Change

by Jessica Guiton
After leaving the United States for the first time in my life I found myself walking the streets and taking in the sights of Florence, Italy. My first experience with a cultural and communication mis-match in this country occurred while making my first purchase in a gelateria. Upon purchasing two bottles of water, which cost two euro, I handed the woman at the cash register a bill for five euro. After looking down to put my wallet away I turned my attention back to the transaction expecting the woman to tell me the amount of my change and to hand me the coins. This is not what occurred. My understanding of the situation was that she forgot to give me my change, therefore; I told the woman that I gave her five euro and indicated that I still needed my change. The woman looked at me with an expression indicating her annoyance and pointed to two coins sitting on top of the counter. It turned out that the woman had remembered my change and she had placed it right in front of me while I wasn’t looking. In the United States it is rare that a cashier won’t hand you the change and in fact, I almost believe that it is disrespectful not to hand a person their change. After making several more purchases I noticed that it was very common in Italy for the cashier to simply place the change on the counter without anything more than a simple “grazie.” This cultural dissonance occurred because I was unaware of the way in which transactions occur and in fact I thought that handing another person money at a cash register was universal. Out of habit I still find myself handing my money directly to the cashier but now I expect my change to be placed on the counter.