Candy bars were $.10
And cashiers memorized the codes/prices for produce items
Ten cents? You youngster, you. I used to pay 5¢ for a Hershey bar.
I’d get 2¢ for the coke bottles left at the construction sites and buy candy and comic books. No cigarettes, though.
A coke at the soda fountain in the drugstore was 5 cents. (I guess a Vanilla Coke was a little more...)
Regular sized candy bars were $.06 when I was in elementary school. It was an outrage when they jumped up to $0.10.
(I never thought I would be THAT guy saying, “when I was a kid.”)
And cashiers could make change without a computer.
There NO CODE for produce in those days...NONE. ...We had to walk the produce section before our shifts & memorize the prices/use a price sheet.
Not hard with bananas.
There were over 59 different kinds of plums when I was a grocery checker in the 60’s. THAT was crazy. They didn’t all have the same prices!!!
We had to read the prices stamped on every item out loud and ring every item on the keys of the cash register.
I was a checker for over 2 years.
I was out of balance ONE TIME in all that time-—by 25 cents.
AND-—we had to count out the change to our customers. Starting with the total bill & counting forward to the amount the customer had handed us. The amount the customer handed to us was on the shelf of the register until the transaction was over....as proof of what money the checker had received.
I remember one instance when a customer claimed that she was short changed by the checker next to me. $20...alot of $$$ in those days. That check stand was IMMEDIATELY shut down & the checker—customer—manager & a witness all went to a back room & balanced the register out completely. The checker was correct...the customer was trying a scam. IIRC, customer was politely asked to n o longer shop in those stores.