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keith7812305 karma

Two of the most popular questions submitted on the first AMA were in regards to Space Jam:

pizzano23: Did you grow up watching Space Jam?

transit_: Did you ever meet the kid who portrayed you in Space Jam? Did you fight him?

keith7812125 karma

Clerks should never pay out based on a ticket they THINK is a winner. I will never understand why they don't just scan the damn things.

As a former clerk who sold lottery tickets, I would guess that the reason why "sight" payments is an issue is because the lottery machines (like any other machine in your average convenience store) are down ALL THE DAMN TIME.

The official policy is, of course, to tell the customer with a winning ticket that you are sorry that you cannot cash the ticket at that point in time and to come back at some random point in the future when, hopefully, the machine is working. However, if you work in a store that heavily emphasizes customer service, the customer is a regular customer, you have a long line, and/or you simply don't feel like getting into an argument at that point in time, the pressure is certainly on to just give them their $3 based on your own analysis of the ticket.

Obviously, this isn't the best practice, and I never saw this happen with a winning ticket of over $5. However, the reality is that in an environment that employs (typically) people making minimum wage with a high school level education, mistakes and variations from store policy are going to happen. I've worked many different jobs at many different levels, and low-level retail in a busy store is easily the most high-pressure of the bunch.

TL;DR - Clerks pay out a ticket they THINK is a winner because they trust themselves and the lottery machine is always down.

keith781228 karma

That is very interesting, and it probably addresses the root of the issue: communication.

With rules like selling alcohol to a person under 21 years of age, every cashier knew that if you were caught, you would lose your job immediately.

I never heard of such a rule with sight validating; in fact, my best guess before your post was that it didn't even matter if you sight validated, as long as you got it right. And, if you were wrong on a small winning ticket or two, I would have expected a brief discussion and minor reprimand.

I don't know if this is a state-by-state difference in the punishment or if there is just a massive communication failure from the top-down (which wouldn't be surprising), but my fellow cashiers and I were definitely not aware of such strict punishments. I can guarantee that if every cashier knew their job was at stake by sight validation, the problem would be decreased significantly.

I think one of the more valuable benefits of this additional communication about the penalties of sight validation would be that a cashier could honestly say (as he/she can with alcohol sales w/o ID) "you know, I understand your frustration, but I can lose my job over this"; that generates sympathy for your situation from the customer, even if they are still frustrated.

TL;DR - Interesting. I was not aware of the huge liability.

keith781216 karma

Suggestion: take a picture of yourself with a piece of paper saying something about Reddit, containing your username, etc.

There are plenty of available pictures of Jeffrey Jordan that a picture submitted here should allay any concerns we have about this being fake.

keith78128 karma

Were you recruited by or did you have any interest in playing at the University of Michigan?

Given that Jordan Dumars, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jon Horford, and Glenn Robinson III were all on/will be on the team in the last few years, I have to think that it's more than a coincidence that there are so many sons of former NBA stars on the team.