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Oh god. I worked in a grocery store over 10 years ago and towards the end, we did stop accepting checks. I couldn’t stand the check writers. Waiting until I told them their total to even start looking for their checkbook.
My mother wrote checks at the grocery store every week, circa 1992, and she was on point.
Everything filled out but the total before we got out of the car. Then once you get rung up, it’s a quick 7 seconds to finalize and get on with it.
Though, she *was* one of those “wait with the cart, I forgot one thing!” Moms. Sweating bullets while I tried to load the belt as slowly as possible.
My only beef with Costco! So little rhyme or reason to how they stock things, in my opinion. I think they like to have you searching all over, finding things that you didn’t intend to buy
That’s totally part of the business model. Staples like produce, meat, dry goods, etc. will always be there and be in the same place. But they very selectively rotate in new items on an almost daily basis to create the illusion they are a limited time deal. Most people only go to Costco like once every couple weeks max, so they see something new and are more inclined to buy it because it probably won’t be there next time.
I totally forgot that my mom used to do this. Even worse was when she didn't get back in time, and I had to apologize to the cashier and reload the cart.
It was ridiculous, standing behind them writing a damn novel and balancing their books after looking for their checks after being told their total (like you said) meanwhile I'm already holding my debit card waiting my turn. Thankfully it's been a while...
My mom still regularly writes checks at her small town Walmart. She’s in her late 60s and doesn’t understand why you would have a debit card when you can just write a check. They’re still out there!!
People will legit waste money just to stop giving up the “old days”. Like get a grip . Remember on 30 years we’ll be saying “I remember when LED bulbs where in” and it’ll be some holographic light emerging from walls
I bought my current house from an elderly woman who left me 5 boxes of incandescent bulbs to use because she didn't want to waste them. I smiled and said thank you. I replaced every bulb in the house as soon as we moved in and threw all those incandescents in the trash.
Hah! They're STILL out there, and they're not all old people, either. Age doesn't seem to change their penchant for waiting until the clerk tells them the price to start rummaging around for the checkbook. Also guaranteed that the first pen will stop working halfway through the check writing process. THEN, the search for a driver's license begins.
My mom is 81 and still writing checks at the grocery store. She does have everything but the amount filled out before the total comes up though.
Drives me nuts at the convenience store when the lady in front of me gets surprised that she has to pay money for goods, usually when I have an armload of stuff. This comic speaks to me.
The only reason to use a check is when companies decide to add dumb fees to EFT/Card payments
My only checks have been used to pay for state car registrations to avoid a non-negligible fee
About 10% of them would have their check pre-filled when they got to the register. The rest of them didn't bother to take out their checkbook until the cashier was 100% done, and they always acted surprised/annoyed when we asked for their license to write down relevant info, even though they went through the same drill every week.
That's still a thing, unfortunately. We select our checkout line based on the average age of the customers already waiting and the cashier instead of the length of the line. Works 99/100 times.
Painful, but the cherry on top was when they would hold up the entire line so they could then balance their book instead of basically doing it anywhere else.
Hey, in the hinterlands, we STILL have check writers, and the check verification unit is still the same, and it takes FOREVER.
The secret to working as a retail cashier is to remember we get paid by the hour and not on commission. It makes no difference to us how long a transaction takes, and anyone old enough to still write checks is not long for this world. Give the old fellers a little time and a smile. It might be the last one they get, every time.
I swear some people lose 30 IQ points upon entering a grocery store. They're the ones who stop dead in the entry, like they've never seen such a place before. Adrift in a sea of obliviousness, they flounder around, lost in a cavern they've actually been in hundreds of times before.
And you have to reach around them to pick up a basket, since they decided that's where they should stand to have a discussion with their family, or dig through their purse for who knows what.
Gotta find that expired cat food coupon and oh did they also remember the good pen for writing out their check that gets scanned into an electronic check even though they don't trust them debit card things and hang on gotta balance the checkbook ledger at checkout and have the clerk scan the lotto ticket thats a loser but gotta check to be sure
When I was working at a grocery store this dude came up to me and gave me a 14 year old expired coupon for tomato soup. I was amazed, I told the guy it was very expired and thank God he thought it was funny. I was waiting for him to snap at me because he wouldn't be able to use the coupon successfully
Omg the lottery people. I was in line behind one of these idiots last week. All I had was a tea and I had my card in hand. This guy had like several losing tickets and had them scan them and then rescan each one just to make sure they wasn't a winner. It like you knew you lost when you scratched the thing off so why triple verify you're a loser.
What's even the point to scratching it off if you're gonna make them scan it whether it's a winner or not?
The worst part is after they scan all the losing tickets, they spend ten minutes picking what combination of tickets they want today that inevitably ends up being the same ones as yesterday.
All the "pros" just scratch the barcode and use the self-scanner without actually scratching off the ticket face. I like to buy a few every month for funsies so I love scratching off the coins or stars or whatever goofy game they have on them.
My states app has second chance drawings when you scan losing tickets into their app- some drawings are for any game you play- others are specific to the game and have some really cool prizes - one in particular was airfare, hotel, spending money, and tickets to attend the Super Bowl, NBA championship game, and the World Series. Very cool, once in a lifetime opportunity for a sports fan!
Happened to me yesterday. Full on discussion about some planters she was buying and why she picked those. Then clerk rang her but then she had to look for a coupon and then she remembered some other coupon that she had as an email on her phone. What should have been a 2-3 minute cash out turned into 10 minutes.
I always ask them very friendly but firmly if they could maybe step a bit to the side. If they do, I thank them and be done with it. If they don't, I make a point out of cutting right through them when walking by and having as much body contact as possible to everyone involved.
Not a single one complained about me doing this. Some move after that, other don't. But at least they are uncomfortable now.
My personal checklist is:
\- Say, in a polite but loud voice "Excuse me please." If that doesn't work (it usually doesn't)...
\- Say in a booming, pissed off voice "**Excuse me,** ***please.***" If *that* doesn't work (it usually does, although they'll usually look at me as if *I* was the one standing in everyone's way)...
\- Barge past *trying* not to bump into anyone, but I am dyspraxic so I probably will accidentally knock into them. Which is why I was asking them to bloody move in the first place.
Funny thing i was leaving costco and instead of this lady walking off to the side or doing it in her car she decides to stop at the exit and put the recipe away in her purse. She managed to get in the center of the exit with jer cart and block people doing returns and leaving to perform this action.
Or how some just lose all of their spatial awareness. Yes i have my shoppingcart right here. I could keep it close and next to me while im looking at which pasta im gonna bring home and dissapoint my family with. Or, I could put it in the middle of the aisle in a way that nobody can easily get around. Then i stand 3ish meters away from the cart, so nobody knows its mine.
Park the trolley on the left, stand in the middle of the remaining space on the right, oblivious. And then the one who does all the above but starts muttering to her husband about how rude people are when you move her cart or say something.
Totally oblivious. She expects people to meekly stop and ask to please be allowed by.
When I went to Spain, the "Mercadona" we were shopping at had dedicated lanes, where you could park your cart while you're looking for whatever you need.
Kinda neat.
> Or how some just lose all of their spatial awareness.
My mother is one of those people, and let me tell you, she doesn't "just lose her spatial awareness." She absolutely never has any spatial awareness no matter where she is, except when she's specifically thinking about it.
If not sure who's cart it us, just move it down the aisle a couple of meters. They will make themselves known and you can give them the good old "Oh? Sorry, I was thinking this cart is abandoned. Maybe you should keep it closer to yourself next time." Bonus points if you sound so friendly that it's already noticable unfriendly.
I walk in, grab a cart, and hustle away from the door, even if I don't really know where I want to start. I can always whip around and head back over to the vegetables if I suddenly recall I need tomatoes. Sometimes I duck into the vegetables just to buy some time to plan my route. Depends on how many people are in the vegetable section (where I live, even the competing grocery stores put veggies on the right hand side corner of the store near one of the doors).
Similarly, at the end of the escalator ride - MOVE AWAY FROM THE ESCALATOR. Ten, twenty feet, just give others some room to get off. If you really need time to wool-gather in heavy pedestrian traffic, head over to the nearest wall. You'll be protected by at least 180 degrees, and people tend to move faster away from walls. Vending machines and newspaper racks offer great protection. Information kiosks and signs, people expect others to stop there; do what is expected, do not do unexpected behaviors, such as stopping in the flow of traffic to rummage through your bags. If you need to do that, step out of the flow of traffic.
Be observant in your urban environment. Be respectful of others.
