Fiver going in ....

[andy-hughes]

Anyone who likes Peter Kay will know that the root of his hmour is based on things we all see / hear / do.

That includes the shop assistant who calls over to her colleague "Fiver goin' in Elsie ..." but why on earh do they do it?

Perhaps the original reason was that large notes were a rarity years ago, and one assistant was supposed to watch the change being given by the other, to make sure it was accurate.

But these days, larger notes are perfectly common, but in the cake shop I visit occasionally, they still do the "Fiver going in ..." speech, even though the other assistant simply said OK, and took no notice of the transaction at all.

So - anyone any idea why assistants are still told to do this, and why, if they are doing it, does the other assistant not pay attention, since ifnoring it, as they all do, negates the entire object of the exercise.

[jno]

might be simpler just to say to the customer "A fiver, right?" before proceeding, thus giving the customer a chance to disagree, and allowing for the fact that it may be Elsie's day off.

[dotty.]

The answers are correct, it is to protect the assistant and the shop from anyone scamming the change.
Where I work, we never put a £20 note into the till, they go straight into the counter cache, after the denomination button is pressed, it does work, we very rarely get a customer claiming they handed over a £10 when it was a £5 or a £20 when it was a £10.