carrying by doing math on my head so that the combined value of a certain coin never exceeds the amount of the next available coin/bill, that way I never exceed the carrying capacity of my wallet. Most people I know just pocket everything and put on a box at home for undetermined time.
- kevincox 11mo ago
  It's not even just that. Coins are heavy, large and noisy. Bills are way more convenient and cards even more so. If we could solve privacy issues with cards I would say get rid of all bills. Maybe just keep a few $100s in my wallet in case my cards get declined for some reason.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

Retric 11mo ago

I’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.

Symbiote 11mo ago
In most other countries, since prices are shown including all taxes you can often have the money ready while waiting in line etc.
- guntars 11mo ago
  Another aspect of the idiotic "we don't know what your tax is going to be" system (they do know it, actually) is that prices will typically end with .99 and the tax will push it over the next dollar and cause a bunch of change to be returned, instead of a single penny.
dylan604 11mo ago
> but not waste time during a retail transaction. we could just go back to writing checks while we're at it.
zahlman 11mo ago
It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. I will never "tap" my debit card as long as I have any legal option. Everyone else can wait for me to exercise my consumer rights, by inputting my PIN, verifying the amount displayed on screen etc.
- Retric 11mo ago
  Wasting people’s time is rude here not illegal. Courtesy may seem outdated to some, but it can occasionally come back to bite people. Being overly rude to waitstaff is something I’m concerned with around promotions because of how they might treat people inside the company. Without better information you extrapolate.
  - zahlman 11mo ago
    ... How is this related to what I said?
    - Retric 11mo ago
      > It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. If you’re checking it at a grocery store it’s likely there’s someone in line behind you waiting to pay, it’s a fairly common aspect of physical transactions. Waiting for you to count out your pennies is the kind of thing that evokes rage in people because it’s so rude.
      - zahlman 11mo ago
        > If you’re checking it at a grocery store it’s likely there’s someone in line behind you waiting to pay I usually use the self check-out which is usually not at all busy when I get there. > Waiting for you to count out your pennies I was explicitly talking about using a debit card, and as I established repeatedly throughout the thread, my country hasn't used pennies for over a decade. But on the occasions that I pay cash, I do try to make exact change, because that's courteous to the cashier (and also just satisfies my aesthetic sense). I'm quick about this, because being the sort of person who posts on Hacker News, my mental arithmetic is pretty good. > is the kind of thing that evokes rage in people because it’s so rude. I've had people in front of me "waste" far more time than that because they had to cancel items (and deliberate over what to send back), struggle to pull things out of their cart, etc. It doesn't bother me. If I urgently needed to be somewhere else I would have planned my trip for another time. It already takes quite a while because I walk both ways (which I also enjoy quite a bit by the way). People ITT are talking about the value of time, but I can't reasonably value each second equally. Time is not nearly as fungible as money; ten seconds saved on an outing is just not going to translate into ten seconds spent on my projects. Nor can I make myself feel as though every moment not spent on acquiring capital is equally wasted. And I deeply resent the implication that using XYZ technology to save time is a moral imperative.
ocdtrekkie 11mo ago
I used to do this for vending machines but now it’s common to need more than eight of them per transaction so it's kinda silly.

triceratops 11mo ago

That's incredibly bizarre. If I have coins my first instinct is to spend them ASAP so I don't have to carry them around.

expedition32 11mo ago

Nowadays I pay for everything with my phone but back in the day I too hated using coins. Having to calculate and fish out coins? Ain't nobody got time for that.

basscomm 11mo ago
> Having to calculate and fish out coins? Ain't nobody got time for that. It's not that hard or time consuming if you actually use your change instead of letting it accumulate. I typically have less than a dollar in coins on my person at any given time because I spent it. If you're paying in cash, you either take time to count the change you're going to spend, or you take time waiting for the cashier to count the change you're going to get. Or you go cashless and avoid the whole thing
zahlman 11mo ago
It's amazing to me that there are people with this mindset. I enjoy the process.

zahlman 11mo ago

I pay exact change whenever I can. And on the occasions where I can only make (exact change + simple amount), I often get deer-in-headlights looks from cashiers who can't do mental arithmetic and apparently haven't learned how to get the machine to understand payments of more than one physical bill or coin.

zahlman 11mo ago
I legitimately don't understand why people object to this strongly enough to downvote it without comment.
- ssl-3 11mo ago
  The majority of the comment was spent on being disparaging towards people who work in retail. (Entering a discussion about that kind of topic can be a pretty sure way to invoke Godwin's Law, so the most sane and civil option is to downvote and walk away.)

forinti 11mo ago

I like using coins because I'm always looking for commemorative coins. It's an interesting investment: you can immediately double or triple your money. Unfortunately, you rarely find them. I also keep the obvious fakes.

technothrasher 11mo ago
The best unexpected coin I found in the drawer when I was working at a liquor store was an 1844 Belgian 1/2 Franc in with the dimes.

jwrallie 11mo ago

People are very lazy to do basic math. I always minimize the coins I am carrying by doing math on my head so that the combined value of a certain coin never exceeds the amount of the next available coin/bill, that way I never exceed the carrying capacity of my wallet. Most people I know just pocket everything and put on a box at home for undetermined time.

kevincox 11mo ago
It's not even just that. Coins are heavy, large and noisy. Bills are way more convenient and cards even more so. If we could solve privacy issues with cards I would say get rid of all bills. Maybe just keep a few $100s in my wallet in case my cards get declined for some reason.