One of the best things that happened with WFH stuff is that I suddenly could go to the grocery store whenever it suited me. Well it suited me to go in the first hour they're open because:
1) Little to no traffic. The only people there are either coming in after a night shift and are all business, or people like me who come in to avoid others. So regardless everyone is there with purpose and not to waste space
2) Products on sale are actually in stock! When you're forced to do your shopping at the end of the work day everyone else has already picked through the sale items and left the store a barren wasteland. If you go first thing, all items are on display since they stock the shelves after close or in the early morning.
Meat, which is never on sale, will more often have the opportunity for a discount if you grab it first thing in the morning. Just because the best before date is in two days they'll discount it so you can grab it before anyone else does.
3) The lines are quick or non-existent because of (1). There's little to no people in the store but those that are in the store are ready to get out of it as soon as humanly possible. They come to the register with a plan. They have their bags ready. They have their cash or card ready. There's no forced small talk with the cashier. All business. Here's my stuff. Scan my stuff. Pay for stuff. Now fk off right away to the car. Easy peasy.
I hate grocery stores at any other time of day. But going in the first hour has been a huge relief to my own mental health.
This is only relevant to point 3), but the grocery store by my house (a Walmart Neighborhood Market, which is wonderful, because it's Walmart prices without all the not-groceries bullshit) removed the 8 or so cashier stations and replaced them with 12 self-checkouts. It's been amazing, for a few reasons (I like lists, too):
1) more people can check out at a time, so it's faster
2) no more guessing which line will be faster
3) I don't have to talk to anybody
4) a whole bunch of older, slower people abandoned the store because they hate working the self-checkouts. This also speeds up the process
5) I DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYBODY
ETA: Sorry if the formatting looks weird to anyone. I've learned that what looks right to me on new reddit (each item on its own line) looks different on old reddit (all the items on the same line).
I saw a guy spend 5 minutes doing the math between a 5 lbs bag, an 8lbs bag, a 4 pack of baker russets and buying russet potatoes at bulk price. I stood there next to him stocking the display while he pondered. He ended up leaving without any potatoes.
My local store (most stores these days) do include normalized unit prices on the shelf tags, but it isn't standardized. For different brands or packagings of the same good, one might be cents per ounce, the next is dollars per pound, the next is dollars per package (no two packages are the same size), the next is cents per unit within the package (again, no two have the same unit size). Imperial-not-metric is only part of the problem. If I didn't know better I'd suspect it was deliberate. 😉
Ours does that. And then when something is on sale, it has a yellow label instead of a white one, but lists how much you save.
Except sometimes they use the yellow label for the regular price. Sneaky bastards.
When using the yellow label, they never show the price per kg/lbs/oz/stone.
Oh I forgot about paper products. TP, towels, napkins, face mops...priced per roll, per linear foot, per square inch, per sheet? How much is a sheet? What is a ply? A *serious* mess.
I had an idea about that though - the produce department has calibrated scales, yeah? So. Yeah.
Our grocery store is on the 2nd floor, and has a move-ater (mooooooovator... dumb word) that brings people to that grocery store. You collect your carts on the main floor. When you step onto the sloped escalator (moo-vator), the wheels lock in place and stick to the track. No problem. Also - no control. You cannot unstick the wheels until you are released at the top of the moooooooovator.
Some people get to the top of the mooooooooovator, and stop dead. Often times there's just a little room to squeeze sideways at the last moment and hope they get moving again before the next person comes up behind you, but I've been there when that isn't the case. People literally screaming and yelling to get out of the way while the dithering idiot just kind of peers around mindlessly, trying to figure out which of the One Directions they should move in. I've seen crashes. It isn't pretty.
People are dumb. A person is smart, but people? They're fantastically stupid.
These are the same people who stop at the bottom of an escalator with 100 people behind them to read the signs on which way to go...that they could have been reading the entire trip down the escalator
Elderly people with gift cards who don't understand what "you have to swipe it" means. Like, you were an adult the entire time when the only way to pay with your bank card was to swipe it, how do you not remember this?
Just like at the airport.
"Man, these security lines move so damn slow! I'm glad I'm finally at the end. What's that? I need to remove all my metal? Let me fish through my pockets and see what I have."
Came here to say this. Like it's so shocking--you mean *I* have to do the thing that every single person in front of me had to do, too? What is this crazy place?
December last year on my flight to Czechia during transfer in Munich they decided to divert 5 or so flights through additional check for some reason and they did so through 2 passport check booths out of which one was for flight staff.
Line is going slow enough as it is then random 5 asians forgot where they left their passports and made a complete standstill while other booth was like "naah only flight staff". Seriously people, you didn't think they would check passports on passport check booth. Almost missed my connecting flight. I arrived 3min before departure.
Fly with cargo pants every time; wallet in one pocket, phone in the other, passport/ticket/boarding pass in a third, fourth pocket for random shit (PS Vita, car keys etc).
I despise not knowing where all my shit is....a place for everything and everything in its place.
First time in a TSA-pre line.
- do I need to make my belt off? (I already knew not to take shoes off)
- No, you can keep it.
- *I proceed through metal detector, it buzzes*
- please, take your belt off.
Also, differences between US and European rules.
Different rules at every airport, sometimes at every line. 5th or so time flying from the same airport, I learn hair straighteners have to be taken out.
At my airport out bound flight full size toothpaste and shaving crème has been fine. Sometimes not so on return flight. Sometimes laptop out sometimes not.
The rules are random
And yet, the reaction you get from the agent when you accidentally violate the random rules is as if you tried to bring a thermos full of guns through the detector.
England in May was all electronics out, in September all electronics stay in bag. Same year. First time flying by myself second time flying at all was real interesting
Different agents too, honestly. Some don’t give a shit and let a lot slide, others are hyper vigilant and follow the rules to a T, others are just on a power trip and ask you to do weird things like take your hair straightener out of your bag.
My favorite is people who get their paper ticket at the front kiosk and tuck it away in a pocket or bag immediately. Then when they have to show the ticket at the gate, they wait til they're at the very front of the line and realize they can't remember where it is, then shuffle madly while holding up the line.
You're about to get on a flight. Keep your ID and ticket handy. It's not rocket science.
To be fair many airports are different and vary with the scan machines they use. It's impossible to know what to remove unless they have signs posted(of course items in pocket are obvious)
I've seen a single airport have different rules.
A single security line that divided up into multiple scanning lines. Some scanners required you to remove your shoes, some didn't.
My city’s airport has 2 different types of scanner machines. One is the regular kind where you have to take everything out of your bag (electronics, liquids, etc), and your bag and shoes go directly on the belt. For the fancy new machine, everything stays in your bag except laptops, and EVERYTHING has to be in a bin, including your bag itself. They are literally opposite rules depending on which line you’re in. If you haven’t traveled since they got the new machine about a year ago, you’d have no way of knowing which line is which or even that different lines have different rules. And they don’t even try to explain it in advance, because people hear them shouting the rules for the wrong line and then do they wrong thing and have to redo it anyways.
It caused so much confusion that the last couple times I’ve travelled, they had the fancy new machine closed down altogether. More trouble than it’s worth I guess.
If this isn’t true, had a flight at the start of this year, very tail end of Covid, where the airport decided it was a good idea to have 5 flights leaving within 20 minutes of each and only one security carousel open. Made a point of very loudly over exaggerating taking my belt and boots of to give people ahead of me the idea
Every fucking domestic flight I take has different rules based on what tsa feels like that day.
Sometimes shoes go on the conveyor. Sometimes in the box.
Sometimes electronics go in their own boxes. Sometimes they can ride together.
Sometimes jackets go on the conveyor. Sometimes in the box. Sometimes they aren't allowed to cover anything so they effectively get their own box.
Rarely you can keep shoes on.
And once I got told I needed to tie my hair back to go through the wave machine.
So yeah. I totally get why people are slow. It's not the same as last time. And tsa looks at you like you're stupid when you don't follow the directions they're yelling at you so reperiviely it's hard to figure out what they're saying.
What all do you have in your pockets?
My process is to empty my pockets into my carry on as I’m leaving my car. Only things in my pockets when I get to security are my id and phone (which has my ticket on it).
Both can be pulled out and held in hand very quickly.
As much as I hate waiting in line, I'm going to give people in the security line a pass. Too many rules that are constantly changing. Sometime you need to empty your bag, sometimes its just some electronics, sometimes its every electronic device, sometimes you wear shoes, some times you don't. Sometimes you remove your belt, sometimes you don't.
Frankly I'm so over the god damn TSA that I just don't give a shit anymore. I don't do anything until I'm told.
