Good practices: 03 (Receiving payment and giving change)

This blog is prompted by a scene in the mainland Chinese series I’m watching at the moment.

    A customer claims to have given the staff member a bigger note, which couldn’t be proven either way as the staff member had put the note into the till before giving the customer his change.

    A good practice, as a matter of routine/default, is not to put payment straight into the till, but to leave it on the till for both parties to refer to, should there be any dispute*.

    I’ve seen this good practice being in place at a few retail outlets, but it should be universal, I feel.  It’s such a simple, obvious common-sense idea that I’m surprised not more places have adopted it.

* See https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-assertiveness-of-americans-02-london.html for a first-hand-witness illustration of my point here.

The assertiveness of Americans: 02 (London)

I was working at the Apple Mac in the equipment room on the third floor at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) on a Saturday, meeting a deadline, when a newly-arrived young American academic approached me, asking where he could get something to eat for lunch.  

I took him to a sandwich bar near Russell Square Tube station.  He ordered a sandwich, it cost 42p, he paid, and got 8p in change.  He said to the woman, “I gave you a pound.  You should be giving me 58p in change.”  The woman said, “You did not give me a pound.”  The American said, “Yes, I did.”  The woman said, “But there’s no pound coin in my till, so you couldn’t have given me a pound.”  The American said, “That’s YOUR problem, not mine.  I know I gave you a pound.”

(London, 1990)