Some people get so caught up trying to avoid one awkward interaction that they accidentally create even worse ones.

This customer liked paying in cash and had a habit of handing cashiers extra bills so his change would come back in cleaner amounts like five or ten dollar bills instead of a pile of singles.

For a while, everything worked perfectly fine.

Then one cashier misunderstood what he was doing after he handed over extra money during a transaction. Instead of processing the amount the way he intended, she handed part of the money back and gave him a giant stack of smaller bills and coins as change.

Ever since then, he started warning cashiers ahead of time so they would understand why he was handing over extra cash.

The problem is that his explanations started sounding less helpful and more like he was talking down to people.

Keep reading to judge for yourself.

AITA for treating cashiers like they’re stupid to avoid getting the wrong change

I pay in cash a lot of the time, and I like to avoid having any more than 5 singles in my wallet at a time, so I strategically give the cashier more dollar bills than necessary to cover the total, with the intention that my change will come out to $5.XX or $10.XX.

This lets me get a larger denomination than one dollar bills, so I’m not walking around with a bulging wallet that makes me look like I just robbed a lemonade stand.

For several weeks, this practice worked fine. Until one night, a cashier assumed that I was either drunk or disabled when I handed her a twenty-dollar bill and a one-dollar bill.

When he asks, most cashiers are fine with it.

I think in her mind, I was just shoving everything I had into her hands as if to say, “Is this enough? Did I hand you enough paper to equals $15.81, pretty lady?”

So, she calmly handed the one-dollar bill back to me and gave me a very awkward $4.19 in change, consisting of no less than ten individual pieces of U.S. currency.

Now, I didn’t want to make a scene then, but now every time I go to check out, I green-light my practice. I start by asking something like, “If I hand you twelve dollars, will you understand what I am trying to accomplish, even though ten would be enough to cover the total?”

And they usually say yes.

Sometimes, he meets people who don’t understand what he’s trying to do.

But occasionally people will say, “What?”

So, I have to kinda treat them like it’s a stickup and say, “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to hand you a twenty-dollar bill, a ten-dollar bill, and three one-dollar bills. You’re going to take the money and type in three three point zero zero into the cash register and hit enter. My change is going to come to five dollars and ten cents, so you’re going to hand me a five-dollar bill and a dime. Ok?”

Occasionally, I get nasty looks from the cashiers or other customers.

AITA?

Yikes! If that’s his tone, it may be the problem.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer who complained about an employee, not realizing they were talking to that same person.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit think about this whole thing.

Harsh, but very true.

According to this comment, he has no right to do that.

This cahier is not impressed.

For this person, the arrogance is too much.

There really is no reason to talk to cashiers like that.

Just because one cashier misunderstood what he was trying to do, doesn’t mean every other cashier needs a step-by-step explanation like they cannot handle basic transactions on their own.

The whole thing probably comes across way more rude and condescending than he realizes.

Besides, carrying a few extra singles around is not the end of the world.