My First Post

Greetings and welcome to my first (attempt at a) blog. I have wanted to do this for some time. I have even convinced the wife that she should have one as well (since she seems to live a more interesting life than I).

Here is my first Random Thought. Recently the wife and I were staying at my mother's house. We were staying there since we were not allowed to run any water in the house for 15 hours due to a chlorine treatment on our well. The well had an "unsatisfactory" level of E.coli in it. I am not sure what this means as this test is only a pass/fail. Anyway, we were at my mother's house for this reason. The following morning we could not locate the coffee and so I went down to the corner store (it was a Casey's) to purchase some coffee for us. The total came to $2.10 and I paid with a $5 and a quarter. I handed this to the nice older lady who was running the cash register. She handed me back 3 $1 bills and said have a nice day. Now, at this moment I had a decision. Do I go on with my life and ignore the fact that I am getting shorted 15 cents, or do I point out her mistake and demand what I am owed. I thought about this for about 2 seconds. Now, that may not seem like a long time but in that short amount of time I weighed several things.

1. The difficulty to prove what I was owed. Like many convenience store cashiers, she had not punched in the fact that I paid $5.25 but rather that I had paid $2.10 (by hitting one key on the cash register). I was a cashier one summer and I could appreciate the tediousness of entering in the amount tendered as the only real value was that the register would tell you what change was due. If you are decent at math, you don't need this help. I would have to prove I paid with a quarter and not with a dime.
2. The difficulty of getting the drawer back open. The cash drawer was closed and so in order to get my 15 cents, it would have to be opened again. Typically this requires a key or a manager or both. This seemed like a lot of work for 15 cents.
3. The effect on the cashier. I actually did think of this. No one likes to be told they are wrong and I took this into consideration. Pointing out this error might cause this nice lady to have a bad start to her day.
4. What is 15 cents really in the big picture of life. Not much.
   
   In the end (2 seconds later) I just said Thank You and brought the coffee back to my wife. It was only later that I thought of...
   
5. This might be a scam. I mean, if you were a nice older lady working as a cashier at a convenience store, this would be the perfect scam. You could get about 15 cents or so from each customer and over the period of a shift this could really add up! If you successfully did this to 7 customers per hour, this could increase your hourly wage by over $1 / hour. If you are caught or questioned, you just smile and give them their change. Who would suspect you really?

Now that I have thought about it, I think it was an honest mistake by a new cashier. But who knows?

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon