Sometimes you head to the break room, the office hallway, the nearby laundromat and place a couple of quarters into a snack vending machine, hoping for something grand. Maybe you are craving Cheez-Its, or that Snickers bar is staring at you from the other side. Whatever it is you are aiming to get, you pop a quarter in and it falls back out the coin slot. Weird. So you try again.
And it’s stuck. It doesn’t fall back through, it doesn’t land inside the machine. You can see it in the slot, mocking you as the total amount of change that is flashing at you on the screen isn’t plus 25 cents. Anguish ensues.
So what do you do? Do you place another quarter in the snack vending machine? That could go one of three ways. Best case scenario, your first quarter goes through as does your second and everything is fine as you walk away, Snickers in hand. Or, your first quarter could go through but the second could get stuck, leaving you in the same predicament as before.
Or, in the worst case, they can BOTH get stuck. Now you’ve lost 50 cents and are no closer to enjoying peanut caramel goodness.
So will you take the risk?