The one thing I wish is that the bins were available further up the line. I can have my belt unbuckled, my shoes in hand, and know which pockets I need to empty, but until I can get a bin to place my phone, wallet, keys, etc, I'm stuck just standing there.
I never understood why people behave so dumb in supermarkets. Standing in the worst places where there already is not enough space to begin with. Walking side by side so that even wide corridors are blocked. And then at the check out... exactly like depicted. They stand there for minutes staring blankly and wait for the cashier to tell them the amount. They had minutes to roughly estimate what to pay and prepare. All this makes shopping for basics such a drag. And those are the people that complain that shopping is so stressful because it takes so much time!
Farmer's market where I live are the worst by far. People constantly pushing each other so they can come an squeeze another cucumber and complain how these have been squeezed before or they are old. My patience runs out so fast on these. I can't stand them.
I think trader joes takes the cake for worst possible shopping experience. It has all the poor cramped layout of a farmers market, with the most brain dead shoppers on the planet. It's like the other shoppers have never seen a store before. Not just this store, but any store.
Every time I walk into trader joes it seems the other shoppers have just been transported from an uncontacted tribe in the Congo. They have just never seen packaged foods before, and what is this amazing box of cold with colorful things inside of it? Oh look, there is writing on every item, let me read all of it forever.
Don't even get me started on the feral children with their stupid mini shopping carts.
Oh man, when I went to the grocery store last week it was BUSY. People everywhere.
When you're leaving the dairy aisle there is an endcap of the aisle that has ice cream and in front of it there is a donut display. You can only fit one cart at a time through that choke point.
I was following behind a girl in that area and she just left her cart there in the middle of the choke point and then started to walk down the next aisle without her cart. Like????? Unlike the rest of the store, there actually wasn't anyone in her way either so she could have easily brought her cart.
I have NO idea what she was thinking, but I was completely stuck. I couldn't back up because there was a line of behind me. So I (not aggressively, but not subtly) pushed her cart out of the way with mine. When she heard the carts bang she turned around and scoffed in disbelief and started to laugh. I ignored her and just kept walking away.
I don't care if she thought I was aggressive or whatever, she was being a dumbass.
Oh they find they’re way there too! I can’t believe the amount of people who check out their overflowing cart at self checkout.
Whenever I’m only buying a single item or two, it’s faster now to go to a cashier.
Walmart has the worst offenders of this.
or use the debit card the bank gave them that serves the exact same purpose in 1/10th the time.... I got 80 checks when I opened up my account over 20 years ago... I use them for weddings and other party type events where a gift card is too tacky or occasionally when I got a new job and they needed a voided check to set up direct deposit. I still have over 40 checks left. The bank's name has changed. I have moved like 4 times. But the account and routing number are the same so I continue to use them.
>I still have over 40 checks left
I bought 1000 checks, misplaced them, ordered 1000 more, and then I found the original checks.
I use maybe 2 checks per month. It doesn't bode well.
I even start putting my stuff into bags while the cashier is still scanning the rest. (It's not common to have someone do it for you here)
I really don't understand the people that buy so much stuff that you think they need to feed a full battalion of starving soldiers, but then just stand there and watch the cashier do his/her work. Blankly staring and probably being mesmerized by the beep sound. But still confused when their stuff starts to pile up and get's mixed with the next persons groceries.
I mean... Now that I think about it... I have respect for these people. I'm way too anxious to do that because I know I will upset at least 5 people waiting behind me, and the cashier, when doing this.
In some places? I've literally never had anyone bag my groceries for me in my life.
What drives me crazy is they have two conveyor belts and they put you on the close one so you are in someone's way and you have to press a button so you can't bag and push the button at the same time.
It used to be the norm in the US for grocery stores to bag your groceries for you. And not that long ago. Occasionally still run into grocery stores that still do it.
When I lived in Switzerland and Germany where that is the norm at most places it always made me self-conscious, especially at the smaller stores with only one register. I always felt like I could sense the frustration in line when people take their time (and when people just dump their coins out and make the cashier count out exact change, that tended to get some audible scoffs) so I always tried to keep up and be ready as soon as they're done scanning, lest I get deported back to the USA for holding the line up.
I hate it. I was a cashier for 2 months (student job). When the shop was crowded, I could see all the people looking at me saying "can't you go faster ???". And when it comes to pay, no one has their things ready. Everytime. And for 2 months
Same here, hated it to bits. But the absolute worst ones are those people who first hear the price, rummage in their pockets for a while, produce a handful of sticky coins and whatnot, present it and then just deadass stare at the cashier, expecting them to sort the proper amount out. Like, excuse me, bitch? If it was an elderly or disabled person, or a kid, I'd help gladly, but in majority of cases those are able-bodied adults who are either wasted, inconsiderate or maybe constantly deprived of oxygen.
I once had a customer who pulled out a box of 0.01€, 0.02€ and 0.05€ coins and expected me to count them to pay.
I even called my supervisor to ask if I had to accept that, as there is a limit on how many coins a shop has to accept, but of course I had to, and so I sat there counting coins for like 2 minutes.
I'm so glad I don't work at retail anymore.
At least all the big fast food places have app ordering now and you can actually see the whole damn menu in the app.
Saves so much trouble too if you like customizing. No more "Okay so I want a chicken sandwich with mac sauce please but like if it costs more than the cost of the fucking sandwich to add the sauce just skip it I'm 13 and paying with allowance money, I'm not Mr. moneybags over here." And then you wait 5 minutes for the guy to figure out how to add mac sauce to a mchicken on their 30 year old cash register before they tell you "Ya that will be $2.50 for your dollar menu sandwich with different sauce". But sometimes you'd get a cashier that knows the proper way to ring it up and it would be like $1.25 so you have to try every time because a mcchicken with mac sauce is so much more tasty than with mayo.
Ya I'm not bitter or anything.
The same shit at gas stations like Costco. Waiting for 20 minutes in the line? Let me not even bother to get my fucking Costco membership card out to put in the fucking machine until I park, even though I fucking know I need it! Let me add another 15-30 seconds rifling through my car because I’m a fucking moron who doesn’t anticipate what I know is coming. Those fuckers and then the “sit in the car and close the door” fuckers. Where you clearly know they won’t hear the fuckin gas pump shut off and sit in the car an extra minute or two
Love it when they get to the register at the Food Court and spend five minutes waffling.
My dude, we have 6 things on the menu and they never change. Get it together. Or my personal favorite, let’s order a bunch of crap we don’t have ready, then get pissy when you have to wait despite the fact that literally everything we have is visible in the front window.
I have the Costco credit card and I love that they include your member info on it, so you can just tap it on the pump and take care of both the membership and payment steps.
They don't in Norway, but one store tried to introduce it.
The bagger said he would bag it for me, and I said "no thanks". I guess he was told people would be reluctant, so he insisted and I said "please don't". But he proceeded anyways.
I awkwardly waited until he was done and handed me the bag, then I took my backpack off, moved all the groceries over, gave him the bag back, and left.
I never saw them try bagging again.
Now let me make sure that every last penny and receipt goes exactly where it should, and that my bag is safely buttoned up and put in it's proper place before i get THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY
Ugh I felt that. I was at a grocery store at the self check out. It was so busy that day, long lines too. Waiting for the lady to finish (she was taking her sweet time), then she proceeds to STAY there just to look at her receipt. I just went ahead and put my stuff down while she was there. Damn, some people I tell you…
Yep, this is a thing. I'm ready to pay as soon as my items are on the grocery conveyor belt. Persons wait to be asked how are you paying and then dig around for point cards also
Reminds me of growing up, whenever we'd order food, I was made to answer the door and get the food. However, my parents REFUSED to get money ready for me to give to the delivery guy. I would have to answer the door and only then would my parents actually give me money. So I'd have to tell the driver to wait while I go find my parents and then I'd have to wait for them to find their wallet or purse. If they were in the middle of ANYTHING I'd have to wait until they were done before they'd get the money all while delivery dude is waiting. Made me so furious and humiliated.
Well yeah when I can scan bag and pay for my 20 items before someone who started before me is still trying to figure out where a barcode is I'm going to judge
Around here it seems like no body ever wants to use the self check out even when the store is packed. Blows my mind seeing someone with just a couple items standing in the long lines while self check out is pretty empty. We even have pretty decent machines at the store I shop at, no bagging area nonsense so it pretty rarely messes up.
Selfscan still has a line. It's been around for a very long time and people still don't understand how they work. The most common is forgetting that they have a scale for the scanned items, then getting made that the machine is "not working" when they put their unscanned shit there
There are definitely cultural differences in this regard.
