Sure that's annoying but (at least in Holland) shops are usually short on change and giving them the right change is seen as a nice gesture. Is that a cultural difference? I appreciated it when customers did it, but I didn't have to deal with one of those cash registers which tells you the change or anything

It's a balance. If someone tells you that's 19.99 and you hand them a twenty, you're generally not expected to wait for your cent change. Similarly, if something costs 20.01 and you give them a twenty they're not gonna say where's the cent (usually). But if it's say 5.17 you're probably not going to hand them a tenner if possible: a fiver and then "let me see if I have the 17". Sometimes cashiers will ask you to give them the odd cents so they don't have to give you back notes. It's all about, I believe, when it's convenient for them too, when you're helping them. That's how it is here anyway.

The problem at the supermarket though is that there were usually several people in line behind them also trying to check out. Plus you had the store mentality of take your time and hurry up while they were cracking the whip. The supermarket industry in the US is a very high strung and sometimes dysfunctional one.

Standing behind someone while they write out a personal check was always a good time. There's the coupon clippers too. It's even worse when it's a digital one and the cashier has to grab the persons phone and find the correct one. For multiple items.

True. As a cashier I was expected to always give the exact change though, unless the customer was like 'nevermind' but they almost never do

Yep, this is familiar. We have the “take penny, leave a penny” coin cups as well for precisely this reason. As a barista I would never run out of coins but would often be short on single dollars, so would ask customers to trade them in for larger bills sometimes. There’s an unspoken alliance among food servers/tip earners, and arrangements like this are simply understood.

lol

I had a cashier at Walmart once who needed her phone to calculate 25 - 5. I politely pretended not to notice, but in fact I did and I've never forgotten about it since.

Not at Walmart. That's the only place I've run a register before but yeah they definitely expect every penny to be in the till. I'm guessing most corporations are the same way. The Korean broad that runs the little corner store by my house here will do **** like that to shave a penny or two off and pretend she's giving you some kind of good deal while you spend 9$ on a pack of cigs.

Fair enough, but over here even big stores (Primark/Tesco/Eason/Aldi etc) will do the whole "who cares about a few cents" thing. Maybe it's an Irish thing, or a European one?

You ever seen someone struggling to make up a small amount of cash to cover their bill and dug in your pocket to help them? We do that kind of thing over here.

I've seen the take a penny thing at gas stations and such but that's not part of the till. Not sure if that's what you mean. If you consistently gave people a few cents off here and there it seems like your till would be off by a few dollars.