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I remember being a cashier at the local Dart Drug (long gone out of business).
Part of validating check/credit card transaction was ensuring the name/address matches what's on the check or written down on the cc carbon copy and also copy down the phone number and driver's license number which was also the same as social security number. That was long before ID theft.
I can remember when using a credit card was the slowest means of paying for something at the checkout!
Cash was quickest.
Checks were a close second - provided the buyer pre-filled out most of the info while their items were being totaled.
Credit Cards were the slowest because you needed to provide a photo ID, and then the CC number was manually checked against a pamphlet of bogus CC numbers. This pamphlet was printed on Bible Paper in size 8 or 6 font and was over 100 pages thick! Then the clerk had to run the CC through the manual imprinter, after manually writing the sales total amount on the form and loading the form into the imprinter, in order to copy the CC number onto the multi-carbon form which the customer then had to sign.
Now checks are almost disallowed, cash is surprisingly slow since the cashier needs to open the cash drawer and count out the change, while a person only needs to tap their CC against the reader to pay.
I hate the Phone Pay methods as either the cashier and/or customer always have trouble making it work properly.
I definitely remember the 'pre scanner/pre barcode' grocery store trips with mom. The cashier had to enter the price of everything manually and she would read the price aloud so we'd know she wasn't overcharging us.
Getting a job as a 'bagger' while in high school was considered to be a 'plum job'. Especially if you got good tips carrying groceries out for the ladies.
Wow, this takes me back! I actually WAS the checker who had to do exactly what you described above. The cash register was pretty much like a typewriter. Bar codes were finally introduced before I left (I worked in the store during high school and college, from 1973-1976). Incidentally, I was hired as a 'boxboy' (they didn't call us 'baggers' until about a year later) and indeed it was considered a plum job while in high school.
I not only remember those days, but my dad worked all his life (after his WWII service) for the National Cash Register Company as a service tech. He could take apart a cash register into what looked like a bazillion parts and put it back together so that it worked as smooth as silk.
When NCR expanded into electronic check scanning equipment the company sent him to their headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, to learn those machines. When he got back he was assigned to our regional European American Bank office as their in-house repair tech; that's where all of the NY metro area banks sent checks to be processed. He had an entire floor of big check processing machines to keep humming along properly. That was in the 1980s. He loved his work and only retired when company policy forced him to, at age 70. I swear if he was still alive today he'd be 100 this year and still working for NCR if he could, LOL
It wasn't that long ago that Trader Joe's cashiers were still inputting the prices by hand into the cash register. I want to it was in the last 15 or so years. Now many places here in Southern California don't take cash at all. My daughter and I were getting lunch a few weeks ago and I pulled out some cash to pay the cashier and she told me they don't take cash any longer.
Does anyone remember a time before cash-register machines, when purchases were recorded in ink, on a paper ledger?
When I was a kid (pre-teen in the 1950s), we had a mom and pop grocery store right across the street. The owner wrote the item prices on the outside of the paper bag and entered the amount in his ledger. On Friday (payday) my father went in and paid the bill.
Cigarettes were 24 cents a pack. My mother sent me across the street to pick up cigarettes when she was running low. Can't do that anymore.
I’m old enough to remember when Niagara Falls was brand new......does that count?
Niagara Falls!!! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch...
(Anybody remember that?)
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