Some plans sound satisfying in theory but turn into disasters in practice.

So what would you do if someone ignored your warning and charged ahead with a scheme that was bound to backfire?

Would you try to reason with them again?

Or would you let them suffer the consequences of their own stubbornness?

In the following story, one bank teller deals with this exact scenario and chooses the latter.

Here’s how it all played out.

You’re sure you want that many pennies?

Years and years ago I worked as a bank teller. 90% of my job was just cashing cheques and being a living ATM.

One day, this guy comes in and says he needs lots of pennies. This was back when pennies were still in use.

See, he’s doing the classic “pay for something with an inconvenient amount of loose change” bit and needs a ridiculous amount of pennies.

She tried to reason with him, but he was set in his decision.

He’s super excited to explain how this local business screwed him over. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s pretty clear even in his telling that it was perfectly fair that he was being charged this money.

He’s practically giggling as he explains how inconvenient it will be for the people he’s paying.

But here’s the thing. Maybe this works down in the States, but in Canada, there is a very reasonable limit on how much you can pay with change.

The payee is allowed to reject any loose change payment over a certain amount.

I explained this to my customer, thinking I might be able to save everyone involved a bunch of hassle (myself included).

Unfortunately, they had to order more pennies.

The guy isn’t having it. He just keeps saying pennies are money, so he’s allowed to do it, and I’d better give him his pennies.

At this point, I figure it’s not really my problem what he wants to do with his money, and I get to work.

He wants a few hundred dollars in pennies. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s like 300 pounds.

It’s so many pennies that I have to tell him we don’t actually have enough on hand. We have to make a special order for him.

There’s a small fee, but he doesn’t care. A few days later, he happily loads up boxes and boxes of pennies and leaves.

This guy really learned the hard way.

A week later, he’s back. Only now he’s dragging in a hockey bag of loose pennies. I guess he spent some time opening all the rolls just to make it harder.

As expected, the business owner simply refused to accept the payment. So he’d like to deposit this bag of pennies back into his account, and he’ll bring the rest later.

I had to tell him we only took rolled coins, and he’d have to do that first. I’m not sure when Coinstar came out, but my small town definitely didn’t have one.

I missed his return, but I heard he eventually came back after going through the trouble of rerolling all his money.

A lot of trouble to get right back to where he started.

If only he had listened.

Wow! He really should’ve listened.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit think about what happened.

Here’s how they do it in Australia.

This family used their change to pay for dinner.

Excellent advice.

Apparently, Germany has similar laws.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Sheesh!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.