Last week, I was very troubled when I paid 10.05 for a salad (and yes, paying that much for a salad is troubling in and of itself, but that's a different complaint) and received 9.95 in change when I paid with a 20. Where I work, you can swing a dead cat and hit 10 different places to purchase a salad for lunch. They all cost about the same (give or take), they are all about the same size (give or take) and they all have the same types of options for ingredients (again, give or take).

Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but the best way to distinguish yourself from the competition is with excellent customer service. They should make me want to give them my money. You can't re-invent the wheel when it comes to a salad, but you can try to make the exchange as pleasant as possible.

If they ran a cost-benefit analysis, they would see that the .05 they saved by not handing me a 10 dollar bill cost them a lot more in future sales. I have to assume there are people out there like me who could be annoyed enough to boycott a place after such a transaction. It shows a complete lack of concern for my well-being. Ok, "well-being" might be too strong a term, but having to stick 5 bills into my wallet plus a pocket full of change is very annoying.

It's quite possible that the owner/management has told the cashiers that their register has to match the receipts exactly. If that's the case, that's just a poor business decision. Receiving 10 dollars for a salad is essentially the same as receiving 10.05. I refuse to believe their profit margin is so slim as to actually be affected by a nickel. And in the interests of good customer service, they should have accounted for how displeased I would be with 95 cents in change.