The Teenage Cashier, the Fiver and Me
The true story of a silly standoff on a sunny September Saturday
Some years ago, I took a routine walk into Guildford town center to buy a couple of items I needed from our local Woolies. For non-UK readers, I should point out that ‘Woolies’ was short for ‘Woolworths’, one of the UK’s oldest and best loved department stores that finally succumbed to the global recession in 2009 and closed its doors for good.
The bits I needed were for the shop I owned in the town at the time so I had taken cash from the till to be replaced with the receipt and the change as was our usual practice.
It was a couple of small items and the bill was less than £5. I handed over a tenner and received my change which consisted of some coins and an Isle of Man £5 note. Again, for non UK readers, not only the Bank Of England issues pound notes, other areas of the Isles can as well. In this case, the Isle of Man is a small, self governing dependency based in the Irish sea and sometimes its notes make it to the main land.
However, Isle of Man coins and notes are not generally accepted by retailers and are, very technically speaking, not legal tender in the UK. That said, high street banks will happily exchange them for a UK equivalent at face value. So, although this was not a real problem in practice, I really would have liked my change in a format that the next shop would accept to save me going to a bank or going back to the shop at the other end of town.
I already knew that many independents didn’t accept Scottish or Northern Irish notes so there was even less chance with a Manx note, and many people are surprised to learn that a retailer is not obliged to accept any form of payment it is not comfortable with. Hence, I needed the cash in a format I could actually spend comfortably and immediately.
Luckily, I noticed as the clearly demotivated teenage employee handed it over.
“Excuse me” I said in my best British “I-don’t-want-to-bother-you-but …” voice “could you exchange this for a UK note?”
“Why?” said the spotty face with an obvious trace of irritation. He glared at me like I had just insulted his entire family and challenged him to a duel.
“Because I have other shops to visit and some of them won’t accept this”
“We accepted it, so it’s fine” he snapped back.
“OK, but I’m not accepting it” I said, a little more firmly now. “Can you change it please?”
“I can’t because I can’t open the till without a sale anyway” he said dismissively.
Being in retail I knew full well how these systems worked so also knew his statement wasn’t correct. However, I’d thought of a workaround as I eyed the queue of people behind me.
“OK, well just serve the next customer and when you open the till, simply swap it over”
Sensing that I wasn’t moving, he rolled his eyes and beckoned to the lady behind me who duly paid with a credit card. He opened the till, quickly put the receipt in, and slammed it shut.
“Can’t change it if there’s no cash being handled” he informed me (again incorrectly) by way of explanation.
Sensing this was going to be a silly and entirely unnecessary fight, I decided that since I had become an unwilling participant I was damn well going to win it.
“Well, let’s do it on the next transaction” I said, now standing right next to him in front of the till.
“I haven’t got any more fivers anyway” he informed me, inviting the next customer to the counter.
So, a large branch of Woolies in a town center on a busy day has no fivers? It didn’t seem likely, although it was possible, so I offered another solution.
“That’s OK, I’ll take it in pound coins. I need some change anyway, so that’ll be better”
“Fine” he spat out in disgust and served the next customer.
A small queue had formed behind us, silently observing the stand off and clearly wondering who was going to win the showdown. As the lady paid, in cash, for her items, he opened the till, whilst looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
This time, however, he opened the till just a few centimeters so that he could slide in the ten pound note through a tiny gap. He then bent down in such a fashion that only he could see into the tray, pulled out the 1p change that was required by inserting a finger and guiding it out and then quickly slammed it shut again.
“I haven’t got any pound coins either” he informed me triumphantly, now smirking slightly.
“I’ll take 50p’s then” now staring him in the eye, firmly.
“I haven’t got £5’s worth” he said.
He knew all this without actually looking at the till. I was obviously in the presence of a savant-type genius, a superhero with x-ray vision or a bloody idiot and I already had my suspicions that it wasn’t the first two.
“Then I’ll take mixed coins” I replied. I meant to say ‘denominations’ but had momentarily forgotten the word which I felt weaken my severe stance somewhat.
“It’ll have to be be small change” he offered sarcastically.
“I’ll take my chances” was my retort.
Also weak, I thought to myself. I was twenty years older than the guy, I should really have had some better responses.
So, customer number three duly came to the battleground having observed the entire process so far and was clearly slightly nervous about it. She paid, silently, whilst I waited by her side at an uncomfortable distance for both of us, and I could tell she was almost dreading the till opening.
Suddenly the moment was upon us. The till opened only, once again, to be held almost completely shut by the adolescent hands that were operating it. The lady customer and I then observed the strange spectacle of this young lad trying to drag her change out of the till tray, coin by single coin, without allowing it to be opened. If you’ve never tried this (and I suspect not many people have), it’s not an easy feat.
Concentrating on what he was doing and bending down so only he could see into the tiny gap of the coin tray, the cashier had not realized he was no longer alone. A second, obviously more senior, colleague had arrived from stage left and was standing behind him.
This all took only a few seconds of course, but he’d been there long enough to observe this part of this strange spectacle unfolding. His eyes glanced into mine, then the lady customer’s and then to the back of the teenager, still bent down in front of the till peering in at forty five degrees.
With a calmness and delivery perfectly suited to a scene in a comedy sketch, he simply asked “Gavin, what ARE you doing?”
The effect was instant. ‘Gavin’ stood up immediately and abruptly as if he had been caught, well, with his hand in the till. It would have been even better if he’d stood up so quickly he’d banged his head on something or knocked over a display, but alas, this was not the case.
Real life can be disappointing like that.
There was a slight pause as Gavin collected his thoughts to answer. He allowed the till drawer to open. It appeared he had forgotten there was a pile of fivers and pound coins in it. It’s a mistake any of us could make. If we were all bloody idiots like Gavin, that is.
Gavin stammered, muttered something about giving change, and started to change color into a light pink and then a dark red. He clearly had no idea how much his colleague had seen and I can only assume he thought it was everything.
He handed the lady her change without making eye contact and then turned to me, relieving my hand of the offending fiver and replacing it with my preferred option of pound coins, before muttering what sounded like an apology and slamming the till shut.
I tried so very hard not to show any emotion and walk away calmly and serenely, but my brain had other ideas, insisting I should form a slightly smug ‘told you so’ expression such as a child might do when being proven right in an argument.
But in the end, I managed to walk away before I gave in to the idea. After all, I had won, right?
The noble Battle of the Fiver, as it would be hereafter ever known, and honored by a blue plaque on the side of a building in future years, had been won by me, the great smiter of front line staff.
I, the great and victorious purchaser of goods, was now unstoppable in this town or any other.
I, the Consumer Champion of Middle England, would be revered across all the land.
I marched out of Woolworths with a smile on my face and a spring in my step. As I walked up the hill, I went to put the coins I was still holding in my pocket. Opening my palm, I saw there were only four.
FOUR.
I looked and looked again, and then realized I’d never actually checked. Gavin, it seems, had launched one final counter attack as he was going down in flames and emerged victorious. In my mind I could imagine his smirk returning as his senior colleague left, knowing he’d had the last laugh.
Bugger.
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