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A German in America
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
- Start date
trancejeremy
Adventurer
That's an interesting read.
1) Not all grocery stories have bagboys. I think some do because of unions, but probably most places, it's the checker that does it, and sometimes the checkers who aren't checking out do it. And some places you have to bag it yourself. Most places also let people use their own bags if they want (most sell them), but almost no one does.
2) Sales tax, our version of VAT depends not just from state to state, but county to county and city to city (each usually has their own paw in the till). And in some places (usually by state), food is exempt from it (but not cooked food).
1) Not all grocery stories have bagboys. I think some do because of unions, but probably most places, it's the checker that does it, and sometimes the checkers who aren't checking out do it. And some places you have to bag it yourself. Most places also let people use their own bags if they want (most sell them), but almost no one does.
2) Sales tax, our version of VAT depends not just from state to state, but county to county and city to city (each usually has their own paw in the till). And in some places (usually by state), food is exempt from it (but not cooked food).
Polyhedral_Columbia
First Post
An interesting read!
The only mistake I noticed is where you wrote "bride" instead of "bridge". Also, what you call VAT is called "sales tax" here.
I empathize with your surprise and frustration at the lack of sidewalks and pedestrian access to bridges. In this regard, America is insane. The byways of America are made for machines, not human beings.
Best wishes on your visit.
Travis
Jürgen Hubert said:
The only mistake I noticed is where you wrote "bride" instead of "bridge". Also, what you call VAT is called "sales tax" here.
I empathize with your surprise and frustration at the lack of sidewalks and pedestrian access to bridges. In this regard, America is insane. The byways of America are made for machines, not human beings.
Best wishes on your visit.
Travis
If you're wondering why about the real reason there are grocery store baggers in the US, and not in contental Europe, it's actually kind of simple and esoteric at the same time. The minimum wage is lower here. So it's cost-effective to hire baggers. At minimum wage in Germany, it's not.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
TraverseTravis said:
So true.
I had the opposite experience when I moved out to Britain a few years back and was able to walk places. Ever since I moved back to the States, it kills me that its kind of a 'walk at your own risk' situation, and that's disregarding the fact that places are just so far apart walking isn't viable.
Course, now I'm down in St. Augustine and this place is designed for walking. Roads are almost too small for cars. I love it, and its nice to know that there's at least one haven like this in the States...though so many tourists on the streets makes walking interesting, at least you can walk everywhere...
DarkKestral
First Post
Jurgen, I'll be posting here because I can't post on LiveJournal.
ATMs are designed not to carry high denomination bills; such bills attract thefts and scamming risks. Banks operate under the assumption ATMs are better for getting small sums quickly, while tellers are for pulling out large sums or complex transactions where a human element is good as a safeguard, needed to explain the process, or to deal with people unable to use an ATM. Full bankers with their own offices are for people with really complex needs, who are opening/closing accounts, or making investments with the bank.
By the way, a lot of old houses in the Midwest are inspired by early- to mid-1800s German architecture, AFAIK, because that's when the area (as well as Ohio, I believe, though I really wouldn't call it Midwestern ordinarily) was settled initially, and many of the settlers were Germans and Eastern Europeans. And, a lot of that style of architecture remains around university campuses, because universities in the Midwest tend to be concentrated in the oldest sections of the cities that aren't commercial. Not sure how much it's the case elsewhere. They also tend to be fairly upscale as the neighborhoods near universities are usually pretty safe, the neighbors are usually well-paid professors and their spouses, residents (for obvious reasons) overwhelmingly tend to value education highly so the local primary and secondary schools are usually good quality, and they're often close to cultural attractions such as museums.
Whole Foods: totally recommended, as far as chain grocery markets go, especially if you're GMO conscious. Bit expensive though. If you're not GMO or hormone conscious, I'd still go to a regular grocery store unless you need a specialty item you can't find in the regular groceries. Many of the produce products in Whole Foods are the same as the ones in regular stores, so you are often paying a premium for the same product. And good grocery stores are now beginning to stock a fairly large array of organic and GMO free products, from cleaning agents to produce.
