Yeah, I figure the cashier yesterday gave me the discount as a friendly gesture of helping me save a buck fifty rather than scorning me for being "old". The previous time a cashier at this restaurant gave me the senior discount— which, OMG, was two years ago now— I challenged it, out of surprise more than anything else, and they explained with a smile they were just doing me a small favor. Thus this time I took it in stride.
As for not caring about maximizing the company's profits, I remember that when I worked fast food, the manager on duty was held accountable to a few profitability metrics on their shift. The main one was labor cost as a percentage of revenue, tallied in real time by the computers. (Yes, I, a "senior citizen", had computerized clock in/clock out system at my first job that wasn't a newspaper route!) If we peons started giving senior discounts left, right, and center, the assistant manager would've had to send one of us home early to align the numbers. Plus we'd probably get disciplined for tanking the store's numbers.
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As for not caring about maximizing the company's profits, I remember that when I worked fast food, the manager on duty was held accountable to a few profitability metrics on their shift. The main one was labor cost as a percentage of revenue, tallied in real time by the computers. (Yes, I, a "senior citizen", had computerized clock in/clock out system at my first job that wasn't a newspaper route!) If we peons started giving senior discounts left, right, and center, the assistant manager would've had to send one of us home early to align the numbers. Plus we'd probably get disciplined for tanking the store's numbers.