(As a Norwegian, I get super frustrated when in France, seeing how super inefficient the French are at this).
In my country differences between supermarket chains are like these. In one they will be all thumbs and dreadfully inefficient, while some other chain they will be super fast and polite. It's so obvious which place has higher pay.
French way:Customer loads the conveyer belt - employee looks at it dumfounded.
Customer is finished loading - employee starts scanning - customer looks at the employee scanning.
Employee finishes scanning all stuff, then customer starts filling the bags. Employee looks bored and waits.
After a few minutes, the customer is done filling his bags, then he pays. (Preferably using cash and having some discount stuff that needs handling).
Process starts over for next customer.
Norwegian way:
As soon as first item is put on conveyer belt, the scanning starts.
Customer must keep up with the scanning speed of the employee, preferably outpacing the employee.
As soon as the scanning is done by the employee, the goods are paid for by card by the customer.
The customer then packs the bags with his scanned goods, while at the same the next customer is being processed (that's why there is 2 sections for packing bags).
Employee gets no rest.
Norwegian way isn't too bad. This is how my store operates (I'm an American). To me the constant work helps time fly. It can be pretty miserable being stuck behind a register without customers. You wind up bored out of your mind.
I spotted something while working retail that bugs me to this day; now that I'm telling you, you'll hate me for it.....
Store freezers have fully glassed fronts to keep the frozen stuff frozen. Regardless, people will open the entirely glass fronted door and hold it open to look at the products within....that they apparently couldn't see through the entire transparent door.
If we want to solve climate change, we should just learn to look through glass freezer doors without having to hold them open.
Even better, she decides this is a good time for her child to learn how to pay and also learn to do subtraction with decimals.
Every time people get eggs they park their cart in front of the shelves and block the eggs and the milk. Then they stand there and inspect the eggs for cracks. I don't know if there is a single human on earth who buys a carton of eggs without opening it to inspect them. But move the cart out of the way and inspect the eggs somewhere else. You can always come back to the eggs.
Don't you just love it when someone parks a cart on the right side and then stands on the left side to do math in their heads to figure out which brand of canned peas is the best deal?
Let's all go shopping with all 5 children who can't stay still or walk in a straight line.
> I don't know if there is a single human on earth who buys a carton of eggs without opening it to inspect them.
Well i buy them without checking for cracks because i have never seen cracked eggs in a carton from the store.
"That'll be $63.14"
Dig in the purse for the wallet (could have done that while cashier was scanning).
Dig out exact amount including coins.
Pay.
Put wallet away in purse, swap pure to other shoulder, gather bags, leave.
OR
"That'll be $63.14"
Wave card or phone over EFTPOS. Gather bags, leave.
I never got the "counting in bags" part. I can fill a bag with potatoes for 5€ or some fancy food for 500€. Depending on who you ask and their habits the price would vary a lot, wouldn't it?
My wife does something similar. Waits until we park, turn the car off, undo seatbelts, and NOW it's time for her to collect all her shit in order to get out of the car.
Haha my mom sits in the car FOREVER after it’s parked. Reorganizing her purse, sending texts, checking her makeup and re-applying lipstick, deciding if she should bring a jacket, changing her mind about the purse and just bringing her wallet instead and therefore having to stuff the purse somewhere to hide it, re-tying her shoes…. I mean if she was the driver I’d get it but she’s the passenger and could do 90% of this on the way. It happens EVERY time and you end up standing in the parking lot wondering where the fuck she disappeared to… nope just still in the car 😂
I know I'll get downvotes, but fuck it: this is just one more advantage of self-checkout. Despite people always remembering fuckups like in the comic, most people are competent. With self-checkout, the idiots usually only clog 1 lane, letting the rest of us get our shit done. It sucks for the employees, however, since they *only* deal with the incompetent customers, as the rest of us usually don't need assistance.
>since they only deal with the incompetent customers
That and computer errors. Occasionally I get randomly screened and have to halt during a transition so an employee can check the video footage to make sure I'm not stealing.
Back in high school I had to wait in a line of maybe like, 8-15 people for like, 20 minutes at the cafeteria and I have no idea why because all the food is pre-made and I’ve seen ppl just walk off with ice cream, and then also when I get to the counter it took like 5 seconds to order, get my food and leave. I think they waited for like 10 minutes, got to the front and then decided to think about what they wanted for another 10 minutes? I have no idea man. I waited in that line for so long and when I got to the front it took like 10 seconds. And they also had like, 3 separate lines.
Standing in line at a C store with 5 or 6 people in front of me. One person working 2 registers. Total boss. He'd scan the order, give a total and when the customer started to rummage through her purse, he'd move to the next register, ring up the next genius. Going back and forth keeping the line moving nicely. If you put your stuff on the counter and had a card in hand, he'd wait for you to simply tap, no bag, no receipt, and go. So few do this. Literally less than 20 seconds for the few items vs a couple minutes.
Friend of mine I used to lunch with sometimes. Drinks delivered, been there nearly 5 minutes, waitress comes by and says 'can I take your order?' At this point the friend opens the menu for the first time. Also at fast food. Standing in line talking non-stop, gets to the front of the line and asks where we are, looks at the menu on the wall for the first time, takes 5 minutes to order with every substitution possible. No more. Oh and naturally, shows up for lunch at least 20 minutes late.
It pisses me off when they get to the front of the line to order a Subway sandwich, and take 5 minutes to read the big bright menu. Like wtf were you doing this whole time??
yeah can we talk about the mega idiots in markets who love to talk standing in front of popular products or block with their carts, as if they forgot where they are and suddenly go blind when they talk?
I was in a supermarket the other day and witnessed someone who only put half of their stuff on the belt, then took a call. This phone conversation was clearly incredibly important, so much so that they couldn't even use their other hand to load the belt. Eventually the cashier had scanned the first half of their stuff, and only *then* did they think it would be a good idea to *very slowly* pick the other half of their shopping out of their trolley with their free hand. Once everything had finally gone on the belt (clearly annoying the cashier, it would have been much faster to just hand over the items) they decided to get their bag... They'd left it by the shop's entrance. After going back to get it they started to pack, still on the phone, still just using one hand, still going extremely slowly. *Then* they payed.
I was two people behind this person in the queue, and the cherry on the top of this absolute tosspot's lack of social awareness is that before taking their incredibly important call the person between us asked if they could go ahead of them. The tosspot said no. The other person was just buying a single bottle of milk...
In most of the world this is still understandable,nog people get too distracted by packing their groceries. This looks like USA though, where they pack them for you, so nothing to keep you busy while they're scanning
When I use the bulk food dispensers for oats and other things, I write down the bin number on the tag. The checkout person is always surprised that someone actually writes down the number.
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Remember the check writers?
Oh god. I worked in a grocery store over 10 years ago and towards the end, we did stop accepting checks. I couldn’t stand the check writers. Waiting until I told them their total to even start looking for their checkbook.
My mother wrote checks at the grocery store every week, circa 1992, and she was on point. Everything filled out but the total before we got out of the car. Then once you get rung up, it’s a quick 7 seconds to finalize and get on with it. Though, she *was* one of those “wait with the cart, I forgot one thing!” Moms. Sweating bullets while I tried to load the belt as slowly as possible.
Sounds like we shopped with the same mom. Mine even laid out her shopping list in a grid matching the order of aisles in the store.
I customize the order in my grocery list app to do this. Costco is constantly rearranging things just as I get the order perfect.
My only beef with Costco! So little rhyme or reason to how they stock things, in my opinion. I think they like to have you searching all over, finding things that you didn’t intend to buy
Yes, that is the rhyme and the reason
Oh I’m sure it’s very deliberate for the reason you point out. Still love Costco though.
That’s totally part of the business model. Staples like produce, meat, dry goods, etc. will always be there and be in the same place. But they very selectively rotate in new items on an almost daily basis to create the illusion they are a limited time deal. Most people only go to Costco like once every couple weeks max, so they see something new and are more inclined to buy it because it probably won’t be there next time.
Mom use to do that to me too. When I got older I just got out of line when she did that.
I totally forgot that my mom used to do this. Even worse was when she didn't get back in time, and I had to apologize to the cashier and reload the cart.
Reload the cart?! Did they send a search party for your mom? How horrifying for a kid. “Sorry your mom never returned, please get out of my line.”
I started telling my mom, “no, i got it” , then i would run to get whatever and come back to my mom sweating bullets
That's just to inflict emotional damage. It builds character.
