Last night, my girlfriend and I went to the Home Depot in Dacula, GA. I purchased some plumbing and gardening knick-knacks and went to the Garden section check out. The young lady checking us out was personable and chatty. My bill was $15.93. I gave her $21.00 in order to avoid getting $1.00 bills back. I gave her a $20.00 bill and a $1.00 bill. At exactly 8:00 pm, the cashier gave me back 7 cents.
When I called attention to the fact my change was $5.00 short, she replied, I don’t think so. So I patiently explained to her that I had given her two bills. She remembered that. So then I explained that one of them was a $20.00 bill. “I don’t think so” she relied. So I asked her how I was able to give her two bills and get back 7 cents on a $15.93 purchase.
She became a little confused and flustered trying to figure this (what she thought was an) obvious trick out.
Well then she called her Manager for help. Until the Manager showed up, she continued to check out several people behind me, but only if they had a credit or debit card. She couldn’t check out anyone with cash. They, like me, just had to suck it up and put up with the inconvenience. When the Manager showed up, she listened briefly to the cashier’s predicament, but didn’t bother to ask me what happened. The manager just instructed her to balance the register out. I wasn’t sure what that meant. But I found out. This is where it gets good.
That cashier took every bit of money out of the register. Every bill, every coin, and every penny. She tried to put all the money into a canister to air tube it (like the bank drive through) somewhere else in the building. When it all wouldn’t fit, she broke the wad down and got a second tube. Then she added all the credit card receipts and debit card receipts with the partial wad in the second tube. Swoosh. Up the tube number 1 went. Swoosh. Up the tube number 2 went. I just sort of stood there trying to decide whether or not to laugh or get pissed.
I asked how long this was going to take. I got the half-* answer, “Not long”. When I asked the Manager, her reply was that this was policy. I asked, ‘Policy makes you shut down a register, inconvenience me, inconvenience other customers, pulls you away from whatever you were doing, open up a closed register, and have someone count all the money and receipts in the register to balance it, for a $5.00 error by your cashier? ’ All the Manager said was, “It’s policy”.
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, THE MANAGER GOT A PHONE CALL, APPARENTLY FROM GOD. She told the cashier to give me my five dollars back. I informed the Manager that Home Depot policy had just made me and my girlfriend a LOWE’S customer from now on.
Just thought you might be interested.
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