Comments on: WEDNESDAY WHINE: Slow People in Checkout Lines

By: Kellie

Kellie — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:33:07 +0000

I work at a small grocery chain in Indiana. I think there are only 6 or 7 stores total, so there is not much of a chance of you shopping there. I think a lot of the problem is that many people can’t or don’t want to figure out a debit card. My parents don’t have one. They are about as un-technologically savvy as they come. My mother is surprised when she can turn on the computer and my father still hasn’t mastered the technique that is cut and paste… but that is another story.

By: Ricky

Ricky — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:44:47 +0000

Good to know. Which grocery store do you work at? I’ve used the early swipe technique at Publix and Target and never had a problem… it speeds things up tremendously, although some cashiers don’t realize I already swiped my card and stand there staring at me wondering why I’m not paying until they realize THEY need to press a button to finish the transaction.

By: Kellie

Kellie — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:11:55 +0000

I know I’m a bit late to do this, but I’ll chime in. At the grocery store in which I work, you actually can’t swipe your card until all the items are scanned and the cashier has punched in the total, asked if it is debit or credit, and pressed another button. Then you can swipe your card, enter your PIN, get asked for cash back, press yes or no, (If yes, enter cash back amount), and confirm the total cost.

And that is just the system for credit/debit cards. You should see the ordeal that they must go through to write a check…

By: Ricky

Ricky — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:13:40 +0000

Ann – There’s a reason why it’s called a whine. :) I’m sure you have plenty of silly little things that you complain about every once in a while… you probably just don’t do it on a blog. I never said my whines were important. But based on the comments above, it seems that plenty of people do agree with them!

By: Ann

Ann — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:01:33 +0000

You sure find a lot of things to whine about, don’t you? I started following your blog lately and the complaints are insane. I think you should just move out into the country and live far away from others if you can’t deal with the way people choose to do things. Everyone has their own ways they do things and their own reason why. I looked back at your whine post about picking kids up from the bus stop, totally ok in the hot FL weather imo and now this about how people check out? Yes, the more than 10 items in the fast lane is out of hand, but how fast people check out in the regular line? Get a grip! There are much bigger things to worry about in this world. Find some time doing something positive worth posting about!

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:20:27 +0000

Nothing beats trying to bypass the long lines and running into a crowd of people that have no clue as to work the self checkouts as well.

By: Mr Wesley

Mr Wesley — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:05:00 +0000

I live in a test market, so I don’t know if the rest of the world has these yet. On the rare occasions we don’t have the cash on hand for groceries and need the paper check because we need the extra couple of days it’ll take for the check to clear–in those instances, it doesn’t take any more time because the cashiers have a special check scanner that will scan the bottom of a blank check and attribute the charge to your checking account normally. Takes no time at all.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:52:24 +0000

Agreed–every week, our grocery trip ends with a game show: Do we choose line #1, 2 or 3?

Sometimes we’ll think we’ve picked the “short line” but end up waiting forever for the reasons you mentioned OR because the cashier is slow. We’ve had cashiers that have trouble finding barcodes, cashiers that pick and choose which groceries to scan (to an obnoxious degree, much more than the “don’t put cans on top of bread” thing.

Along the same lines, there are the cashiers that put one item in each grocery bag, or put too much in each bag.

But that’s off the topic.

Self-checkout also goes slow sometimes–but it’s funny to see those people looking around at the whole machine and hesitating as they wave their hand around, choosing which buttons to press.

But again, sometimes the MACHINES are obnoxious: “please place item in bagging area.”
“I DID!”
“Please place item in bagging area.”
“I DIIIIIIIIID!!!”

By: Puppatoons

Puppatoons — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:33:30 +0000

Yes, the women who wait until the WHOLE order is scanned, and then get out their purse, then fish around in it, THEN GET OUT THE CHECKBOOK are the ones I would love to slap unconscious.

By: K

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:42:49 +0000

You know what pisses me off is when online forms loss your information during a validity check like this one did. It was a pretty good post. Oh well, guess I should go meditate know to calm the nerves.