ttj - Tom Jones

You can use cash, as long as we can keep the change, seems to be the new push for the cashless society. Case in point: Oxford Tube, cost 25.50, gave 30 GBP, "we don't have change, have this scrip instead, see at end of coach ride". At end of coach ride, no they didn't have change. On return journey later that day: no change, "check at end".  At end: no change. So, due to Stagecoach policy, they got to keep the 4.50 GBP, and I ended up with a useless ticket saying "4.50" on it. What would happen if a customer tried paying for a coach ride with their own scrip?

A friend's retail business doesn't take cash any more. At first this seemed odd. He said if you take cash, you have to train staff in it, and they can't do it. I didn't believe him.  This is such a basic part of functional numeracy that you can take it for granted, for, say, 98% of the population. Then, these four anecdotes on making change from Autumn 2024. In a restaurant in Guernsey, the bill was 41.xx GBP (service charge had already been added), and I handed over 51.30 (ish) to make the change easier.  The chap was taking ages, so I zoned out. When I came to, I realised he was counting out pound notes. The change should have been a tenner plus pennies. I said something, and it became clear he was making change from 50.00 GBP. He escalated to more senior team member, who cottoned on to give a tenner. T In Oxford, in a cafe, I ordered a coffee. 3.45 GBP. I handed over a twenty plus the 45p. She knew to open the till, but beyond this, was completely at a loss. She didn...

This bill includes 16.68 GBP gratuity at 12.5%, which by definition is optional. I paid with the exact amount, 150. If they had not added gratuity charge, probably would have been same result. Fine. Waiter came back and said “I hate to be a stickler, but it’s a hundred and fifty AND THIRTEEN PENCE”. The optional gratuity was 16.68 GBP, so he is “being a stickler” about less than 1% of the optional GRATUITY. Without this precious 13p, the total amount of the optional gratuity is 16.55 GBP instead of 16.68 GBP on a base bill of 133.45 GBP. Have people really become this fucking retarded? I can not function in the brit tard sphere.

The cost of postage tracks debasement ("inflation") pretty well.  This is one of the ways you knew they were lying to you during the "low inflation" era.  When they said it was 1%, stamps were "going up" by 6% (actually, the currency was going down by this amount, being debased). The Royal Mail has a nice system where a 1st class stamp is a first class stamp, and is marked as such, instead of being marked with its monetary value.  A practical effect is that one can stock up on stamps in advance, and not have to stock up on tiny-value delta stamps when the price as denominated in the debasing fiat increases.  Nothing screams "I live in an extremely backwards country" like a row of stamps on the envelope, one for 1.xx fiats, the next for 0.04 fiats, the next for 0.07 fiats, or whatever the increases were.  This doesn't happen when a first-class stamp is just a first-class stamp. As an "investment", entering a period of high debasement...