For the love of Christ: "Express Lane, 1-16 Items" Means ONE to SIXTEEN ITEMS!

[ltfire]

Here’s how one guy solved his problem at the check out.

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803250337

[Ca3799]

@Ravenman

I just thought of this: instead of signs that say, “Express Lane: Less than 15 items,” the signs should say, “Express Lane: $10 fee for more than 15 items.”

Then let the free market sort it all out.

Genius!

[myskepticsight]

Whenever I’m at the store, no one ever uses the self-checkouts. Afraid maybe, or too much stuff for it to be worth it.

You do have to be a fucking idiot to not know how to work it, unfortunately these people exist I suppose.

But yeah, I rarely need to buy a lot of stuff at a supermarket or Target or wherever, so I always qualify for the express lane.

People that take too many items suck ass, but so do super chatty customers and CASHIERS even. Express lane = no chatting unless something productive is being done. This happens at Target sometimes - anyone see the Target spoof on SNL? When the cashier is way chatty and “OOh where did you get that???” and runs off etc. If you’re working the express lane, you are polite, but don’t make extra chatter if it slows you done or after the transaction is completed. Same for you customers, shut up. Please.

[papergirl]

I have to tell you that recently I found myself, cart completely unloaded of about 800 items and in the middle of the actual check-out process, when I overheard the words “express line” behind me. The speaker wasn’t bitching, just asking his or her shopping companion, but it got my attention and I realized, to my complete horror, that yes, I was the Unsufferable Person Who Goes Through Express with 800 Items.
I’m not someone who gets embarassed easily, but I seriously thought I might pass out from from sheer humiliation. I apologized profusely to both the cashier and the person behind me, and both of them were gracious to the point that then I felt even worse. My cheeks are burning even as I type this.
Anyway, I was hoping I could alleviate your frustration by noting that even nice people get harried and miss the obvious signage sometimes, but apparently the person in front of you wasn’t the overly-distracted type who deserves some compassion. Hussy.
I also do shopping for elderly people, and sometimes that means I have three orders to process at once. (So maybe she was shopping for two people, but she still didn’t belong in the express lane.) I try to go when the stores aren’t too busy, and try to let people know that I have several orders so they can go to another line.
I do love those U Scan lines. In, out, and you’re on your way.

[OtakuLoki]

@Manduck

I don’t think they should accept debit cards in the express lane. It always takes 5-10 attempts before the gadget will accept the card, and then the customer will screw up the PIN, etc. It’s the express line, dammit! Cash only!! I’m in a hurry!

I don’t know where you are, but usually I’ve got my debit card run through, PIN entered, and my wallet put away long before the cashier is checking my items. Even if I’m in the 15 item express line. (I’m not quick enough to beat the 7 item cashier, I’ll admit) I think it’s less a problem with the debit card than with the ID10T using it.

Though - the store does deserve to be slapped with a trout, too, for letting their card readers get that worn out.

[Manduck]

@OtakuLoki

I don’t know where you are, but usually I’ve got my debit card run through, PIN entered, and my wallet put away long before the cashier is checking my items. Even if I’m in the 15 item express line. (I’m not quick enough to beat the 7 item cashier, I’ll admit) I think it’s less a problem with the debit card than with the ID10T using it.

Though - the store does deserve to be slapped with a trout, too, for letting their card readers get that worn out.

It seems like every card reader in every store around here is flaky. Or maybe it only happens when I happen to be waiting in the same line. I don’t use a debit card myself, but I have noticed that credit card readers seem to always work first time, but debit card readers are hopeless.

[Jragon]

@myskepticsight

Whenever I’m at the store, no one ever uses the self-checkouts. Afraid maybe, or too much stuff for it to be worth it.

You do have to be a fucking idiot to not know how to work it, unfortunately these people exist I suppose.

But yeah, I rarely need to buy a lot of stuff at a supermarket or Target or wherever, so I always qualify for the express lane.