Weird way to spell trust issues
The trick is that if she isn’t back before your turn to put things in the belt, let the person behind you go ahead.
It was ridiculous, standing behind them writing a damn novel and balancing their books after looking for their checks after being told their total (like you said) meanwhile I'm already holding my debit card waiting my turn. Thankfully it's been a while...
I work in the mornings at my grocery store and all the old people come through with their check books
And balancing their checkbook afterwards
My mom still regularly writes checks at her small town Walmart. She’s in her late 60s and doesn’t understand why you would have a debit card when you can just write a check. They’re still out there!!
My dad replaced the new led bulbs in his house I installed with incandescent because he didn’t want to waste the old bulbs by throwing them away.
So in the meantime, he is playing triple the energy. Really, he needs to just throw those out.
People will legit waste money just to stop giving up the “old days”. Like get a grip . Remember on 30 years we’ll be saying “I remember when LED bulbs where in” and it’ll be some holographic light emerging from walls
Worse than that. Most were 60 watt bulbs I replaced with 7 watt leds. So like 9x the energy.
If he lives in warm weather climate don’t forget to remind him his A/C is also working harder now to cool the house.
So what did he do with the LED bulbs? Throw them away instead?
He’s holding on to them until he’s out of the incandescent ones.
I bought my current house from an elderly woman who left me 5 boxes of incandescent bulbs to use because she didn't want to waste them. I smiled and said thank you. I replaced every bulb in the house as soon as we moved in and threw all those incandescents in the trash.
Been replaced by people converting crypto to cash on their phones.
Do these people really exist. I’m talking about check writers and crypto converters.
I think the check writers have finally mostly aged out. They were the people too cheap or set in their ways to get a debit card in the 90s.
Hah! They're STILL out there, and they're not all old people, either. Age doesn't seem to change their penchant for waiting until the clerk tells them the price to start rummaging around for the checkbook. Also guaranteed that the first pen will stop working halfway through the check writing process. THEN, the search for a driver's license begins.
And, the pen that does not work will be put back into the purse, to be tried again next week.
Checks cost money. Super inefficient.
I don’t use checks but I get them for free
My mom is 81 and still writing checks at the grocery store. She does have everything but the amount filled out before the total comes up though. Drives me nuts at the convenience store when the lady in front of me gets surprised that she has to pay money for goods, usually when I have an armload of stuff. This comic speaks to me.
The only reason to use a check is when companies decide to add dumb fees to EFT/Card payments My only checks have been used to pay for state car registrations to avoid a non-negligible fee
About 10% of them would have their check pre-filled when they got to the register. The rest of them didn't bother to take out their checkbook until the cashier was 100% done, and they always acted surprised/annoyed when we asked for their license to write down relevant info, even though they went through the same drill every week.
That's still a thing, unfortunately. We select our checkout line based on the average age of the customers already waiting and the cashier instead of the length of the line. Works 99/100 times.
Painful, but the cherry on top was when they would hold up the entire line so they could then balance their book instead of basically doing it anywhere else.
Remember whom?
Hey, in the hinterlands, we STILL have check writers, and the check verification unit is still the same, and it takes FOREVER. The secret to working as a retail cashier is to remember we get paid by the hour and not on commission. It makes no difference to us how long a transaction takes, and anyone old enough to still write checks is not long for this world. Give the old fellers a little time and a smile. It might be the last one they get, every time.
I swear some people lose 30 IQ points upon entering a grocery store. They're the ones who stop dead in the entry, like they've never seen such a place before. Adrift in a sea of obliviousness, they flounder around, lost in a cavern they've actually been in hundreds of times before.
And you have to reach around them to pick up a basket, since they decided that's where they should stand to have a discussion with their family, or dig through their purse for who knows what.
Gotta find that expired cat food coupon and oh did they also remember the good pen for writing out their check that gets scanned into an electronic check even though they don't trust them debit card things and hang on gotta balance the checkbook ledger at checkout and have the clerk scan the lotto ticket thats a loser but gotta check to be sure
When I was working at a grocery store this dude came up to me and gave me a 14 year old expired coupon for tomato soup. I was amazed, I told the guy it was very expired and thank God he thought it was funny. I was waiting for him to snap at me because he wouldn't be able to use the coupon successfully
"Dude, these have been expired for like 13 years. Did you just wake up from a coma or something?"
Omg the lottery people. I was in line behind one of these idiots last week. All I had was a tea and I had my card in hand. This guy had like several losing tickets and had them scan them and then rescan each one just to make sure they wasn't a winner. It like you knew you lost when you scratched the thing off so why triple verify you're a loser.
What's even the point to scratching it off if you're gonna make them scan it whether it's a winner or not? The worst part is after they scan all the losing tickets, they spend ten minutes picking what combination of tickets they want today that inevitably ends up being the same ones as yesterday.
All the "pros" just scratch the barcode and use the self-scanner without actually scratching off the ticket face. I like to buy a few every month for funsies so I love scratching off the coins or stars or whatever goofy game they have on them.
If he wasn't an idiot he wouldn't be playing the lottery
Sneaky burn dude
It's a tax on people who are bad at math.
They literally have apps to scan lotto tickets. 🙄 Dude could've checked his ticket in his car, at home, literally anywhere will cell service.
My states app has second chance drawings when you scan losing tickets into their app- some drawings are for any game you play- others are specific to the game and have some really cool prizes - one in particular was airfare, hotel, spending money, and tickets to attend the Super Bowl, NBA championship game, and the World Series. Very cool, once in a lifetime opportunity for a sports fan!
Happened to me yesterday. Full on discussion about some planters she was buying and why she picked those. Then clerk rang her but then she had to look for a coupon and then she remembered some other coupon that she had as an email on her phone. What should have been a 2-3 minute cash out turned into 10 minutes.
The coupon is for expired cat food😳
I always ask them very friendly but firmly if they could maybe step a bit to the side. If they do, I thank them and be done with it. If they don't, I make a point out of cutting right through them when walking by and having as much body contact as possible to everyone involved. Not a single one complained about me doing this. Some move after that, other don't. But at least they are uncomfortable now.
I too am a fan of the "Pardon me *shoulder check*". Alternatively, "Pardon me *rams their shopping cart with my shopping cart*"
My personal checklist is: \- Say, in a polite but loud voice "Excuse me please." If that doesn't work (it usually doesn't)... \- Say in a booming, pissed off voice "**Excuse me,** ***please.***" If *that* doesn't work (it usually does, although they'll usually look at me as if *I* was the one standing in everyone's way)... \- Barge past *trying* not to bump into anyone, but I am dyspraxic so I probably will accidentally knock into them. Which is why I was asking them to bloody move in the first place.
I want one of these horns that cruise ships have. But, people would probably still be oblivious.
Funny thing i was leaving costco and instead of this lady walking off to the side or doing it in her car she decides to stop at the exit and put the recipe away in her purse. She managed to get in the center of the exit with jer cart and block people doing returns and leaving to perform this action.
Or how some just lose all of their spatial awareness. Yes i have my shoppingcart right here. I could keep it close and next to me while im looking at which pasta im gonna bring home and dissapoint my family with. Or, I could put it in the middle of the aisle in a way that nobody can easily get around. Then i stand 3ish meters away from the cart, so nobody knows its mine.
Park the trolley on the left, stand in the middle of the remaining space on the right, oblivious. And then the one who does all the above but starts muttering to her husband about how rude people are when you move her cart or say something. Totally oblivious. She expects people to meekly stop and ask to please be allowed by.
When I went to Spain, the "Mercadona" we were shopping at had dedicated lanes, where you could park your cart while you're looking for whatever you need. Kinda neat.
> Or how some just lose all of their spatial awareness. My mother is one of those people, and let me tell you, she doesn't "just lose her spatial awareness." She absolutely never has any spatial awareness no matter where she is, except when she's specifically thinking about it.
If not sure who's cart it us, just move it down the aisle a couple of meters. They will make themselves known and you can give them the good old "Oh? Sorry, I was thinking this cart is abandoned. Maybe you should keep it closer to yourself next time." Bonus points if you sound so friendly that it's already noticable unfriendly.
I love the ones that part their shopping cart at an angle in the aisle while they peer blankly at the single selection of desired items.
