A few times in the last couple of weeks I’ve been short changed. It’s by a pitiful amount, literally a penny or two, but still, it’s my penny or two and surely it’s up to me to decide whether I want it or not. I must stress, this is does not appear to be some “honest” mistake – when I question them, they sort of look at me, shrug and mumble something along the lines of “it’s just a penny” or “oh right, I didn’t realise you wanted it”. WTF is usually the first thing that springs to mind.
It’s not just independent “corner shop” type outfits that seem to be adopting this practice - today a major national card retailer made this choice for me which obviously I am incapable of making for myself.
I admit, I’m not a fan of having a load of coppers jingling in my purse (I much prefer the gold shiny ones), so generally, if there’s a charity box around, be it Guide Dogs for the Blind, Poverty in Africa, or Save the Lesser-spotted Grumbleweeble, someone, somewhere will benefit from my extremely modest levels of philanthropy. But like I say, that’s my decision to make and if I wanted to take all my coppers home, save them up and then take a truck load along to annoy my local bank (if I had one), then that’s my prerogative.
So why then, Mrs Shopkeeper, have you determined that you will decide where my left-over pennies will end up (i.e. your till)? Sure, it’s unlikely it will leave me unable to pay may mortgage this month, but the way I see it, you’re actually diddling those charities out of money. I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with the saying “every little counts”.
My level of frustration is totally disproportionate to the amount of money we’re talking about, but it’s the principle that counts.
No comments:
Post a Comment