Frustration With Kiosks, Apps, Self-Checkout, and Tipping Prompts

[Seilerbird]

Them tiny numbers add up over millions of transactions. Has no one seen Office Space?

I have no clue as to what Office Space is. I assume it is some sort of TV program. I don't watch TV programs looking for financial advice.

 

[Wasillaguy]

I have no clue as to what Office Space is. I assume it is some sort of TV program. I don't watch TV programs looking for financial advice.

How about old adage?
A penny saved is a penny earned.

 

[UTTransplant]

I think Tom just needs some more of the good meds …

 

[Seilerbird]

I think Tom just needs some more of the good meds …

I stopped using good meds.

 

[Seilerbird]

How about old adage?
A penny saved is a penny earned.

It would take years of .001 cents saving just to buy an eighth.

 

[Wasillaguy]

We saved change in a 5 gallon water dispenser bottle for about 20 years. A couple years ago the grandkids rolled it all up and we had over $200 bucks.
Kids got half of it for doing the work.
Probably would have been better to just give that money to the businesses that were already profiting from my patronage.

 

[Alaskansnowbirds]

Them tiny numbers add up over millions of transactions. Has no one seen Office Space?

I think it was in the early 70's, a bank computer programmer inserted code to check all transactions and see if there was any fraction of cents beyond the 4th decimal place. If there was, it transferred that fraction of a cent to an account he had set up. After several years he was caught when he got sick and was off work for several weeks. The programmer they brought in to fill in for him while he was off happened to find the inserted code. By then close to a million dollars had been transferred into the account.

 

[Lou Schneider]

We saved change in a 5 gallon water dispenser bottle for about 20 years. A couple years ago the grandkids rolled it all up and we had over $200 bucks.
Kids got half of it for doing the work.
Probably would have been better to just give that money to the businesses that were already profiting from my patronage.

I also did that about 20 years ago. When it got about half full I decided to distribute the coins into smaller containers so I could take them to the CoinStar machine. It was a glass bottle and when I tipped it, the glass broke cleanly about an inch above the bottom, spreading coins all across my bedroom floor.

 

[Tom]

On the rare occasions we visited a casino, Chris emptied my change jar, until ... one year the cash desk explained "we no longer take or use coins", and Chris brought her (my) change home.

 

[Tom]

Back in the day, I worked 2 jobs and went to college. My 'weekend job' was a repair tech at a busy gaming arcade (remember the "one-armed bandits"?). Coins deposited in a machine dropped into a 'coin tube' from where occasional/rare payouts were made. When the tube was full, coins spilled over and fell into large drawers (wooden boxes) beneath the machines.

On a busy weekend we'd have to empty those cash drawers multiple times. The drawers would all be emptied to create a 'mountain' of coins, and 3 of us would 'count' the coins; One guy used a shovel, a second guy operated a potato scale, and a third guy held a money sack. On the other side of the scale was a sack containing a known number of coins.

The sacks of coins would go to the cash desk, punters would change their bills and large coins for small denomination coins, play/lose them in the machines, and the process was repeated ad infinitum. It was essentially the same 'float' of coins that went around and around. There was no record of how many times we counted the coins, or the transactions at the cash desk. Rumor had it that the bills never made it to the bank, and the owners didn't pay tax.

Did I mention I almost got fired my first week. I discovered that the 'bandits' had internal switches that could change the odds between 'mean' and 'generous'. The boss found out I set them all to generous payout.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Back in the day, I worked 2 jobs and went to college. My 'weekend job' was a repair tech at a busy gaming arcade (remember the "one-armed bandits"?). Coins deposited in a machine dropped into a 'coin tube' from where occasional/rare payouts were made. When the tube was full, coins spilled over and fell into large drawers (wooden boxes) beneath the machines.

On a busy weekend we'd have to empty those cash drawers multiple times. The drawers would all be emptied to create a 'mountain' of coins, and 3 of us would 'count' the coins; One guy used a shovel, a second guy operated a potato scale, and a third guy held a money sack. On the other side of the scale was a sack containing a known number of coins.

The sacks of coins would go to the cash desk, punters would change their bills and large coins for small denomination coins, play/lose them in the machines, and the process was repeated ad infinitum. It was essentially the same 'float' of coins that went around and around. There was no record of how many times we counted the coins, or the transactions at the cash desk. Rumor had it that the bills never made it to the bank, and the owners didn't pay tax.

Did I mention I almost got fired my first week. I discovered that the 'bandits' had internal switches that could change the odds between 'mean' and 'generous'. The boss found out I set them all to generous payout.

Those coin push arcade games work on the same principle. In theory every coin deposited will eventually be pushed off the other end of the playing surface. The house's cut comes from not having the payout trough across the entire edge - it's divided into segments that divert some of the coins that fall in to the house.