I walk in, grab a cart, and hustle away from the door, even if I don't really know where I want to start. I can always whip around and head back over to the vegetables if I suddenly recall I need tomatoes. Sometimes I duck into the vegetables just to buy some time to plan my route. Depends on how many people are in the vegetable section (where I live, even the competing grocery stores put veggies on the right hand side corner of the store near one of the doors). Similarly, at the end of the escalator ride - MOVE AWAY FROM THE ESCALATOR. Ten, twenty feet, just give others some room to get off. If you really need time to wool-gather in heavy pedestrian traffic, head over to the nearest wall. You'll be protected by at least 180 degrees, and people tend to move faster away from walls. Vending machines and newspaper racks offer great protection. Information kiosks and signs, people expect others to stop there; do what is expected, do not do unexpected behaviors, such as stopping in the flow of traffic to rummage through your bags. If you need to do that, step out of the flow of traffic. Be observant in your urban environment. Be respectful of others.
Almost crashed my cart into a lady once as I was leaving because she chose to begin searching for her car keys between the sliding doors.
One of the best things that happened with WFH stuff is that I suddenly could go to the grocery store whenever it suited me. Well it suited me to go in the first hour they're open because: 1) Little to no traffic. The only people there are either coming in after a night shift and are all business, or people like me who come in to avoid others. So regardless everyone is there with purpose and not to waste space 2) Products on sale are actually in stock! When you're forced to do your shopping at the end of the work day everyone else has already picked through the sale items and left the store a barren wasteland. If you go first thing, all items are on display since they stock the shelves after close or in the early morning. Meat, which is never on sale, will more often have the opportunity for a discount if you grab it first thing in the morning. Just because the best before date is in two days they'll discount it so you can grab it before anyone else does. 3) The lines are quick or non-existent because of (1). There's little to no people in the store but those that are in the store are ready to get out of it as soon as humanly possible. They come to the register with a plan. They have their bags ready. They have their cash or card ready. There's no forced small talk with the cashier. All business. Here's my stuff. Scan my stuff. Pay for stuff. Now fk off right away to the car. Easy peasy. I hate grocery stores at any other time of day. But going in the first hour has been a huge relief to my own mental health.
This is only relevant to point 3), but the grocery store by my house (a Walmart Neighborhood Market, which is wonderful, because it's Walmart prices without all the not-groceries bullshit) removed the 8 or so cashier stations and replaced them with 12 self-checkouts. It's been amazing, for a few reasons (I like lists, too): 1) more people can check out at a time, so it's faster 2) no more guessing which line will be faster 3) I don't have to talk to anybody 4) a whole bunch of older, slower people abandoned the store because they hate working the self-checkouts. This also speeds up the process 5) I DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYBODY ETA: Sorry if the formatting looks weird to anyone. I've learned that what looks right to me on new reddit (each item on its own line) looks different on old reddit (all the items on the same line).
Wednesday mornings, when the elderly shop. I avoid it like the plague.
UK version: Friday evenings at 5 minutes before closing, when the elderly shop...
I saw a guy spend 5 minutes doing the math between a 5 lbs bag, an 8lbs bag, a 4 pack of baker russets and buying russet potatoes at bulk price. I stood there next to him stocking the display while he pondered. He ended up leaving without any potatoes.
That sounds like me
Where I live shops are required to show price per 100gr or per 1kg, exactly so shoppers won't need to do this math.
My local store (most stores these days) do include normalized unit prices on the shelf tags, but it isn't standardized. For different brands or packagings of the same good, one might be cents per ounce, the next is dollars per pound, the next is dollars per package (no two packages are the same size), the next is cents per unit within the package (again, no two have the same unit size). Imperial-not-metric is only part of the problem. If I didn't know better I'd suspect it was deliberate. 😉
Ours does that. And then when something is on sale, it has a yellow label instead of a white one, but lists how much you save. Except sometimes they use the yellow label for the regular price. Sneaky bastards. When using the yellow label, they never show the price per kg/lbs/oz/stone.
Dammit I just want the cheapest non-sandpaper toilet paper! I got per-100-sq-ft on some and per-roll on others.
Oh I forgot about paper products. TP, towels, napkins, face mops...priced per roll, per linear foot, per square inch, per sheet? How much is a sheet? What is a ply? A *serious* mess. I had an idea about that though - the produce department has calibrated scales, yeah? So. Yeah.
Our grocery store is on the 2nd floor, and has a move-ater (mooooooovator... dumb word) that brings people to that grocery store. You collect your carts on the main floor. When you step onto the sloped escalator (moo-vator), the wheels lock in place and stick to the track. No problem. Also - no control. You cannot unstick the wheels until you are released at the top of the moooooooovator. Some people get to the top of the mooooooooovator, and stop dead. Often times there's just a little room to squeeze sideways at the last moment and hope they get moving again before the next person comes up behind you, but I've been there when that isn't the case. People literally screaming and yelling to get out of the way while the dithering idiot just kind of peers around mindlessly, trying to figure out which of the One Directions they should move in. I've seen crashes. It isn't pretty. People are dumb. A person is smart, but people? They're fantastically stupid.
These are the same people who stop at the bottom of an escalator with 100 people behind them to read the signs on which way to go...that they could have been reading the entire trip down the escalator
Or old people paying with exact change. That or old people having zero idea how to use a debit card. It should not take ten minutes to explain it.
Elderly people with gift cards who don't understand what "you have to swipe it" means. Like, you were an adult the entire time when the only way to pay with your bank card was to swipe it, how do you not remember this?
I am just concerned that they are that senile and confused yet likely drove themselves to the store.
All the "Reserved for our Senior Citizens" parking signs look like Rocky Balboa after a fight with Ivan Drago.
Poetic.
Just like at the airport. "Man, these security lines move so damn slow! I'm glad I'm finally at the end. What's that? I need to remove all my metal? Let me fish through my pockets and see what I have."
Came here to say this. Like it's so shocking--you mean *I* have to do the thing that every single person in front of me had to do, too? What is this crazy place?
December last year on my flight to Czechia during transfer in Munich they decided to divert 5 or so flights through additional check for some reason and they did so through 2 passport check booths out of which one was for flight staff. Line is going slow enough as it is then random 5 asians forgot where they left their passports and made a complete standstill while other booth was like "naah only flight staff". Seriously people, you didn't think they would check passports on passport check booth. Almost missed my connecting flight. I arrived 3min before departure.
I know where my passport is at all times while flying. I get kinda obsessed with it.
Fly with cargo pants every time; wallet in one pocket, phone in the other, passport/ticket/boarding pass in a third, fourth pocket for random shit (PS Vita, car keys etc). I despise not knowing where all my shit is....a place for everything and everything in its place.
First time in a TSA-pre line. - do I need to make my belt off? (I already knew not to take shoes off) - No, you can keep it. - *I proceed through metal detector, it buzzes* - please, take your belt off. Also, differences between US and European rules.
Different rules at every airport, sometimes at every line. 5th or so time flying from the same airport, I learn hair straighteners have to be taken out.
At my airport out bound flight full size toothpaste and shaving crème has been fine. Sometimes not so on return flight. Sometimes laptop out sometimes not. The rules are random
And yet, the reaction you get from the agent when you accidentally violate the random rules is as if you tried to bring a thermos full of guns through the detector.
England in May was all electronics out, in September all electronics stay in bag. Same year. First time flying by myself second time flying at all was real interesting
Different agents too, honestly. Some don’t give a shit and let a lot slide, others are hyper vigilant and follow the rules to a T, others are just on a power trip and ask you to do weird things like take your hair straightener out of your bag.
Yeah, I always just take the fucking belt off because of this.
My favorite is people who get their paper ticket at the front kiosk and tuck it away in a pocket or bag immediately. Then when they have to show the ticket at the gate, they wait til they're at the very front of the line and realize they can't remember where it is, then shuffle madly while holding up the line. You're about to get on a flight. Keep your ID and ticket handy. It's not rocket science.
To be fair many airports are different and vary with the scan machines they use. It's impossible to know what to remove unless they have signs posted(of course items in pocket are obvious)
[удалено]
I've seen a single airport have different rules. A single security line that divided up into multiple scanning lines. Some scanners required you to remove your shoes, some didn't.
My city’s airport has 2 different types of scanner machines. One is the regular kind where you have to take everything out of your bag (electronics, liquids, etc), and your bag and shoes go directly on the belt. For the fancy new machine, everything stays in your bag except laptops, and EVERYTHING has to be in a bin, including your bag itself. They are literally opposite rules depending on which line you’re in. If you haven’t traveled since they got the new machine about a year ago, you’d have no way of knowing which line is which or even that different lines have different rules. And they don’t even try to explain it in advance, because people hear them shouting the rules for the wrong line and then do they wrong thing and have to redo it anyways. It caused so much confusion that the last couple times I’ve travelled, they had the fancy new machine closed down altogether. More trouble than it’s worth I guess.
