When I was working minimum wage at a gas station many eons ago, we would have ‘2 for $x’ specials where x is less than 2 times the individual price of whatever item.
People would often not want to buy 2, but I would ring up 2 in the till for the special price and charge them for the single. Then when the next person did the same, I would charge them for the other single.
So over the day, I would sell 10 energy drinks at say $4, but ring them up as 5 ‘2 for $6’ specials. This would put the till up by $10, and then I would use that $10 to have a free meal.
Anyone else do anything like that?
I (with permission, but without oversight) take home all the broken computers, obsolete cables, and other junk from work and either:
- build working PCs from parts of many and sell them
- strip them and sell the parts individually
- sell the cables (if you need a VGA cable for some old monitor at 730pm on sunday right away because your new monitor broke, Im youre guy)
- scrap out computers and cables for ewaste, copper, and aluminium and sell these at the recycling center.
Nothing goes to waste/landfil on my watch. Everything I sell is exceptionally cheap. If someone needs a computer but has no money, I give it.
When I worked the closing shifts at a grocery store years ago, we would go take donuts that were gonna get tossed.
My dad’s friend took me out around midnight one night when I was a freshman in college. We went by a gas station that closes at midnight and the workers just gave him like 30 donuts that didn’t sell. Apparently he does this at least once a week lol. They had the donuts already in a bag waiting for him when we walked in, and all knew him by name. It’s a great life hack. I think the secret to making it work is actually making the workers like you. Gotta spend a few minutes for fun conversation before they give you free stuff.
That’s awesome. Just gotta build a little rapport and you’re golden. So many places throw so much food away. It’s sad. When I did Food Not Bombs years ago, we would get entire bags of leftover baked goods from a local place. They’d give us literal trash bags worth of bagels, donuts, pastries, all wrapped up. Some grocery stores have gotten strict and won’t give that stuff away anymore, but you can still find the right people that don’t give a shit about the rules.
When I worked at the window of a national pizza chain, if you paid in cash and told me to “keep the change,” I’d mark your order as cancelled and pocket the whole bill.
I still feel shitty about it but I was making $7/hr as a college student and it sure beat my AM selling pressed pills from the backdoor after close
absolutely. I work at a phone/computer repair shop.
I have a policy called the “front desk fix policy”. pretty much, if I can fix it at the front desk in under a few minutes, I’m not charging you for it. common culprits are simple software fixes and charging port cleanings.
I give free screen protectors with every repair instead of charging customers for it. the screen is the expensive part not the screen protector.
I also tend to give a 10$ discount if people are just cool to talk with. if we genuinely enjoy talking to each other, they’ve made my day better, so I might as well do the same for them.
I think this is kind of the opposite of what OP was asking about.
What “perks” did people create for themselves?
