At first it was annoying. A can would fall out of the six pack rings and you'd sit there struggling with it for a few minutes to stick it back in. Then it got to be a secret spy ability that you could put the cans back into a holder and mess with your parent's minds (my parent's minds were not on that solid of ground thanks to my efforts). Later as I took over stocking the dorm coke machine, it was all about how fast I could get the cans out of the stupid holder. Figured I knew just about all there was to know about those things in regards to a soda can.
So I was getting a fountain drink at the chevron station, and the guys were hanging out behind the counter, putting the plastic holders back on cans. At first I thought they had spilled some cans and were putting the holder back on. Then I saw one of them reach into a box where they had a whole role of these things and pull another few off. It turns out the station owner buys the cans without the plastic holders, then has the employees stand around putting them on manually. Its not that they're saving the money of not buying the holder, cause obviously they've got a whole box of them there. Somehow its cheaper to have people manually stick the things on than pay the bottling company an extra 0.3 cents a six pack to have a machine do it.
Must be really rewarding work too.
I used to have the job of stocking the Coke machine, when I worked in an office once. They came in cardboard trays wrapped around with heat-shrunk plastic sheeting, but I had a sword by my desk (it's a long story) so I'd take that with me to the little shared office kitchen, and slice the plastic open with it, just for show.
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