I hate supermarkets. I hate all the stuff that others have mentioned - the scumbags with 34487754 items in the express lane, Mr Pimple-boy who takes ten years to get a price check, you name it.
But in the grand scheme of things, it’s not too bad. Not really. My local supermarket has done away with having a limit to the number of items allowed in the express lane (this ALWAYS ends in tears), and now simply has a sign saying “Express Lane - baskets only - NO TROLLEYS” - much easier to police, and less easy to think you can get away with a bit more. Similarly, the kids on the checkout are earning shit money, and it is a soul-crushingly dull job having to perform do-its for some little bum-fluff manager who is himself only a year older than you.
So, I think a lot of the people in this thread are being mean-spirited, uptight little vigilantes, and for no reason. You’re NOT a hero for “storming out” when a sixteen year-old has trouble with cashing a check, or for upending cartons of ice cream onto the floor. That’s not childish, much, is it? Of course, YOU don’t have to clean it up.
I have a question about the supermarket express lane. If the sign says ten items or less, and I have eight assorted items, plus six identical pints of peach-flavored yogurt, is it OK for me to stand in the express lane? What if I the six pints of yogurt are the same brand, but all different flavors?
It seems that in the first case, the cashier can ring up the six pints in almost the same time as one pint. And in the second case, I’ve often seen them ring up different flavors without separately scanning each (although that wreaks havoc with the store’s inventory control systems, so they probably shouldn’t do that).
Well, i can’t speak for anyone else, but if i have 6 identical cans of chickpeas in my basket, then i count them as 6 items towards my limit, not one. And i expect other people to do the same.
A story of a good manager. I think she was the Store Manager or Assistant Store Manager.
One day, I was in my local grocery store buying 20 or so items. As the preceeding customer leaves, I see the Manager and a young employee approach.
Manager to (my) Cashier: I hear you know how to use this[holds up a labelmaker-type device]
Cashier: Well, yes, but . . . [looks at me as if to say “Ack, I want to help the manager, and I’m supposed to ring up this customer at the same time”]
Manager: I’ll ring her up, you use the device.
I was happy, my stuff got rung up in a reasonable amount of time. Also happy, just because it always makes my mother happy to see a Store Manager type ringing people up.
And, cashier finished working with device about the same time my groceries were rung up, so he could go back to ringing up people.
I s’pose he could have asked the assistant manager to open a register, but otherwise, what did you expect him to do? He really couldn’t leave the transaction he was trying to fix, and I really hope you weren’t implying that he should have called the girl back from her break to re-open a register.
I realize his tone and such might have given you the impression that he didn’t care much about doing anything, but I am curious.
Last weekend I got stuck in an “Express Line” (8 items or less, cash only NO CHECKS!). The woman in front of the guy in front of me had half-a-buggy-full, and arranged it into 8-item piles. Queue eye-rolling. I watched the last two transactions from the line. Queue mild annoyance.
Then the guy in front of me started unloading his basket, which was deceptively full. I’d estimate 20 +/- items. Queue blood pressure increase, visible agitation. Then he paid by check. That’s when I whipped out my trusty blow torch and burned the building down.*
Years ago working the Kroger express line when it was 10 items or less, if I’m standing there with no customers and the other lines are backed up, I may ring someone up with slightly more than 10 items, just to pitch in- never a full basket though.
My test is whether the multiple items become one line on the receipt, or many. Six apples count as one item because they are weighed together and result in one line: “McIntosh apples 2.3lbs @ 1.39 = $3.20”. But six yogurts will occupy six lines on the receipt, and thus count as six items.
When deciding whether to complain, I always give the benefit of the doubt. So 27 yogurts of multiple varieties count as one item.
I once saw a cashier say that ‘the computer will only ring up 10 items in this lane’, and make the jerk customer separate them into piles of 10 or less. And then write a separate check for each pile. And made her show her identification again, for each check she wrote.
Actually, this probably had less to do with enforcing the 10-items-or-less rule than with the fact that this customer started out with a rude personal remark about the cashiers’ hairstyle when she walked up.
And yes, this probably made me wait longer than if the cashier had just rung up all the items at once. But I didn’t mind. I even complimented her on it (and said that her hairstyle was a lot nicer than that persons manners). And I did notice one person with a big basket full of items move to another checkout line, so maybe it did some good.
Better would have been to ring up 10 items and then send him to the back of the line for the next 10: "No sir - it doesn’t say ‘Piles of 10 items or less.’ You’ve had a full turn - now wait behind these people if you’d like another.
I’ve made people do that . Only I never bothered telling tales about the computer . Later we got self-checkouts. One of them was have the size of the other 3 and designated the express. If someone decided they wanted take a full cart through there we didn’t stop them, but didn’t bother bagging for them either. If the complain about it being to small or running out of room we kindly pointed to the 4 signs saying Express Self-Checkout, 10 items or less.
Once at Target I was in a ten or fewer line and I’d miscounted or forgotten about something small and it happened that I had eleven thing. Whoops, my mistake. The cashier made me pick the thing I didn’t want. That was a little odd.
I do too, except for kitty litter. For kitty litter the standard procedure is to put one on the belt and leave the rest of the bags in the cart, and just tell the cashier how many you have. So he/she is only ringing through one item, then hitting one key on the screen, so I count it as only one item toward my limit if I go to the express lane. That’s the only thing I do that for, though.
Well yes. Given the information I’ve already conveyed about the scenario, I’m sure you can see that she could have had the assistant manager open another register and deal with the line of disgruntled customers. There were three people hovering around. She could have said “I’ll fix this” and sent the dolt to another register and moved the line. She could have said “OK, you and he fix this and I’ll open another register and serve it.”
Or, given information I didn’t put in my post, she could have called in some of the other staff wandering around, or the girl behind the customer service counter who was filing her nails. Or any manner of creative, customer-oriented things to stop us getting immensely frustrating.
It’s not like I don’t have first-hand knowledge of this. I myself did a year behind the register at a hardware store. I liked to please the customers, and did stuff like that when I had to, legally and morally, even though I might have been in vague contravention of some arcane procedure.
. Only I never bothered telling tales about the computer 
. Later we got self-checkouts. One of them was have the size of the other 3 and designated the express. If someone decided they wanted take a full cart through there we didn’t stop them, but didn’t bother bagging for them either. If the complain about it being to small or running out of room we kindly pointed to the 4 signs saying Express Self-Checkout, 10 items or less.