Stores hire baggers because they're faster than the customers or a checker at bagging, which is a major benefit during rush periods such as Black Friday and the Christmas season, as they can significantly raise throughput and thus sales. A lot of them are also checkers, stockers, and cart guys when they're not bagging, so it's kind of a default "we have all of our other jobs taken care of at the moment, so go help the customers" sort of job, because it visibly helps the customers without being terribly intrusive or being the sort of customer "service" that people associate with outsourced call centers. Managers also tend to act as baggers or checkers, if only because it lets them watch the checkers and ensure they aren't stealing from the till without having to be idle. It's also a guard against scammers and people trying to forge counterfeit checks.
Being from a city which is usually either #1 or #2 on the Sierra Club's list of cities with the worst urban sprawl, I am usually frustrated by this. I like walking places, as it's the only way I can build a mental map of a place. There are certain sections of the city where walking from place to place is a possible strategy, but there aren't that many, and even then, most of them are unfriendly to walkers.
ATMs are designed not to carry high denomination bills; such bills attract thefts and scamming risks. Banks operate under the assumption ATMs are better for getting small sums quickly, while tellers are for pulling out large sums or complex transactions where a human element is good as a safeguard, needed to explain the process, or to deal with people unable to use an ATM. Full bankers with their own offices are for people with really complex needs, who are opening/closing accounts, or making investments with the bank.
By the way, a lot of old houses in the Midwest are inspired by early- to mid-1800s German architecture, AFAIK, because that's when the area (as well as Ohio, I believe, though I really wouldn't call it Midwestern ordinarily) was settled initially, and many of the settlers were Germans and Eastern Europeans. And, a lot of that style of architecture remains around university campuses, because universities in the Midwest tend to be concentrated in the oldest sections of the cities that aren't commercial. Not sure how much it's the case elsewhere. They also tend to be fairly upscale as the neighborhoods near universities are usually pretty safe, the neighbors are usually well-paid professors and their spouses, residents (for obvious reasons) overwhelmingly tend to value education highly so the local primary and secondary schools are usually good quality, and they're often close to cultural attractions such as museums.
Whole Foods: totally recommended, as far as chain grocery markets go, especially if you're GMO conscious. Bit expensive though. If you're not GMO or hormone conscious, I'd still go to a regular grocery store unless you need a specialty item you can't find in the regular groceries. Many of the produce products in Whole Foods are the same as the ones in regular stores, so you are often paying a premium for the same product. And good grocery stores are now beginning to stock a fairly large array of organic and GMO free products, from cleaning agents to produce.
Stores hire baggers because they're faster than the customers or a checker at bagging, which is a major benefit during rush periods such as Black Friday and the Christmas season, as they can significantly raise throughput and thus sales. A lot of them are also checkers, stockers, and cart guys when they're not bagging, so it's kind of a default "we have all of our other jobs taken care of at the moment, so go help the customers" sort of job, because it visibly helps the customers without being terribly intrusive or being the sort of customer "service" that people associate with outsourced call centers. Managers also tend to act as baggers or checkers, if only because it lets them watch the checkers and ensure they aren't stealing from the till without having to be idle. It's also a guard against scammers and people trying to forge counterfeit checks.
Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
Being from a city which is usually either #1 or #2 on the Sierra Club's list of cities with the worst urban sprawl, I am usually frustrated by this. I like walking places, as it's the only way I can build a mental map of a place. There are certain sections of the city where walking from place to place is a possible strategy, but there aren't that many, and even then, most of them are unfriendly to walkers.
Last edited:
Chimera
First Post
DarkKestral said:
Having once serviced ATM's, I feel I can address this.
ATMs are convenient places to get small to medium amounts of cash. Some banks have and/or still have limits of perhaps $250 per day that can be withdrawn through ATMs, which serves mostly to protect the customer from theft and fraud.
The typical ATM is loaded only with $20 bills, because this is the most common currency in circulation and the largest bill that most establishments care to deal with. Cash tills do not have slots for larger bills and the preponderance of counterfit bills tends to be higher in the larger denominations. A stupid, lazy or distracted clerk taking a fake $100 and giving real change can hurt a business, whereas you're not likely to get a bunch of fake $20s.
The typical ATM also carries only one kind of bills. While a few carry more (I serviced some with 10's and 20's, some with 5's and 20's, but not many), the risk is that the tech will reverse the cartridges and give the wrong bills. This hurts the bank on both ends, having to reimburse people who got five 5's when they asked for $100, losing $45 when somebody figures it out and asks for $15 so they actually get $60. While I never made this mistake, my partner was once accused of it, until we found out that it was actually another company's machine service tech who worked on it. They had to reimburse something like $2500 for that guy's mistake!