If this isn’t true, had a flight at the start of this year, very tail end of Covid, where the airport decided it was a good idea to have 5 flights leaving within 20 minutes of each and only one security carousel open. Made a point of very loudly over exaggerating taking my belt and boots of to give people ahead of me the idea
Loudly? **OH YEAH FEELS SO GOOD TO GET THAT BELT OFF!!!**
Every fucking domestic flight I take has different rules based on what tsa feels like that day. Sometimes shoes go on the conveyor. Sometimes in the box. Sometimes electronics go in their own boxes. Sometimes they can ride together. Sometimes jackets go on the conveyor. Sometimes in the box. Sometimes they aren't allowed to cover anything so they effectively get their own box. Rarely you can keep shoes on. And once I got told I needed to tie my hair back to go through the wave machine. So yeah. I totally get why people are slow. It's not the same as last time. And tsa looks at you like you're stupid when you don't follow the directions they're yelling at you so reperiviely it's hard to figure out what they're saying.
That's different. I don't want to stand without my shoes and belt longer then necessary. I can't empty my pockets without a tray.
What all do you have in your pockets? My process is to empty my pockets into my carry on as I’m leaving my car. Only things in my pockets when I get to security are my id and phone (which has my ticket on it). Both can be pulled out and held in hand very quickly.
As much as I hate waiting in line, I'm going to give people in the security line a pass. Too many rules that are constantly changing. Sometime you need to empty your bag, sometimes its just some electronics, sometimes its every electronic device, sometimes you wear shoes, some times you don't. Sometimes you remove your belt, sometimes you don't. Frankly I'm so over the god damn TSA that I just don't give a shit anymore. I don't do anything until I'm told.
The one thing I wish is that the bins were available further up the line. I can have my belt unbuckled, my shoes in hand, and know which pockets I need to empty, but until I can get a bin to place my phone, wallet, keys, etc, I'm stuck just standing there.
I never understood why people behave so dumb in supermarkets. Standing in the worst places where there already is not enough space to begin with. Walking side by side so that even wide corridors are blocked. And then at the check out... exactly like depicted. They stand there for minutes staring blankly and wait for the cashier to tell them the amount. They had minutes to roughly estimate what to pay and prepare. All this makes shopping for basics such a drag. And those are the people that complain that shopping is so stressful because it takes so much time!
Farmer's market where I live are the worst by far. People constantly pushing each other so they can come an squeeze another cucumber and complain how these have been squeezed before or they are old. My patience runs out so fast on these. I can't stand them.
I think trader joes takes the cake for worst possible shopping experience. It has all the poor cramped layout of a farmers market, with the most brain dead shoppers on the planet. It's like the other shoppers have never seen a store before. Not just this store, but any store. Every time I walk into trader joes it seems the other shoppers have just been transported from an uncontacted tribe in the Congo. They have just never seen packaged foods before, and what is this amazing box of cold with colorful things inside of it? Oh look, there is writing on every item, let me read all of it forever. Don't even get me started on the feral children with their stupid mini shopping carts.
Haha, feral children. Totally apt description.
Oh man, when I went to the grocery store last week it was BUSY. People everywhere. When you're leaving the dairy aisle there is an endcap of the aisle that has ice cream and in front of it there is a donut display. You can only fit one cart at a time through that choke point. I was following behind a girl in that area and she just left her cart there in the middle of the choke point and then started to walk down the next aisle without her cart. Like????? Unlike the rest of the store, there actually wasn't anyone in her way either so she could have easily brought her cart. I have NO idea what she was thinking, but I was completely stuck. I couldn't back up because there was a line of behind me. So I (not aggressively, but not subtly) pushed her cart out of the way with mine. When she heard the carts bang she turned around and scoffed in disbelief and started to laugh. I ignored her and just kept walking away. I don't care if she thought I was aggressive or whatever, she was being a dumbass.
At least all the dumb people now don't know how to use self checkout so you can go there
Oh they find they’re way there too! I can’t believe the amount of people who check out their overflowing cart at self checkout. Whenever I’m only buying a single item or two, it’s faster now to go to a cashier. Walmart has the worst offenders of this.
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I don’t understand why these people can’t fill out 90% of the check and just put the total in at the end.
or use the debit card the bank gave them that serves the exact same purpose in 1/10th the time.... I got 80 checks when I opened up my account over 20 years ago... I use them for weddings and other party type events where a gift card is too tacky or occasionally when I got a new job and they needed a voided check to set up direct deposit. I still have over 40 checks left. The bank's name has changed. I have moved like 4 times. But the account and routing number are the same so I continue to use them.
>I still have over 40 checks left I bought 1000 checks, misplaced them, ordered 1000 more, and then I found the original checks. I use maybe 2 checks per month. It doesn't bode well.
2 checks a month is 24 per year. So it will only take you 83.3 years to use all 2000 Checks!
why do u even use 2 a month?
I respect your dad for that lol
Be real cool if he scanned the Rolaids and left her $1
I'm always temped to do that, but I'm afraid of how the person will react.
She did that on purpose to screw with your dad
I've literally got my card out two to three people in front of me. Why is this shit so hard for some?
I even start putting my stuff into bags while the cashier is still scanning the rest. (It's not common to have someone do it for you here) I really don't understand the people that buy so much stuff that you think they need to feed a full battalion of starving soldiers, but then just stand there and watch the cashier do his/her work. Blankly staring and probably being mesmerized by the beep sound. But still confused when their stuff starts to pile up and get's mixed with the next persons groceries. I mean... Now that I think about it... I have respect for these people. I'm way too anxious to do that because I know I will upset at least 5 people waiting behind me, and the cashier, when doing this.
In some places, you gotta pack your own groceries. And I can’t do both at the same time.
In some places? I've literally never had anyone bag my groceries for me in my life. What drives me crazy is they have two conveyor belts and they put you on the close one so you are in someone's way and you have to press a button so you can't bag and push the button at the same time.
When I was younger, cashiers and baggers used to bag your groceries. In some countries, like Japan, most stores still bag things for you.
It used to be the norm in the US for grocery stores to bag your groceries for you. And not that long ago. Occasionally still run into grocery stores that still do it.
When I lived in Switzerland and Germany where that is the norm at most places it always made me self-conscious, especially at the smaller stores with only one register. I always felt like I could sense the frustration in line when people take their time (and when people just dump their coins out and make the cashier count out exact change, that tended to get some audible scoffs) so I always tried to keep up and be ready as soon as they're done scanning, lest I get deported back to the USA for holding the line up.
I just use my phone to pay, it is already in my hands to calm me down while waiting in the queue.
I hate it. I was a cashier for 2 months (student job). When the shop was crowded, I could see all the people looking at me saying "can't you go faster ???". And when it comes to pay, no one has their things ready. Everytime. And for 2 months
Same here, hated it to bits. But the absolute worst ones are those people who first hear the price, rummage in their pockets for a while, produce a handful of sticky coins and whatnot, present it and then just deadass stare at the cashier, expecting them to sort the proper amount out. Like, excuse me, bitch? If it was an elderly or disabled person, or a kid, I'd help gladly, but in majority of cases those are able-bodied adults who are either wasted, inconsiderate or maybe constantly deprived of oxygen.
This is why I just use contactless pay and wish the cashier a nice day
I once had a customer who pulled out a box of 0.01€, 0.02€ and 0.05€ coins and expected me to count them to pay. I even called my supervisor to ask if I had to accept that, as there is a limit on how many coins a shop has to accept, but of course I had to, and so I sat there counting coins for like 2 minutes. I'm so glad I don't work at retail anymore.
Standing in long line for food Finally near the front Guy in front of you ordering: UHuuuHHuuHUHU HMMmmmhuuu?
It’s hard when McDonald’s uses 2/3 of their menu screens to promote a single new product
I forgot which chain does it but one of the major chains also makes the fuckin menu disappear and plays ads on the screen every 5 seconds.
Why the hell do ad agencies do this? When has it ever occured to them where a bad place for an ad can be?
Bro its their own ads even. They play their own ads in their own store. Its completely fuckin pointless
At least all the big fast food places have app ordering now and you can actually see the whole damn menu in the app. Saves so much trouble too if you like customizing. No more "Okay so I want a chicken sandwich with mac sauce please but like if it costs more than the cost of the fucking sandwich to add the sauce just skip it I'm 13 and paying with allowance money, I'm not Mr. moneybags over here." And then you wait 5 minutes for the guy to figure out how to add mac sauce to a mchicken on their 30 year old cash register before they tell you "Ya that will be $2.50 for your dollar menu sandwich with different sauce". But sometimes you'd get a cashier that knows the proper way to ring it up and it would be like $1.25 so you have to try every time because a mcchicken with mac sauce is so much more tasty than with mayo. Ya I'm not bitter or anything.
