Managing change

I hate change.

No, not that kind of change. I really like "change" change. I want to be a change agent. My favorite song is Bowie's "Changes." Favorite movie: A Change of Seasons. And I'm all about Barack Obama's "Change you can believe in" slogan. (OK, none of those last three is remotely true. Just making a point here.)

No, the change I loathe is the money kind. Coins. Specie. Bullion.

You could say I'm an antinumismatist (although it's hard to). It's possible that I'm a chrometophobe, although that seems a stretch.

I hate how change wears a hole in my pants pocket, and how it jangles like a cowbell when I'm trying to sneak up on my associates to catch them playing Solitaire on their computers. (Hey, we don't bill by the hour, so how am I supposed to know if they're working?) (OK, another complete falsehood: our office is all Mac. Playing Solitaire is a strictly Windows activity.)

Change is also a leading indicator of personality. You can tell a lot about a cashier just by giving him or her five ones for an extra-large coffee and a blueberry muffin costing $4.01, as I did this morning at Dunkin' Donuts. You see, there are two types of cashiers in the world. The good kind, like the one this morning, count the bills, smile at you, and hand you the fifth dollar back. Your $4.01 breakfast just cost you $4.00. In some ways, this is the karmic payoff for all those times you receive a few grubby pennies back in change, which you then leave on the counter for a future unknown someone who's short a few cents.

The bad kind of cashier takes your five singles, then proceeds to count out 99 cents worth of copper-plated zinc and cupronickel alloy, which tears at your pocket linings while making you sound like an extra reindeer in your grade-school Christmas pageant.

This taxonomy of change-handlers isn't limited to cashiers. In fact, there are two types of people in the world: the "don't worry about the pennies" people and the "here's your change" people. The "don't worry about the pennies" people get what's important in life: giving you your caffeinated and sugar-infused sustenance, and getting more or less the right amount of cash in return (in this case, to within 99.75% accuracy). The "here's your change" people are so fixated on the bureaucratic administrivia that they can't understand that they're ruining the entire coffee-and-muffin ritual.

The bottom line: Only hire "don't worry about the pennies" people as managers and HR professionals. Give candidates a single-question entrance exam with the above coffee scenario. If you end up with a pocketful of bullion, take your money and run ... away from that candidate.