Her Hotel Manager Told Her To Round Down A Guest’s Change, But She Refused To Short-Change Them And Paid The Difference Herself
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Giving someone the right change isn’t complicated. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
But one hotel server found that’s not always the case after taking her first cash payment from a guest.
Since the register didn’t have any change in it, she had to ask a supervisor to break a $20.
But that’s when things got weird, because the supervisor told her to round the guest’s change down instead of giving the exact amount.
The server thought she had simply misspoken, so she rounded up instead, but quickly learned that management actually wanted employees doing it that way.
Keep reading for the full story.
Management told me to round down instead of giving exact change, is this normal?
I serve made-to-order breakfast at a large hotel, and we can take cash, but we don’t fill the drawer with anything, so we have to fetch a supervisor in order to give us change.
Most people I’ve served just paid with a credit card or charged it to their room, but today I got my first cash payment and got my supervisor to break a 20.
The change due to the guest was 13.25 (or .75, can’t remember), and my super said, “OK, count 7 and give the rest to her.”
At first, she thought the super misspoke.
So I counted 7, and then in my head, I assumed the super just miscounted because that would only leave 13 for the guest, so instead, I did 14/6.
I dropped off the 14, and then my super said I only had 6 in the stack, and I was like, “Oh yeah, I thought you misspoke!”
Then we had a few seconds of just confusedly staring at each other because, to me, it’s not really fair to shortchange a guest just because WE don’t provide exact change. But she said that’s what management told her to do.
Thankfully, it was only a Dollar.
I get that it’s a cost to the company the way I did it, but to me, that’s why we should do exact change.
Luckily, the guest tipped me 6, so I just dropped the 1 into my deposit to make up for it.
Is this normal at most restaurants? If not, I might just carry around my own change to break dollars with because I’m not really comfy with stiffing a guest, even if it’s for less than a dollar.
Eek! It’s easy to see why the employee was confused. That does sound pretty illegal.
Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit know about it.
Here’s a reader who explains that it is illegal.
This manager rounds in everyone else’s favor.
And this bartender does the same.
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That is ridiculous.
That’s the worst policy!
If a guest is owed change, then they should get the full amount.
After all, it’s not their fault the hotel doesn’t keep enough coins in the drawer.
Either way, this is something management needs to fix ASAP, because otherwise, they may wind up getting in trouble for it.
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