Co(rrupting)ience Store

I was really encouraged to write this post down after last night shopping at the most happening convenience store in town (you know what?). And this story will tell you how severe this country in enduring corruption disease. Long story short, I and my sister got off from my bike around 7PM just in front of the store. It is just 200 m away from my house. We got in and serving ourselves with the monumental ice blended beverage (you know what?), some hot drinks for my wife and parents, and also some snacks. We then hit the cashier, and with an energetic and hospitable act, a guy behind the cash register served us. He did his job very smoothly yet convincing, and said: “Well, 50 thousand rupiahs for all”. And the pathetic thing was just started.

Unfortunately for him, my eyes were staring at the register just a second before he finished inputting the transaction, printing the receipt, and making the transaction amount at the monitor disappeared. It was so quick, and not many customers had the conservatism as I had last night. I clearly read the monitor and did not find any “50.000” displayed. For your information, I always re-check any receipts or invoice I got, thanks to my basic instinct as an auditorJ

That guy does not give away the receipt to the customer, unless it is requested. When I asked for it, He confidently said: “Alright Brother, let me print it for you”. And He just began his deceiving act, because I know the receipt had been printed beforehand. It took him another half a minute to print the receipt, by pressing the keyboard many times. He ended up giving me two separate receipts, WTH? He then asked me to move across because he was about to serve the next customers. He just messed me up by disturbing my concentration so I would not check the receipts. Another thank to my instinct, I looked upon them and found his cheat.

The first receipt was good, so I checked the second one. It was written a cup of beverage that I had never bought. On the contrary, there was no beverage we bought, written in those receipts. That bogus beverage was much expensive than ours. I then politely complained to him, asking what sort of beverage was that. He professionally reacted as if he made a human error. He never asked me a favor to hand those receipts in to him. He just spontaneously typed something in register, and printed another new receipt, with the right beverage printed on it. My question is: how the hell did he know which item was not supposed to be charged to us?. He extended his apology and saying that the second receipt belonged to the previous customer. Another lie detected! The second receipt was numbered exactly after the first one. That indicated that those two receipt were consecutively printed, purposely only for me!

It was alleged that the register-man had been cheating for some times. The convenience store has recently been popular among teenagers. They usually go dating to this convenience store, because no enough public space available in this country. Imagine, if you were a juvenile, asking your girl friend you have been crushing on, for the first time on a convenience-store-date. Will you check the receipts? Hell no! It is a big Don’t!!.

That cashier reckons this fact as a good opportunity. Adding up with another fact that the beverage is not counted on a unit basis, because customers are allowed to serve themselves. How much beverages dispensed is immeasurable, because it depends on how long customers pressing the button. Furthermore, customers can mix up the beverages as their wishes. This implicates at the stock-counting method. There is no way to count up how many cups have been sold in a day. And this is perfect to be manipulated.

How pathetic it is to witness how corruption is “bred” even in a convenience store with youths as perpetrators. It is not a multi-billion dollars corruption with politicians involved. Some people might have found my story as a tolerable-small-scale corruption that doesn’t deserve our attention. But I would confidently say: this is the beginning of all. Here is the place where the “culture” is initiated.

Asra

PS:

When Indonesians justify this as a chance to earn extra-income since their salary is too small, that is the time to start thinking that we are now really sick.