At grocery stores here you can generally swipe your card at any time during the transaction. That’s not true for other retail settings.
“ATM that skype calls to tellers?” I’ll let the branding people know the suck ass.
I agree pretty much across the board. ATMs: pull forward (there’s almost always a space for this, often without even going out of your way) to shuffle and sort and put things away. Gas pumps: same fuggin’ thing; don’t make me wait a minute or two more while you slowly rearrange your car to drive away - pull forward to clear the pump. Grocery stores: GODDAMMIT, LADY, YOU DON’T NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE TOTAL IS SHOWN TO ACT SURPRISED THAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO PAY.
They’re just seconds and minutes, but they add up and I resent them being stolen by oblivious idiots.
Fully agree with the OP. Count your cash and move the fuck outta the way! Even counting the cash right then and there isn’t necessary since the machine won’t be able to correct an error. The host of the machine has to check the audit data anyway.
You forgot to mention they throw their still lit cigarette out right below the ATM.
It’s 50-50 or higher. It tends to be small stores on a low-tier individual merchant-services provider that have limited integration of the checkout process. There is also an evident training/knowledge issue in some small stores - they don’t know how to enable the card reader early in the transaction, or haven’t been trained to do so. So they complete the sale while you wait, then wait while you do the card thing, wasting everyone’s time.
Here’s how the process works here:
- Wait for total transaction amount.
- Indicate whether you will be paying by i) cash, ii) credit, or iii) debit.
- Insert applicable chip-and-pin card.
- Confirm amount “Yes/No.”
- Enter PIN
- Wait for approval.
- Remove card.
Sometimes an option for “Do you want any cash back?” will appear here.
Much as it works down here, but there’s no reason everything but confirmation of the final total can’t be done while the clerk is doing his/her thing. Even then, most grocery stores just give a verbal announcement of the total and when you nod, they’re the ones to send it for processing.
Forcing the customer to wait until the clerk or checker is done is a waste of time. But the old ladies who wait for the total to even start fumbling with their purse… grrrrrrr… and they are legion. Some may actually be Legion.
That’s how card readers used to work around here when they first showed up a few years ago, but these days, step 1 is “Wait for the first item to be scanned.” Steps 2 through 6 can be done while they’re scanning the rest of the stuff you’re buying. There is no step 7, as the readers are all swipe models - they don’t hold on to your card.
Try reading for comprehension.
I said “wait their turn, like I did.” I don’t consider myself special in this regard.
And while I wouldn’t say that I never get impatient waiting for other people, I have learned in the fullness of years not to sweat the small stuff, like waiting a minute or two longer than may seem necessary to me. It is not true that every single event in one’s life is of earth-shaking importance. If I have to wait a little longer, so what? If I can’t afford the time, I’ll come back another time.
On the other hand, if I have left everything until the last minute and have to do 10 things in the time it normally takes to do 3 things, then I can see someone getting impatient. But that’s what I mean by planning better.
Roddy
I support this pitting.
If there are people in line behind you, move forward. That’s whether you are at the ATM, grocery shopping, paying for gas, or buying fucking girl scout cookies. You don’t need to arrange everything at the counter, get out of the fucking way!
…and then pull out a checkbook…GAH!
Every chance I get.
As an incidental, though, I find I rarely swipe my cards. Rather, my cards have chip technology (I understand this is relatively uncommon in the U.S.) so I insert them into the readers and enter a PIN. The magnetic strip (or the reader) has failed often enough that I don’t even bother trying to swipe any more.
Of course, I have absentmindedly walked away without my card on at least one occasion, so it’s a trade-off.
Stupid people aren’t just slow thinkers, they are slow doers. I think it’s because they can’t remember more than one step in a sequence at a time. Everything that happens to them is a little surprise: oh, I have to enter my PIN; oh, now it’s giving me money; oh, now I have to put that money away;…
Their whole meaningless lives are one moment of mundane surprise after another. Get the fuck out of our way.
Totally agree with the OP. Get the fuck out of the way!
So true. So sad. 30-second transactions take 4 minutes.
Wow. Just, I can’t begin to say how sad these last posts make me. Do you have no feelings other than “Me, Me, Get Out Of My Way!”? Grab a breath and smell the roses, for shit’s sake.
There is a certain mindset illustrated by these posts that I just hate. Everybody else is in the way. Everybody else is too stupid to live. Everybody else just doesn’t get it. Look at me, I’m so smart, but everyone else is stupid.
Are you completely unable to put yourself in another person’s position, without deciding that they are stupid and slow?
Maybe one day someone will tell you to get the hell out of their way, and you will gain some small glimmer of understanding of how completely self-absorbed you are.
Roddy
Writing this post took two minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.
Why can’t you put yourself in our positions and get the fuck out of our way? Why is your “stop and smell the roses” more relevant than my view that you should have some awareness of other people and not needlessly inconvenience them?
I wanted to go smell the roses, but the four people in front of me in line took so long to figure out how to pay that I ran out of time. I don’t usually like to spend my leisure time waiting in my car at the ATM or in line at the supermarket. Your mileage varies, I guess.
Okay, you’re right. The next time I’m leaving a store and you’re behind me, I’m going to stop in the doorway and spend a good minute snuffing and stretching and enjoying the fresh air.
You can wait, right?