People that take too many items suck ass, but so do super chatty customers and CASHIERS even. Express lane = no chatting unless something productive is being done. This happens at Target sometimes - anyone see the Target spoof on SNL? When the cashier is way chatty and “OOh where did you get that???” and runs off etc. If you’re working the express lane, you are polite, but don’t make extra chatter if it slows you done or after the transaction is completed. Same for you customers, shut up. Please.

Our K-Marts used to have a brilliant piece of technology for the self-checkouts… the chashier had to approve your purchase, and only they knew the codes for non-barcoded items (no lookup book).

I wonder why they had to get rid of those? :rolleyes:

[Frank]

@myskepticsight

Unless you’re buying something without a barcode (fresh fruit or veg you bagged yourself) or booze/smokes (ID check) it’s a breeze.

For those of us who don’t get ID’d anymore, and are capable of reading the number on the sticker on the veggies/fruit, it’s still a breeze. It’s a nice window of opportunity. At some point my brain will fail, and bananas (4011) will begin to defeat me.

[Green_Bean]

@Cluricaun

Who the white piping hot fuck writes checks out of state anymore?

Who even writes checks in-state?

I had to tell a customer today that the store where I work doesn’t accept checks. She was pretty cheesed off and said “Oh, I can’t believe a store in Westfield wouldn’t take a check!” What difference does it make what town we’re in? Sheesh! I told her that she was only the second person in 6 months that had attempted to write a check.* Maybe that was bitchy of me, but COME ON! Then she started bitching about how she doesn’t like to put things on credit cards. Uh…haven’t you heard of that newfangled thing called a debit card? She paid cash, anyway.

For what it’s worth, the other check-writer didn’t get upset that we didn’t accept checks. She just laughed at herself for being old-fashioned and paid some other way.

[RTFirefly]

@Ravenman

I just thought of this: instead of signs that say, “Express Lane: Less than 15 items,” the signs should say, “Express Lane: $10 fee for more than 15 items.”

Then let the free market sort it all out.

Or if it’s, say, 15 items or less, there’s a $1 surcharge on the 16th item, a $2 charge on the 17th item, a 3 charge on the 18th item, etc. Then if someone wants to go through the express lane with 25 items, and they want to pay an additional (1+2+3+…+10) = $55 for the privilege, I’d have no problem with that.

@Ravenman

My second grocery store improvement idea: you have to have a specific kind of bonus/extra value/shopper’s discount card to use the self-checkout. And to get that card, you have to prove you can use the fucking machine, including how to look up produce on the touch screen.

Absofuckinglutely.

2-3 years ago, in my part of southern MD, there were a number of instances where stores put in a few of the self-checkout lanes, and then pulled them out again a few months later when the customers couldn’t handle them. I can think of only a couple of stores around here that still have 'em, dagnabbit.

[Dangerosa]

@bodypoet

I have to tell you that recently I found myself, cart completely unloaded of about 800 items and in the middle of the actual check-out process,…

Hey, haven’t seen you around in ages. Looks like you’ve been around for a month or so, but did I notice…no. Welcome back.

[Little_Nemo]

She then pays for the first bunch of items separately. By the time the old woman between us is grumbling audibly. Now she goes through the rigamarole of starting to pay for the second group. She turns to the old lady and says in a neener-neener voice, “See, I only have fifteen items.”

“No you don’t!” says the old lady angrily.

“Yes, I…”

“Ma’am,” I say politely, because this was stewing up to be an argument that would just hold things up longer, “you have 25 items, I counted. Would you please…”

“No I don’t!” she said. “I have fifteen. THEEEEESE things are for someone else. I’m buying them for someone else.”

If she was counting her order as two seperate orders then she should have gone through the line two seperate times. Ring up the first fifteen items in her cart and then make her go back to the end of the line and wait until she gets back to the cashier to ring up the rest.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Taters

Amen to that! You handled it better than I would have.

