Since When is it customary to round up bills?
Maybe I’m missing something, but when I add $18.85 and $1.13, I keep coming up with $19.98. And yet this bill says $20 even… I know it’s just two cents, but it seems kind of…. uhhhh illegal… to me. OK, maybe “illegal” is too strong. Maybe it’s just some weird policy they have against pennies at The Red Hawk, and maybe if our total had come to $20.02, instead of $19.98, they would have rounded down two cents instead of up. I just found it odd… I’ve been meaning to call them for the past two months to ask, but I haven’t had a chance. I’m sure some people don’t mind paying a little extra for a nice, even bill, but I’m not too keen on the idea of being charged for more than I owe, even if it’s just a few cents.
Maybe this is how it starts… Maybe this is how I begin my long, slow slide into the heavily-worn shoes of professional curmudgeon Andy Rooney.
As for the Red Hawk, one wonders if perhaps the owners have seen Superman III one too many times. (In Superman III, Richard Pryor plays a computer scientist who creates a penny-rounding algorithm that makes him rich beyond his wildest dreams.)
12 Comments
I think that’s exactly what The Red Hawk is doing. No one wants to look like a piker for two cents or so–but multiply every customer every day…
Of course, TRH will deny this. But I think you should call anyway. It will put them on notice.
Andy Rooney is a national treasure. I’ve stopped watching 60 Minutes for the sake of my well being. But I love A.R. Thanks for the wonderful clip.
what about office space? Yes they credited superman 3, but it had a much more hillarious ending.. even coining for the first time “Federal pound you in the ass prison”.
If they print 200 bills a day, and overcharge by 2 cents on each, that’s $4 day, and that doesn’t taking into account the possibility that they might be even more aggressively rounding the bills of the drunks at the bar… Let’s say it’s only $5 a day that they’re overcharging – that’s still about $1,800 a year. Not too bad.
Of course, we shouldn’t *assume* that that’s what they’re doing, either.
Richard Pryor as a computer scientist? Now that’s casting!
There was a lunch place in SF that just didn’t give you your pennies – the bill was accurate. I think they figured it would all come out in the wash (as they rounded up and down), but I figured that if I got the same thing every day I was always going to be out two cents. Needless to say that after the second or third time I never went back. Those were my pennies, dammit.
I was double-charged on my credit card pretty recently at Coney Island. I was ticked until a waitress I know at Bob Evans comped me a meal when they cleared my table early.
The universe has a way of sorting these things out.
So, now that you’ve given me your two-cents on the subject, should I considered myself paid back in full, Chuck?
As for the Red Hawk, it was probably just a glitch in their system or something. I really don’t think it’s part of their business plan to screw people out a few pennies every thime they eat there. I just found it odd.
The pennies are being funneled directly to al Queda.
Yes… yes you should. (In fact, you owe me two cents – and a picture of an octopus on a chopping block in the woods.)
Do I have the photo of the octopus on the chopping block? I didn’t think you gave it to me… I remember coveting it, but not getting my hands on it… I’ll have to dig though my Crimewave 16 box for the envelope of stuff you gave me, Chuck. If I have it, I’ll scan it and return it. As much as I love it, I know it belongs with you.
I was working a shitty retail job once and my boss told me that my “octopus was on the chopping block.” It’s hard to forget something like that. I walked out less than a week later (my octopus entact). I hated selling home healthcare supplies, but I miss the bad-ass feeling of smoking in a room full of oxygen tanks.