“Would you like a receipt with that?”

Everyone knows the line about working in fast food: “Would you like fries with that?” Fast food restaurants train their young employees to ask that question every time. One question they apparently do not train their employees to ask is “Would you like a receipt with that?” I can’t count how many times I’ve paid for something at a fast food restaurant and not been offered a receipt. The practice of not giving a receipt seems to be especially prevalent when I’m paying with cash. And if I’m paying with exact change in cash, that practically guarantees I won’t be offered a receipt. In fact, a lot of times, I don’t even see one being printed.

It irks me. It also irks me when I pay by credit card and am not offered a receipt. Case in point: this afternoon we went over to a local sem-fast food restaurant to get a gift card. I paid with a credit card. When I asked for my receipt, the young clerk said, “Oh, I threw it in the garbage.”

What?? I’m standing right there, I’ve just given you my credit card, I’m spending $25.00, and it doesn’t even OCCUR to you to ASK if I might want a receipt? You just automatically throw it in the garbage??

As I said…how are these employees being trained?

Anyway…this whole business is so annoying and frustrating to me that I’ve made a decision: rather than wait for that awkward moment when I’m supposed to be handed my receipt and I’m NOT, I’m just going to start right off by saying “I want this and that, and this and that, and I’m going to need my receipt.”

Sigh…I know…I feel like such an OLD person. I expect the world to offer me a certain level of SERVICE, and it flabbergasts me when the quality of service is not there. Am I expecting too much?

Have I told the story here yet about how Russ and I once went to the movies and used our credit card to buy two sodas and two popcorns and were charged $111.00? Our best guess is that the counter person hit the “one” key one too many times, and our $11.00 charge became $111.00. Ever since then, I make sure to ask for a receipt.

Today, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to be charged $225.00 for a $25.00 gift card. The guy didn’t want to dig the receipt out of the trash (though, it would have been lying right on top, and only have been lying there about thirty seconds, so I don’t know what the big deal was…) but he did print me a receipt that said “REPRINT,” so I’m hoping that is enough.

Russ will be checking our credit card statement on a daily basis (since we are one of the 40 million that had our information stolen at Target recently), so if there’s something funky going on, he’ll see it right away. It just annoys me that we live in a world where you HAVE to check your credit card statement, and where you aren’t offered a receipt when you pay for something.

But I’ll be the cranky old lady who asks for my receipt up front. Of course, that probably means I’m going to get a lot of strange looks, and slower service. For instance: directly after we went to get this gift card, we stopped by Burger King and I bought something for $1.09 with $1.10 in cash, and I said I needed my receipt, and it could have been my imagination, but it seemed to me the girl…hesitated just a moment before she rang up the order. Then she bagged someone else’s order, before she did mine, even though mine was right there. I got the impression she was annoyed that she had to provide me with a receipt for a simple cash order, and was making me wait for it.

As I said, it may have just been my imagination. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting more and more cynical in my old age.

But sometimes, being cynical can prevent you from paying $111.00 for popcorn.