10 items or less?

How would this cashier have dealt if you had arrived with 10 items in your cart, and then decided, on the spur of the moment, to purchase the pack of chewing gum that they have on the registers, placed there for the express purpose of making you want to buy it while you are already in line?

Are the store managers expecting you to under-shop, simply so that you can make the purchase of this impulse item, or will they willingly let that go by, because their higher margin items are the “extra” groceries?

In February, 2002 CourtTV reported a case of “supermarket rage” in Lowell, Massachusetts. A 38 year old woman attacked a woman in her 50s. “Police say {Kathy} Morgan berated the 51-year-old woman inside the supermarket for not being able to count and then later drove up and stopped her as she walked home with her groceries. After a brief exchange of words, Morgan got out of the car, pulled the victim by her hair and punched her. As the woman fell to the ground, Morgan allegedly struck her with a knee and continued to kick her in the head before driving off.”

Is there any chance the cashier and/or the guy behind you could have been joking?

(That’s the trouble with Real Life: no smilies. :wink: )

When I worked as a cashier, I was nearly always put on the express checkout line. (Unfortunately, I’d perfected my “pick up the item, scan it and put it in the bag in one motion” routine under the eyes of the profit-margin-obsessed manager.) I often saw people coming through the express “10-items-or-less [sic]” line with well over the allowed limit for items, so I asked P-M-O manager what our store policy was for such people.

His response: Don’t say a word. We don’t want to cause any trouble here (especially not after the robbery in our parking lot, but that’s another story). So, in our store at least, all questions about whether 10 oranges in a bag counted as one item, or whether 10 cans of soup counted as one item (my personal pet peeve) were moot. Let 'em through, and hope that the angry glares of the other customers dissuaded them from doing it the next time.

One clerk pulled that on me and I left the store in a huff, with all my food clogging her station. I didn’t come there to argue. If it fits in a handbasket, they should handle it no matter how they count the oranges.

This amazes me. The store I used to work in gave strict orders that we cashiers were NEVER supposed to enforce the “10 Items or Less” rule. If a customer with a heaping cart came through the line, you were to ring them up without any comment, or face the dreaded “write-up.”

When I worked retail, it was just the opposite. We were encouraged to direct people over the limit to the other registers, even if they were unloaded. 3 or 4 items over the limit would usually be fine, but we were directed to send the full-cart customers with 47 million items (to differentiate from the full-cart customer with 4 large items, that is) out of the express lane. That’s the one single policy the managers would back us on when someone threw a fit.

How about this for an uncomfortable situation:
I have about 40 items in my cart and the official “register director” directs me to go to the “10 items or less” lane which has no people and a bored checker chatting it up with the bag boy. As soon as I get into the line, 3 people suddenly show up behind me counting my stuff (even though it is obvious that I have more than 10- they have to know so that they can decide how angry they are going to get), sighing and giving me looks. I wish the director would have given me a pass to display!
Uncomfortable situation #2: I am in line with my 40 items and the register director runs by and tells the checker to switch on her “10 items or less sign” immediately. I get the same response from my fellow shoppers.
Bottom line- it is just a grocery line, lighten up!

Lately i have been seeing the “Handbaskets Only” lanes as Express Lanes… were you can only use the provided handbaskets.

One time i turned up with a couple of packs of gum and the woman says “Im sorry you dont have a handbasket” and i just blankly stared and her before she started giggling like a school girl.

Also, what prevents people from taking 2 or 3 handbaskets?
I dont know…

pack of gum… 25 sticks… uh oh :slight_smile:

ive noticed something though…

every single time i go to the local super walmart… i laugh. no matter what, the express lane is always COMPLETELY PACKED even if every other single lane only has 1 full shopping cart in it. i cant count how many times ive had only a few items and picked a lane with 3 or 4 full shopping carts and left the store before i would have if i picked the express lane with 20 people in it… i usually look at the person i would have been in line behind then get in another line… by the time im done that person is usually only halfway done.

what really makes me laugh are the stores with the 25 items or less lane… wtf… 25 items or less? there is nothing ‘express’ about 25 items!

That’s what it should be.

[ul]:confused: [sup]Maybe having only two hands?[/sup][/ul]

A similar idea was done in a Smack the Pony (I think) sketch -

A man is in the 5 items or less queue and has exactly five items, including a bag of something that is on a “buy one, get one free” offer. The cashier says “This is buy one, get one free”, to which he replies “But I only want one”. She looks blankly at him and goes “Buy one, get one free” and calls an attendant over to fetch the second item, in spite of the shopper’s protests. When it arrives, the person in the queue behind him points out that he now has six items and he is forcibly removed to the next checkout…

Gim

I’m irritated by the “10 or less” rule, and I always get in that line if I’m within15 items. And when I buy cat food by the can, I count that as one item, because I always buy all the same flavor, even if it’s a dozen cans. I don’t slow things down with coupons, which many people do. And I try to have my check started before I get up to the cashier. I figure, if I’m a quick check-out, is shouldn’t matter that I have more than 10 items.

Forget the 10 items or less…writing a check in the express lane should be grounds for a merciless beating about he face and hands.

My fav-o-rite grocery store has a 5 items or less cash only lane…heaven on Earth.

::stuyguy reads Court TV case above and smiles with satisfaction that the some moron who thought it was honky dory to abuse the express line got what she had comin’::

Needless to say, I detest shoppers who ignore the check-out line limits. The only thing worse are the spineless worm merchants who won’t enforce their own friggin’ rule.

My favorite check-out story was posted on this board way back. A sassy, take-no-sh*t check-out girl was manning the 10-Items-or-Less line. A customer with more than 10 items reaches the front of the line. She starts ringing up the items, counting them as she goes:

1…2…3…

When she hits 10 – and there are still items on the counter – she gives the guy a dirty look and without missing a beat starts UNRINGING them, also counting as she goes.

10…9…8…

God, I love that story!

Ah, but how many aspirin were in that bottle?

So you started out by doing something inconsiderate, and when called on it, decided to do something even more inconsiderate, even at your own expense? Classy.

Papermache Prince

I would say this action was justified. Of it were up to me, “10 items or less” checkouts should be operated on a basis that anything above the 10 items should be charged at triple rate (quintuple rate, 10x rate … anything that really hurts offenders badly) or that security guards should force them to put offending items back on the shelves. What is the point of these checkouts if they let these people get away with it?

Good thought as long as you are not buying soda-pop in recyclable cans in California. The deposit comes up as a separate item, leading clerks to chastise the innocent.