As a cashier who's been dealing with the public from behind a cash register for nearly four years, I can very safely say that customers have certain habits that drive us — cashiers — up the wall. Truth be told, I probably exhibited quite a few of these infuriating habits before my mantra, often for seven hour shifts at a time, became "How may I help you?"

Here are some common customs every customer should drop:

  1. Pet names and nick names. If you're a female cashier, you know what its like having men of all ages approach your counter with a smile. If you're cordial, you'll return the smile, albeit usually a half-hearted & impersonal one. Then they call you "honey," "sweetie," "sweetheart," "darling," or any other myriad of names other than the one printed on your name tag (more about those later). Its time to unleash a frown. Most women don't like their significant others to overuse pet names, so you can bet we get a little uppity when complete strangers start using them. Same goes for nick names like "buddy," "champ" or — my personal favorite — "fella" for male cashiers. Chances are that whatever transaction brings you to our counter will be the limit of our interaction. To that end, limit yourselves to "Sir," or "Miss" — and use "Ma'am" sparingly. It makes women of all ages feel uncomfortably old.
  2. "Hey, you remember me?" No, chances are we don't. Use your judgment before presuming that a cashier recognizes you if you haven't been at their register in the past 24 hours. If they're having a busy day, this time period may even be shortened to 4 or even 2 hours. Long lines indicate that managers are pressuring cashiers to work faster. Transactions become rushed and remembering faces becomes an impossibility. If its been an appreciable amount of time since your last interraction with a cashier, approach them without raising this question. If you have a query in reference to the last time you were there, and they DO remember you, most will tell you so and use that prior knowledge to help things along. Otherwise, you can safely assume that you were forgotten as soon as you were out of sight.
  3. "I know its early, but can you break a hundred?" This, in particular, will apply to smaller businesses and transactions that occur early in the morning. If its before noon and you're entering any kind of business that isn't a major chain — some exceptions apply — do not hand the cashier a hundred or fifty dollar bill for an item costing less than twenty dollars and expect anything less than a scowl as they scrape the bottom of their drawer for proper change. Ways to solve this problem? Carry twenties, its what most of us do and in most cases they're the most convenient bills for a cashier to make change for. Start asking your bank teller to give you smaller bills. THESE are the people that don't mind breaking large bills. As for more money matters…
  4. "I have this roll of quarters/dimes/nickels/pennies, will you take that?" Yes, it does all spend the same. No, its not as if you're asking the cashier to personally accept this as payment and then try to find room for it in their purse/pocket/bag. However, there is unfortunately no way for a cashier to know that you're handing them a complete roll of coins without cracking open the roll and counting. You can bet someone else in line will either kill you, us, or both of us when they realize they're waiting for a roll of dimes to be counted. We'd love to just trust you, but we're the ones who have to account for the balance in the drawer at the end of our shift. You can bet we'd be in deep if your roll of quarters was later cracked open to reveal a bunch of Chuckee Cheese tokens. Again, banks are in the business of happily giving you change if and when you need it.
  5. Too much information. Polite conversation is definitely a plus if you're the only person in line and your cashier doesn't appear to be in the 9th hour of what was supposed to be a 5 hour shift. However, if — when paying for something over $20 with all singles — your cashier does not want to hear you blurt out, "Don't worry. I'm not a stripper, I swear," as you chuckle and continue to count out the now-suspect bills. Do this and you may be asked to just leave the money on the counter where it can be Lysol-ed until it loses its sleazy/ass-crack/g-string/thong/cleavage aura. Also, please don't complain about or praise your children to a cashier. Empathy is not our forte when we're on the clock. The most we can offer, as usual, is a half-hearted smile that will hopefully indicate "I am not being paid to hear about your personal life. Unless you want to pay me like you do your shrink, go talk to him/her. NEXT!"
  6. Cell phones. Unless you're about to undertake a transaction that can be completed in its entirety without communication, GET OFF THE CELL PHONE. Cashiers do not understand your impromptu sign language. They do not appreciate your distracted "Just a moment," hand gestures or complete disregard. Although they are paid to help you, they appreciate it if you approach the register/counter ready to be helped. If you need to finish your conversation, step aside. As a side note, those hands free ear buds count too. In fact, if we can't see them and you say something perplexing to seemingly no one be ready for brows to be furrowed and awkward questions to be asked. Better yet, avoid these situations completely.
  7. Cooties. Unless you've just watched a cashier pick a particularly heinous wedgie, use their palm as a tissue, finish eating a plate of spare ribs or doing something else that makes their hands unsavory… simply hand them the money. In most cases the worst thing they've just touched is, fleetingly, the hand of the person that was standing in line in front of you. Also, as if playing the cootie game wasn't enough — do not toss money and/or credit cards onto the counter. It may seem harmless but it comes across as arrogant, disrespectful and rude. Should your toss be so powerful as to send your projectile flying onto the floor, you have just become Ta monumental asshole. Such acts of douchbaggery, jerkoffism and prickation are not to be tolerated. You should be so lucky as to then walk, not limp or flee with a bloody nose, away from the counter in nothing less severe than mindnumbing shame.
  8. "I know its against store/company policy, but…" No. That's when most cashiers would like to cut this train of thought off at. In fact, some of us can see your kind doing that impatient I-need-a-favor shuffle while you're waiting in line. You all have a rebelious stench about you. If you know your request will violate store/company policy then you also already know the answer to the question. An alternative to this is calmly explaining your situation and hoping your plight isn't completely horse shit. Most sales associates have hearts. And most will make small and occasional exceptions to policy in the interest of good customer service. However, allow us to be the judges of that. We're the ones who have to answer for our actions, not you.

As if its not obvious, I just got off work a little while ago. I planned on making this a nice even list of 10 qualms, but exhaustion over powers me. Two more to come tomorrow, when I've got the day off.

In the mean time, feel free to offer your own anecdotes about having to deal with an often rude and cantankerous bunch of customers. I'd love to hear them.