"change" in New York

I went to a super market last night. I bought some groceries and drinks. The store clerk input the all prices of goods on a register and said that the price was ¥2,267. I had a ten thousand bill and some small changes, so I gave her ¥10,267. I expected her to give back ¥8,000. I could have given just ¥10,000 and get ¥7,733 change, but I wanted to have less small change, so I took this way.

I sometimes do a little more complicated way. For example, when I have to pay ¥2,276 and I have some thousand yen bills, a five hundred yen coin, some ten yen coins, some one yen coins, and I have no other bills and coins. In this situation, I will give ¥2,531 and I expect to get back ¥255 change (2 one hundred yen coins and 1 fifty yen coin and 1 five yen coin). I think that many Japanese shoppers like to do the similar way to have small change as less as possible.

I did the same way of paying while I was in New York before. I heard that New Yorkers hate it. They say that most of New Yorker’s didn’t like to use small change in shops and they sometimes willfully got no change. However, I did it and enjoyed their reaction.

According to my “research”, I had no problem in most of super market by this way. They coolly input the amount of my paying to their register, and smoothly gave back the collect change. At small deli store, they also had register machine, but some clerk hesitate my paying. They didn’t try to input it to their register and said I had paid a wrong amount. However, most of Korean deli clerk (there are many Korean deli store in New York) make smile and gave back collect change immediately.

When I went to a Starbucks, I gave $10.53 for the price of $5.43. I expected to have $5.10 change. At first, the store clerk input $5.43 to his register without watching my amount, and he found that it was different after that. He got upset, but he maybe realized my purpose, then he seemed to calculate in his mind for a moment. Finally, he gave back me $6.47. I had to tell him that the change was wrong.

I think that someone like to do this way, but someone think this is a curious way and don’t like it. It’s a personal problem. I hope many people to accept this way in the world.