The other side of it is the risk in loading the machine. Some of the riskier neighborhoods we serviced would have older machines that were hand-loaded with cash. We'd typically put $16-20,000 in them, and for that we were kneeling in front of the open machine in an open and active establishment in a bad neighborhood, with $20,000 in CASH in our hands. We had a couple of very close calls at those machines! (My partner and I once refused, refused a second time and again a third time "even if we get fired" to service a machine at a tax refund place in a nightmare neighborhood, where they wanted us to put $340,000 cash into the machine! Because ONE GUY would be in the place on his own loading the machine with enough money to cause a riot.)
But most machines have cartridges which are pre-loaded and sealed. We just pulled the old one out and put the new one in, and told the machine how much money it was. But even then, you're walking around with $30-$60K, which can be risky.
Theft of entire ATMs is also not uncommon. On my last job working for a University, someone broke into one of the buildings, at a door not covered by a security camera, loaded up and drove off with the whole ATM. The loss was claimed to be $34,000.
HeavenShallBurn
First Post
Round these parts a guy used a skid-steer loader to scoop up one of the large ATMs built into a bank wall and drive off with it one night last year. They still haven't got any clues as to who actually did it. Left a nice big opening in the side of the bank.
A few other thoughts and notes:
- As has already been noted, the biggest denomination that's generally circulated is the $20. You can certainly get $50s and $100s at a bank (and the $100 is about the biggest bill that you typically see circulated at all), but you don't see them often (and some smaller stores may not even accept them, because of concerns over counterfeiting). For a bigger transaction, most people will use a credit or debit card (which may not help you much here), write a check (also probably not much help), or, occasionally go to the bank to get a stack of $100s. IME, those three options map pretty well onto age: many younger people use their plastic for everything, and some older people only like to deal with hard currency.
- Whether or not an area is easily "walkable" often has a lot to do with (a) when the neighborhood was first built (older neighborhoods almost always have sidewalks), and (b) if the area in question is purely residential (more likely to have sidewalks), or is more commercial (less likely to have sidewalks, especially if first built in the 1960s or later).
- Sales tax not only varies by state, but by area within a state (individual cities and counties can tack their own taxes on top), and different types of purchases may be under different tax rates, depending on where you are (prepared foods is an example of something that's often not taxed at the same rate). As you figured out, the tax is almost never included on the price listed on the menu / price tag / whatever.
- Some restaurants do post their menu outside the door, but, from what I see, that's more typcial in urban areas that get a lot of foot traffic. For instance, I work in downtown Chicago, where foot traffic (both workers and tourists) is pretty heavy, and most of the "sit-down" restaurants do this.
- Re: Wendy's. Welcome to American fast food. Believe it or not, among fast-food places, Wendy's is actually known for offering "healthier" choices.
- As has already been noted, the biggest denomination that's generally circulated is the $20. You can certainly get $50s and $100s at a bank (and the $100 is about the biggest bill that you typically see circulated at all), but you don't see them often (and some smaller stores may not even accept them, because of concerns over counterfeiting). For a bigger transaction, most people will use a credit or debit card (which may not help you much here), write a check (also probably not much help), or, occasionally go to the bank to get a stack of $100s. IME, those three options map pretty well onto age: many younger people use their plastic for everything, and some older people only like to deal with hard currency.
- Whether or not an area is easily "walkable" often has a lot to do with (a) when the neighborhood was first built (older neighborhoods almost always have sidewalks), and (b) if the area in question is purely residential (more likely to have sidewalks), or is more commercial (less likely to have sidewalks, especially if first built in the 1960s or later).
- Sales tax not only varies by state, but by area within a state (individual cities and counties can tack their own taxes on top), and different types of purchases may be under different tax rates, depending on where you are (prepared foods is an example of something that's often not taxed at the same rate). As you figured out, the tax is almost never included on the price listed on the menu / price tag / whatever.
- Some restaurants do post their menu outside the door, but, from what I see, that's more typcial in urban areas that get a lot of foot traffic. For instance, I work in downtown Chicago, where foot traffic (both workers and tourists) is pretty heavy, and most of the "sit-down" restaurants do this.
- Re: Wendy's. Welcome to American fast food. Believe it or not, among fast-food places, Wendy's is actually known for offering "healthier" choices.
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