Cash or Credit?

The Scene: a busy Belgrade café, crowded. Weather slightly overcast, partly sunny, snow, 20 degrees, mid-January.

The Players: Man sitting alone, ready to order, with a newspaper, six books and 4,981 friends nearby (i.e., man-with-smartphone). And a Waiter.

Cash or credit card?

I haven’t ordered anything yet!

Cash or credit card?

Cash, then.

Bills or coins?

What?

Bills or coins?

Bills, I suppose.

Dinars or euros?

We’re not allowed to give you euros, are we?

Euros or Swiss francs?

I will pay in dinars, cash, in bills. Can I ORDER now?

Why do they need to know?

Having ordered many a coffee in many a café around the world, I think the only place where they need to know how you will be paying is Serbia. I do not recall having ever been asked or called upon to answer the question anywhere else under any other circumstances in my natural existence thus far.

And you are usually not allowed to change your mind once the decision has been made. When the waiter comes with the bill (which you have specified to be paid by credit card) and it comes to RSD 110, you might naturally wish to pay by cash instead. Furthermore, it always strikes me as a little surreal to be asked, when you have ordered something that costs less than one euro, if you are going to pay by credit card.

“I’ll have an espresso against which I will take a second mortgage on my mother’s house payable over twenty years at 6% interest… oh, and a glass of water, please.”

I am sure that there is a perfectly normal and acceptable explanation for the need to specify, but somehow I am not sure that the consumer needs to know – or wants to know for that matter. Yet by asking us the question, they set in motion a train of thought about the inner workings of the double books in operation in the back room of the café. These are thoughts generally NOT needed for most of us to conduct our daily affairs.

EXPOSITION: Man orders coffee, no milk, and a glass of water. Waits approximately 22 minutes. Waiter returns with the beverage. Man consumes it. Man wishes to pay.

Cash or credit card?

Cash. Here’s RSD 1000.

Exact change only, please.

EXIT STAGE LEFT

Christen Bradley Farmer, founder and president of MACH IV Consulting and co-founder of Farmer & Spaic, Business and Media Consulting, has been involved in numerous writing and publication projects since arriving in Serbia. Farmer regularly shares his observations on life in Belgrade in Politika and in his B92 English blog.