Plaidman and bottle returners.

[Plaidman]

I make it not secret. I am an jackass. If someones rude to me, I'll sling it back ten times more. Despite how some people here say I'm nice, I'm really not. As follows me at jackass high.


Oregon has the bottle deposit. Basically, you pay an extra five cent for every can/bottle you buy, and then when your done with it, you can return it and get five cents back. Sounds good, and promotes recyclying. However, most people just throw them out, and shitheads grab them and attempt to return them.

Math Skills are Fun!

Lady returns 14 cans. We count. Its good. They are laid out. I give her seventy cents.

Lady: No, you owe me more.
Me: 14 cans, at five cents a can, is seventy cents...
Lady: No, Its higher! I counted in my head!
Me: Well its all I'm giving to you.
Lady: We'll see about that! I'm calling your corporate number! Your stealing MY MONEY!!! I need that for SMOKES!!!
Me: Ok

She then proceeds to get her pack of smokes using a combination of pennies, sventy cents, her credit card, a gift card, and Oregon EBT, or you know, welfare money.

Going to get fired for doing my job
Guy comes in, turns in four bottles. Tries to turn in a bunch of pepsi cans that we don't sell, and thus cannot accept since we won't get credit for it. Its written on our walls and everything.

Me: "I can take the sesson bottles, but not the 1.5 liter pepsi. We don't sell them.
SC: The lady last night took them.
Me: Cool. I'm not.
SC: What the fuck man!?
Me: I follow the rules. Can't take them.
SC: *Starts to storm out*
Me: Want your 20 cents from the sesson?
SC: You can keep them all for being a DICK!
Me: *shrug* Put twenty cents to the side, planning on explaing to manager incase he tries to do some lying. I also check paperwork from last night to see if she did have bottle returns. Nope, none. I also check the box where we put plastic bottles. None there. So he is a liar. Not surprise.

Twenty minutes later he comes back with Bud Light cans.

Now, the thing about oregon, is that if it has a bottle deposit on it, its stampped on the lid. The cans from Washington do not have stamps, and thus don't have bottle deposits, and we cant accept them. Guess what they are?

Me: Sorry man, this aren't from Oregon. I can't take them.
SC: WTF man!? You are required to take them!!
Me: No I'm not. Also the my coworker didn't take any bottles last night.
SC: I didn't say last night!
Me: "Yeah, excact words, The lady last night took them!"
SC: Well uhh.. it might have been a few days ago!
Me: Then I would ahve taken them.
SC: SHE DID! They be in here right! *Dives head first into the plastic bin, searching desperatly for those plastic bottles that don't exsist.*
SC: YOU STOLE THEM!!!
ME: .... I stole garbage? What am I, a mirror? I'm not you.
SC: *blinks* Your an asshole. I want your name and store number. I want your managers number.
Me: *Give store number, give corporate number, give first name. Don't tell him my last as I'm not required too*
SC: I'm going to get you fired!
Me: *Finishing my cherry pepsi* Want your twenty cents now? I can throw in this for an extra five cents if you want.
SC: *Leaves*


Plaidman's a sexual fantasy again
Oregon law allows places of business that have less then 5000 square feet of space to refuse more then 50 bottles from a person per day. It use to be 144 bottles. ZThis naturally led to much much more, and with no place to store all those cans and bottles, would often have leaky bags leading to food or such. Not very healthy. Glad they changed it.

Man storms in, slams bottles down, I point to a few we can't take, he storms out, comes back in with more. At this point I tell him he's at his limit.

SC: NO! You have to take them ALL!!!
ME: *points to sign* 50 cans/bottles. Your limit.
SC: *Growls*
Me: *Print it out, hand him recipt. When its over a dollar, people sign it. Mostly so other shifts can check it and make sure these people stop at their limit*
Sign here please...

SC: *signs FUCK YOU SHITHEAD*
Me: *blinking*

Now, this is where I can be an ass. If people treat me like that, I'll give it worst without getting in trouble.

ME: "Ok Mr. Shithead, *hands a mostly torn dollar I gotten earler, and 30 nickles* Have a nice day.

SC: *Staring at his money* What the hell!? Gah. My girlfriend hates you. She dreams of slitting your neck and us fucking in your blood!!!

Me: *nodding* I'm flattered she has fantasies of me and not of you sir. Have a good day Mr. Shithead.

SC: I'm going to kill you one of these days.
ME: *taking a drink of soda* Sure.
SC: You best be scared
ME: I suppose dirty bottles might get me sick...
SC: *he leaves, laughing maniaclly* Few minutes later, I hear a loud slam and glass breaking. Glancing outside my window, I see the shit head threw the two 40 oz bottles I couldn't accept against my store, shattering glass everywhere.

I pocket my boxcutter, (better safe then sorry) and grab a broom to sweep up the glass before someone steps on it and sues. I faintly see the maniac running off in the distance still laughing.

[blas]

I'm glad I'm not the only asshole around here. People and their cans/bottles can really be a pain in the ass. It's for a good cause and reason, and I can see how that can easily add up....but for the love of gosh......there are limits and there is fine print!

