Post your stories of interactions with others where you think you were in the right, but seemingly everyone else says you were the asshole. We'll decide the truth. I'll kick it off:
Shopping yesterday at a warehouse store around 2PM, and it is packed to the gills. Every register is staffed and packed at least 6 deep with people in line. I saddle up behind two older women, likely in their 70's or thereabouts, and estimate my wait time to begin to put my items on the belt at about 10-15 minutes.
As I begin to place my items on the belt, I notice that the transaction of the women in front of me seems to have hit some sort of snag, and look up to realize that their cart full of items was actually intended to be two separate purchases, one for each woman. One woman was settling up with the cashier in cash, with the other waiting to have her items scanned.
I thought nothing of it and continued to wait to put all my items on the belt. After the second woman's items were finished being scanned and the total read, she also reached into her purse to pull out bills to pay in cash, except I noticed that this transaction, like the one before her, was also taking a long time, even for paper money. After what must have been a total 10 minutes of waiting with my items on the belt, I paid closer attention, and realized that the second woman was trying to make exact change. I cringed a little bit, but hey, who doesn't like to get rid of some extra coin laying around?
As I watched, the transaction continued to drag on, with the cashier telling the woman she hadn't made exact change yet, at which point she dug into her purse for more coins. Finding none to make exact change, her friend came back to the register and opened her purse to begin looking for change to meet the exact amount. It is important to note here that the desire to make exact change was not due to a lack of money.
I'm getting fidgety as I watch, with near half an hour wasted standing in line, when the two take the next step and begin exchanging coins between themselves so that the one can make exact change. I can't take any more:
"Is this a bank," I asked, "Because I don't think this is a bank. I thought this was a grocery store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, not a place to screw around with coins."
They hustled their transaction to a close after that, and when I pulled up the cashier apologized profusely.
TL;DR: At a big-box store yesterday, two women held up the line to make exact change. I said something to them about it for all to hear.
Am I The Asshole [for this specific instance and not others]?
Last edited by Juice's Lecture Notes on Wed Nov 21, 2018 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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