...and your change

Now I have never been a cashier and honestly do not ever see myself becoming one. Since I will not be able to make a difference from the inside I'm left to forcing my will on cashiers via this blog (which I'm sure is littered with casual cashier visitors). As I said, I have never been on that side of a transaction, but my experience of receiving change leads me to feel like somewhat of an expert. Seriously, it isn't a hard talent to hone. So I beg of you cashiers why the "bills on the bottom, coins on top" method. It is ridiculously inefficient. The "change first, bills on top" is by far a better method in my books. The latter method may also be called the "Palm and Pinch". Lets look at the advantages and disadvantages of each method shall we?

Bills on the bottom method: The only advantage I can see with this is that it allows the cashier to count out the change to the customer in a more traditional manner, largest denominations to smallest. Now I'm sure there are some people out there who appreciate this lesson in counting; however, my addition skills are quite good and a quick glance at a pile of coins is all I (and most) people, aside from kids and decrepit seniors, need to assess if the correct change was indeed given. I myself could care less if they're off by a dime or so as I am not a big fan of coinage in the first place. Now if the counting is for the cashier's sake, as I realize their are ass-monkeys out their who will haggle over that missed nickel, I'd be fine with you holding the bills until you count the change and drop into my hand.

Disadvantage - As this is not a really advanced topic there is also one disadvantage; however, the annoyance it causes far outweighs the above advantage. It is the whole idea of balancing. By having the coins sliding around on top basically minimalizes the usefulness of one's hand. Basically, you are only using the fact that your hand has a surface area on which to lay things. Now I don't have a coin pouch in my wallet, so this next point adds to my annoyance. Where most girls can throw the change in their purse or guys can use bills as a makeshift chute to slide the coins into the pouch I often have to resort to the ole 'crumple and pocket' storage system. Then I just have to worry about getting the bills into my wallet at a later date. You may be saying "Just use the makeshift chute to slide the change into you're other hand and then deposit the bills into your wallet accordingly, you lazy bastard." Well then I guess you're new and have yet to realize that I can be quite fickle. That's right I said fickle. Plus, you'd basically be telling me to do the work to switch to the "Palm and Pinch", thus proving my point of how it would be more efficient if the cashier were to do that right of the bat. Haha suckers, I win.

I could do the advantages and disadvantages of the "palm and pinch", but I feel those are apparent from the argument above. At least I hope they are apparent with the main advantage of one being able to palm change while using our evolved ability to use our opposable thumbs. There is one modified method of "bills on the bottom" that doesn't bother me too much, its just the situation that it always occurs in that bugs me. This modification is when the person just lays the change on the counter. This well I'm able to scoop off the change and then pick up the bills. Unfortunately, this method is often used in bars where the counter top is often covered in condensation or spills. So I'm left having to pick up soggy bills. Maybe its the bartenders way of drying up the counter while in a rush. In which case I find it quite ingenious, just too bad it had to be at my expense. No pun intended*.

*Not sure if that actually was a pun, but it seemed close enough.

In closing, I make a final plea to those oblivious cashiers to switch to giving coins first then bills. I kept help but feel it would make the world a better place.