Cashiers

In the comments to her post on haggling (which I also dislike, although I'm less annoyed by it if the expectation that one haggles is clear - what I really hate is not knowing whether to haggle or not, as my haggling personality is alien to me and can be unpleasant, and so it takes a bit of warning to clothe myself in it), Amber says, " I don't even like making conversation with cashiers. Half of them can barely handle ringing me up or making a return, much less negotiating a discounted sale."

I couldn't agree more, which explains my preference for self check out lines where available, especially in grocery stores. An example: recently, my local grocery store's computer broke down, so they were ringing us up by hand. I had three items. One cost $4.49, the second $3.49 and the third $5.99. The cashier asked me for $5.99. I told her that I owed more than that and gave her a $20 bill. She pointed at her calculator. I said that I saw the calculator, but since a single item was $5.99, and it said $5.99 in big numbers on it, it was highly unlikely that my total was $5.99. She didn't answer, and then just said $5.99 again. I tried to convince her again that it wasn't $5.99. She went to get the manager. The manager came, and pushed "total" on the calculator.

Flurgh. Give me the machine any day.

UPDATE: Just to be clear, I've been a cashier. It's no more fun on that side of things.