Corpopharm Currency Conundrum

A man stopped into the pharmacy to pick up his medication at 5:00 this morning. He had one arm in a cast and sling, thus had to make some effort to fish the cash out of his wallet to pay for his script.

As I was making change for him, I had to break a role of pennies to get him a couple odd cents. I was in mid swing to break the role when he interjected.

Guy: I don't need the pennies.
Me: Oh, that's OK, I've already got the role broke open. Here you go.
Guy: No. I don't want the pennies. I'll take the silver coins, not the pennies.

Huh? Mind you, I had already put the two pennies with the rest of the change and was attempting to hand them to him. He looked at me like I was trying to hand him a dead baby instead of some change.

Me: But... I've already got them right here...
Guy: I don't care what you do with them, I don't want them.

I must have been missing something. The man did accept a nickel as part of his change, which was a mere 3 cents more than the 2 pennies he would not take. I wonder if I had turned the nickel into pennies if he would have accepted that.

This all comes 4 days after I started a change jar at the 24 hour Corpopharm I've been subbing at. They didn't have one, and people leave change laying around all the time. I would have put the pennies in that if one of the front store managers hadn't posted a big sign in the pharmacy after seeing the change jar. It reads:

'Team! We cannot have a change jar for change left at the register or lying around the store. The change must be rung up at the register as a non-taxable item and put in the cash drawer. Put the receipt under the drawer with the refunds. Please see me with questions. Thank you.'

Seriously?!? Apparently Corpopharm's policy on loose change is not finders-keepers, it's big brother breaks your legs and steals your piggy bank. I hate people a little bit more today. Just for that, I'm going to start stealing change from the register every night when I get bored. There's no one there to see me do it anyway.