“That’ll be three dollars, hon,” the woman told me. “Oh, it’s more than that,” I chuckled. I was in the convenience store attached to the gas station where I had gone to purchase a Sunday morning copy of The New York Times. The clerk was apparently not well acquainted with the variety of newspapers offered in the store (two), assumed that I was buying the local paper, and wanted to charge me the Sunday rate for that one. Hefting the chunky wads of newsprint I had chosen, she murmured, “Oh, you got two,” still working on the assumption that I was buying the paper with which she was most familiar. But, not for the first time, I chose to do the right thing and told the clerk to scan the paper. She did, and it rang up $6. She expressed neither surprise nor gratitude, but when she gave me my change, she murmured, “Thanks for being honest.” And there it was. Is it so seldom that people are honest that a person who is, should be thanked?
I’ve not kept count of the times that I have corrected store clerks’ tallies of my purchases, and how many times I have handed back the excess dollars I’ve been given in change. I don’t do it in a demonstrative way that cries out for recognition; this is not situational honesty, but a knee-jerk reaction for me. But in certain convenience stores, it poses a challenge. Some clerks will wave off the penny on a $2.01 purchase, and others will look at you as if you’re crazy when you stand and wait for your 2¢ change from a $1.98 purchase. Do you pay it forward for the 1¢ wave-off in another store? What’s the protocol here? Do clerks not have to balance their drawers at the end of a shift? Balance? You know, that “cash in should equal sales made” thing? When I managed a small loan office, the people in charge of accepting cash payments — called “clerk typists” at the time — were charged with counting up the cash at the end of the day. The manager (me) signed off on the clerk’s count. In the ten years that I managed loan offices, I never had a cash drawer come up short, though that may be a testament more to careful hiring than any specific thing that I did. I don’t think it has anything to do with “a time when people were honest.” (Share if you remember that time.)
Some years ago, I wrote something to the effect that little kindnesses that I had proffered were going unacknowledged — no “thank you” for the held door, for instance. One of our readers sent me an e-mail suggesting that I get my hearing checked, as I may be missing the offerings of gratitude. After briefly bristling, I decided to just relax, do what I do and assume it has been well-received. Although I am math-challenged, I count up the change I am due from a purchase in case the clerk’s register does not have a big, bright readout that says “GIVE THE CUSTOMER TWENTY-EIGHTS CENTS IN CHANGE! ONE QUARTER AND THREE PENNIES!”
Ok: That last bit might have been petty. And maybe, a little self-righteous. Méa culpa. Of course, during the course of this disquisition, I set out on a cold Sunday morning to purchase another New York Times. The clerk who waited on me was not the one who gave me the “hon,” but she repeated the other’s mistake: “That will be three dollars.”
I did the right thing. No trash can through a window.
cjon3acd@att.net