Where I live, we have a recycling dumpster next to the regular one. And this guy comes along every week and takes every single aluminum can out of it, and he also will go INTO THE REGULAR dumpster and dumpster dive for cans or bottles.......he drives this dilapidated pile of junk van that has to be over 30 years old and I shudder to think that this guy probably lives in there and his only way of getting by is collecting that stuff.

[PepperElf]

so... do they have to give name and address when they sign for deposits over a dollar?

cos that would be funny if you had the last asshole's information.

[QASlave]

Iowa has the 5 cent thing too. I live in Nebraska (right across the river from Iowa), so nearly EVERYTHING I buy in Nebraska has the Iowa 5 cent stamp on the lid. (I guess the disbributors just don't pay very close attention.) My mother comes to town every once in a while and takes the cans back with her to cash in. (Doesn't matter if the store doesn't sell the product, if it has the stamp, it gets a nickel back.)

I used to work at a grocery store in Iowa in my youth. The funny thing about the cans being refunded is that the retailer gives back money based on the count, but the distributors would only give so much money per bag. (They have these cardboard sleeves that they put plastic bags in and when the sleeve is full, it supposedly has a certain count in it. I think it was 240 cans.) People got pissed when we didn't take back a crushed can because if we paid the nickel, the volume would be off. With crushed cans, you can fit about 800 in a bag.

[Boredom]

I'm just happy that we get 10 cents per bottle/can in michigan

[fireheart]

South Australia has the bottle/can deposit thing, however it's also used for flavoured milk containers (God knows why). It used to be 5c, now it's 10c, but what made me laugh was the number of people who would hoard drink bottles so they could get the 10c deal

Unlike the OP though, any bottles/cans get deposited at certain recycling plants as opposed to bottle shops.

[ParkingWitch]

Reading the top of my can, here in Pony Express town
CA CRV MI 10 CT/MA/ME/NV/VT/HI/IA/OR 5
hmmm Where did I hide my cents symbol

I'm thinking it is just a bottlers convenience thing so that they don't have to track by coding.

[Nyoibo]

South Australia has the bottle/can deposit thing, however it's also used for flavoured milk containers (God knows why). It used to be 5c, now it's 10c, but what made me laugh was the number of people who would hoard drink bottles so they could get the 10c deal

Unlike the OP though, any bottles/cans get deposited at certain recycling plants as opposed to bottle shops.

The cool thing is they give the 10c for bottles that were before that, I have not taken recycling in for over a year, I's getting good money I hope.

No, I didn't haord them, I'm just extremely lazy.

[Midnight_Angel]

Here in Germany, they placed a deposit of 25 cents on recyclable plastic bottles or metal cans, to encourage people stick to the returnable glass bottles (which have only 8 to 15 cents on them).

Didn't work. Even when the deposit exceeds the value of the contents, people still buy these things like crazy.

Of course, those who arrive at the bottle returns desk with a shopping cart overflowing with not-quite-empty, open bottles (which leads to a nice sticky mess) are the ones who will cry 'Thief' if the employee at the counter counts their bottle total to be 63, instead of the 64 they claim to have brought. Usually right after the bottles have been thrown into the large bin or sack where they are collected.

So much fun... so several store chains have resorted to putting up returning machines, which accept all kinds of bottles and cans.

Of course, any kind of machinery + SC = EPIC FAIL.

No, the machine won't give you credit for a marmelade jar. No, it probably won't accept bottles from other countries, either. (For stores near the border, the return-the-depositless-cans-from-abroad scam has become a major issue, so there is quite some counterfeit protection on some of the labels. For teh same reason, good luck with returning a bottle with a peeled-off label).

Aaaand... what happens if SC and Mr. Machine don't get along? Rrrrrright, it can only be the sales drone's fault who is standing at the register, or just happening to walk by.

[jerkface11]

I didn't know you had to handle the returns at a retail level. You'd think there'd just be a recycling center to take them to.

[Alpha Strike]

I didn't know you had to handle the returns at a retail level. You'd think there'd just be a recycling center to take them to.

Here in the Iowa City/Coralville area - home of the University of Iowa, so pretty big as far as IA towns go! - people wanting to get cash back have to go retail.

In my part of the woods I can either go to the local Hy-Vee (chain supermarket) and use their machines or I can go to Evil-Mart and use the machines they have. The only difference is that Hy-Vee machines dispense cash vouchers while the Wally-World ones give Store Credit vouchers (good scam!). You can also use the customer service desk at either place but that's typically for small amounts of returns and/or problems.

In fact, the only other option I've seen is at the local, city-run recycling center: they have an area where you can donate your cans and the money is used to fund some charitable cause.

[McGoddess09]

OMG!!!

That last guy was so weird.

When the title said "Plaidman's Sexual Fantasy" I was thinking of a conversation we had earlier and thought it would be about that.

I'm so glad we don't have that can thing here.


HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS CRAP?!


P.S. You're not an asshole. You just have snappy comebacks.