The 50-centavo thief

November 4. 2011

Call me a weirdo; I don’t care. I’m a girl, but the sights and sounds of a good hardware store sends happy hormones through my brain. I can easily spend 50,000 smoolas there in an hour.

So, it was with some restraint that I went through Ace Hardware store on SM City North EDSA. I only needed a 4.5-inch-diameter PVC pipe and after I get that, I’m stepping out. Or that was my plan.

When I walked in with my daughter, I saw a gel hot-and-cold compress, which in the long run would be much cheaper than the disposable one. (I have four kids, the smallest is still a toddler and you know how that goes.) Then I picked up neon band-aid for dear daughter who needed it regularly for a fingernail being treated by the dermatologist.

I thought, hey, two packs before the PVC pipe, not bad. (My eye was going back to the rechargeable electric fans at a 3x-per-minute rate.)

It turned out the PVC pipe was too long for my needs so I didn’t get buy it. I stuck to the straight line between the PVC pipe aisle and the checkout counter and felt quite proud of myself while paying in cash. Not baaad, I thought.

Then the cashier asked me, “Is it okay if your change lacks 50 centavos?”

“Why, of course not,” I said, flippant.

This has happened to me countless times, and normally I’d just let the incident pass. Fifty centavos or 40 centavos, what does it matter when I don’t have small coins myself? It’s such a small thing.

For some reason, however, this time I was in no mood to humor the girl. Hey, if she doesn’t have change, then she should know better than to burden her clients with her need for it!

To my absolute surprise, the girl opened the cashier and pulled out two 25-centavo coins. She did have the change after all!

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been scammed. We all thought it was a necessary evil that we had to live with, and that giving in to the cashiers of this city was for the public good because it reduced conflict. But somehow, this event robbed me of the feeling of being a good citizen. The nerve of the 50-centavo thief!

Assuming each cashier would serve, say 50 clients all day and that 50 centavos is a good average for these “short-changes” (pun intended), and there are, say 400 cashiers in one mall, that’s at least 10,000 pesos taken from us consumers.

Little things do matter. And there is no right way of putting one over other people, no matter the financial benefits to you.

This got me thinking, what are the other things that I’ve been thinking were necessary evils that are actually preventable? In the case of the small coins, I’ve recently obtained the habit of collecting the 5- and 10-centavo coins and using them to make sure I get the exact change at the malls. Some people might call that nitpicky and beancounter-y, but boy, do I love being a non-conformist.

Probably, ATM fees would fall under this category. Banks should not charge us for this; they are already earning a lot! So, don’t give them the satisfaction. Take the time to go to your own bank’s ATM.

I would love to hear about your examples!