I also have discovered that I am less tolerant of rude people and stupidity in general. Like you, when I was younger, I’d just shrug and not say anything. Now, I say something.

I’m only just turning 44 this month. What’ll I be like when I’m 64?!

Ask Paul McCartney, he knows.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

And as to the OP, yeah, that shit is frustrating. The people that abuse the rule of an item limit in the express lane are likely the exact same people that park in handicapped spaces (while making handicapped faces!) because “They’re only going to be a minute, who does it hurt?.”

[VinylTurnip]

About two years ago I saw a commercial for some credit card company, in which a shady-looking guy stuffed the pockets of his trenchcoat with stuff and then tried to walk out the door, and a cop stopped him to give him his receipt. Implying that in the brave new world of Tomorrowland, we’ll be able to walk out the door and automatically be debited, and never have to wait in Express Lanes or any other kind of goddamned line ever again.

So what the hell ever happened with that?

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Algorithm

The express lane signs in my local grocery store now say “About 12 items”, so as to not make the assholes who bring 38 items in to the line feel uncomfortable.

The express lane in my local grocery store accepts checks. :rolleyes:

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

I go into whatever line I want unless the store has enough lanes and has all of the lanes open. If the store is not going to have enough lanes open, I should not have to suffer. If I have 4o items and I want to go into the express lane that is between me and the store. I have never been told by a store employee to go to a different line. This completely different than the handicap parking situation. There is no express lane law. It is just a policy the store has and the store is free to disregard it which they always do. I think of it as more of a suggestion.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Two and a Half Inches of Fun

I go into whatever line I want unless the store has enough lanes and has all of the lanes open. If the store is not going to have enough lanes open, I should not have to suffer. If I have 4o items and I want to go into the express lane that is between me and the store. I have never been told by a store employee to go to a different line. This completely different than the handicap parking situation. There is no express lane law. It is just a policy the store has and the store is free to disregard it which they always do. I think of it as more of a suggestion.

Dude, obviously it’s not a LAW as you suggest, but the sign hanging over the entrance to the Express Lane CLEARLY says how many items you should have. I never complain if it’s say 20 items instead of sixteen, because the advent of lasr scanners and debit cards makes most of these transactions pretty quick.
but to INTENTIONALLY defy the Express Lane “rule” simply because you CAN is an asshole move, and people have a right to be pissed at you for it.
The analogy I used about handicapped spaces is correct: many people do that and by the time anyone reports them abusing the parking spot, they are already gone.
It doesn’t make it right in either instance, you clown.

[Q.E.D]

@Two and a Half Inches of Fun

I think of it as more of a suggestion.

Yeah, sorta like that suggestion to “Return Carts Here.” I prefer to park them right up against the car of the asshole I saw go through the express lane with 40 items. If it scratches the paint in the process, that’s too bad, but it’s the store’s fault for not making sure their carts don’t have sharp edges.

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Dude, obviously it’s not a LAW as you suggest, but the sign hanging over the entrance to the Express Lane CLEARLY says how many items you should have. I never complain if it’s say 20 items instead of sixteen, because the advent of lasr scanners and debit cards makes most of these transactions pretty quick.
but to INTENTIONALLY defy the Express Lane “rule” simply because you CAN is an asshole move, and people have a right to be pissed at you for it.
The analogy I used about handicapped spaces is correct: many people do that and by the time anyone reports them abusing the parking spot, they are already gone.
It doesn’t make it right in either instance, you clown.

The analogy is false. My transaction with the store is totally voluntary on behalf of both parties (myself and the store). If they do not want me to use the express line then can refuse my transaction. Either they accept my counteroffer to purchase the goods in the express lane or they do not. Just like if Circuit City has limit of 3 purchases of an item and they let me buy four. Sure it is against the original offer, but I made a counteroffer and they accepted. In the handicap parking case, we the people have made a decision that there are certain spaces that are reserved―no counter offers are possible.