Making change
Over on the Freakonomics blog, they interviewed Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. One of the Q&As jumped out at me:
Q: My all-time favorite Dilbert cartoon is the one where he gives some kooky well-thought-out amount of payment for an item so he’ll get back an even dime, and says it’s for the clerk’s convenience. Do you really do that in real life?
A: I don’t do that. I prefer to use my mind for daydreaming while the cashier works out the math.
I do that all the time. I’ll buy something which costs $6.26 and have a $10 bill but no 5, so I’ll pay $11.26 instead to get an even $5 back. Or if I don’t have a quarter but I have three dimes and a penny, I’ll pay $11.31 and get $5.05 back. I’d never thought of that as being particularly weird, but in thinking about it now, maybe it is. Hmph.
Erin Dean Said,
November 1, 2007 @ 1:43 am
I don’t think it’s weird at all. It seems like a really tiny puzzle to get to solve and how is that anything but fun
michael Said,
November 1, 2007 @ 4:37 am
I do that too.
Daniel Jalkut Said,
November 1, 2007 @ 6:51 am
I do it, too. Mainly to remove pennies from my pocket and avoid new ones arriving, but also then in reverse order trying to get rid of nickels over dimes, dimes over quarters, etc.
The main risk is in trying to gauge whether the person at the register is smart enough to understand what you’re doing. Nothing’s worse than the dumb stare and the “Umm, I said $5.31?” uptalking response. Ouch!
A particular point of achievement is doing this kind of register math in foreign currencies. That’s when you know you’ve finally mastered their coins.
Daniel J. Luke Said,
November 2, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
I used to do this, but found it often really confused the cashier (who would invariable become uncomfortable while publicly displaying difficulty with the arithmetic and/or with how to use the register to punch in the ‘unusual’ amount of cash), so I’ve mostly stopped.
mdhils Said,
November 14, 2007 @ 8:29 am
If they look puzzled, I just explain it’s to get quarters for laundry.
lilly Said,
November 25, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
I do that too sometimes, but usually for easy remainders like $1, $.25, or $10. I wouldn’t do it for $.15 or $.05