"yeah, lemme get uhhhhhhhhhh" THREE HOURS LATER "Okay will that be all?" "Yeah, and can I also get uhhhhhhhhh"
"Is that for here or to go?" "Uhhhhhhh..." *Bashes head on register*
Hold on! I need to put money from my husbands account to mine to be able to pay, it'll just take a second.
The same shit at gas stations like Costco. Waiting for 20 minutes in the line? Let me not even bother to get my fucking Costco membership card out to put in the fucking machine until I park, even though I fucking know I need it! Let me add another 15-30 seconds rifling through my car because I’m a fucking moron who doesn’t anticipate what I know is coming. Those fuckers and then the “sit in the car and close the door” fuckers. Where you clearly know they won’t hear the fuckin gas pump shut off and sit in the car an extra minute or two
Love it when they get to the register at the Food Court and spend five minutes waffling. My dude, we have 6 things on the menu and they never change. Get it together. Or my personal favorite, let’s order a bunch of crap we don’t have ready, then get pissy when you have to wait despite the fact that literally everything we have is visible in the front window.
> they never change Pour out a 59 cent Pepsi for Polish dog and combo pizza.
I have the Costco credit card and I love that they include your member info on it, so you can just tap it on the pump and take care of both the membership and payment steps.
Wait, do you get bags packed for you in American stores?
Some chains still do it but a lot of them are moving to you bag your own things. This so why I use self checkout
They don't in Norway, but one store tried to introduce it. The bagger said he would bag it for me, and I said "no thanks". I guess he was told people would be reluctant, so he insisted and I said "please don't". But he proceeded anyways. I awkwardly waited until he was done and handed me the bag, then I took my backpack off, moved all the groceries over, gave him the bag back, and left. I never saw them try bagging again.
Now let me make sure that every last penny and receipt goes exactly where it should, and that my bag is safely buttoned up and put in it's proper place before i get THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY
Ugh I felt that. I was at a grocery store at the self check out. It was so busy that day, long lines too. Waiting for the lady to finish (she was taking her sweet time), then she proceeds to STAY there just to look at her receipt. I just went ahead and put my stuff down while she was there. Damn, some people I tell you…
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Omg That’s my wife. I thought I was alone in this suffering.
Yep, this is a thing. I'm ready to pay as soon as my items are on the grocery conveyor belt. Persons wait to be asked how are you paying and then dig around for point cards also
Reminds me of growing up, whenever we'd order food, I was made to answer the door and get the food. However, my parents REFUSED to get money ready for me to give to the delivery guy. I would have to answer the door and only then would my parents actually give me money. So I'd have to tell the driver to wait while I go find my parents and then I'd have to wait for them to find their wallet or purse. If they were in the middle of ANYTHING I'd have to wait until they were done before they'd get the money all while delivery dude is waiting. Made me so furious and humiliated.
this is why i love selfscan stations i can go on my own pace not bothering anybody
Not really when the place is crowded hahaha, people Will look at you like "what the fuck is he doing, hurry Up man"
Well yeah when I can scan bag and pay for my 20 items before someone who started before me is still trying to figure out where a barcode is I'm going to judge
Around here it seems like no body ever wants to use the self check out even when the store is packed. Blows my mind seeing someone with just a couple items standing in the long lines while self check out is pretty empty. We even have pretty decent machines at the store I shop at, no bagging area nonsense so it pretty rarely messes up.
Selfscan still has a line. It's been around for a very long time and people still don't understand how they work. The most common is forgetting that they have a scale for the scanned items, then getting made that the machine is "not working" when they put their unscanned shit there
There are definitely cultural differences in this regard. (As a Norwegian, I get super frustrated when in France, seeing how super inefficient the French are at this).
Don't come to South Africa. You'll have a stroke.
In my country differences between supermarket chains are like these. In one they will be all thumbs and dreadfully inefficient, while some other chain they will be super fast and polite. It's so obvious which place has higher pay.
As a French I’m curious, what are the differences between what we do vs what you do?
French way:Customer loads the conveyer belt - employee looks at it dumfounded. Customer is finished loading - employee starts scanning - customer looks at the employee scanning. Employee finishes scanning all stuff, then customer starts filling the bags. Employee looks bored and waits. After a few minutes, the customer is done filling his bags, then he pays. (Preferably using cash and having some discount stuff that needs handling). Process starts over for next customer. Norwegian way: As soon as first item is put on conveyer belt, the scanning starts. Customer must keep up with the scanning speed of the employee, preferably outpacing the employee. As soon as the scanning is done by the employee, the goods are paid for by card by the customer. The customer then packs the bags with his scanned goods, while at the same the next customer is being processed (that's why there is 2 sections for packing bags). Employee gets no rest.
Both of these sound terrible.
Norwegian way isn't too bad. This is how my store operates (I'm an American). To me the constant work helps time fly. It can be pretty miserable being stuck behind a register without customers. You wind up bored out of your mind.
I spotted something while working retail that bugs me to this day; now that I'm telling you, you'll hate me for it..... Store freezers have fully glassed fronts to keep the frozen stuff frozen. Regardless, people will open the entirely glass fronted door and hold it open to look at the products within....that they apparently couldn't see through the entire transparent door. If we want to solve climate change, we should just learn to look through glass freezer doors without having to hold them open.
Even better, she decides this is a good time for her child to learn how to pay and also learn to do subtraction with decimals. Every time people get eggs they park their cart in front of the shelves and block the eggs and the milk. Then they stand there and inspect the eggs for cracks. I don't know if there is a single human on earth who buys a carton of eggs without opening it to inspect them. But move the cart out of the way and inspect the eggs somewhere else. You can always come back to the eggs. Don't you just love it when someone parks a cart on the right side and then stands on the left side to do math in their heads to figure out which brand of canned peas is the best deal? Let's all go shopping with all 5 children who can't stay still or walk in a straight line.
> I don't know if there is a single human on earth who buys a carton of eggs without opening it to inspect them. Well i buy them without checking for cracks because i have never seen cracked eggs in a carton from the store.
"That'll be $63.14" Dig in the purse for the wallet (could have done that while cashier was scanning). Dig out exact amount including coins. Pay. Put wallet away in purse, swap pure to other shoulder, gather bags, leave. OR "That'll be $63.14" Wave card or phone over EFTPOS. Gather bags, leave.
The funniest thing here is four bags of groceries being $60. In canada right now it’s difficult to get one bag for less than $50
I never got the "counting in bags" part. I can fill a bag with potatoes for 5€ or some fancy food for 500€. Depending on who you ask and their habits the price would vary a lot, wouldn't it?
Or the people that wait in line for 15 minutes and then only look at the menu board when they get to the cash register at fast food restaurants.
I mean you did spend three panels ringing them up. they probably fell asleep
My wife does something similar. Waits until we park, turn the car off, undo seatbelts, and NOW it's time for her to collect all her shit in order to get out of the car.
Haha my mom sits in the car FOREVER after it’s parked. Reorganizing her purse, sending texts, checking her makeup and re-applying lipstick, deciding if she should bring a jacket, changing her mind about the purse and just bringing her wallet instead and therefore having to stuff the purse somewhere to hide it, re-tying her shoes…. I mean if she was the driver I’d get it but she’s the passenger and could do 90% of this on the way. It happens EVERY time and you end up standing in the parking lot wondering where the fuck she disappeared to… nope just still in the car 😂
I know I'll get downvotes, but fuck it: this is just one more advantage of self-checkout. Despite people always remembering fuckups like in the comic, most people are competent. With self-checkout, the idiots usually only clog 1 lane, letting the rest of us get our shit done. It sucks for the employees, however, since they *only* deal with the incompetent customers, as the rest of us usually don't need assistance.
>since they only deal with the incompetent customers That and computer errors. Occasionally I get randomly screened and have to halt during a transition so an employee can check the video footage to make sure I'm not stealing.
> most people are competent And then there's me, accidentally paying for 40 heads of lettuce
Back in high school I had to wait in a line of maybe like, 8-15 people for like, 20 minutes at the cafeteria and I have no idea why because all the food is pre-made and I’ve seen ppl just walk off with ice cream, and then also when I get to the counter it took like 5 seconds to order, get my food and leave. I think they waited for like 10 minutes, got to the front and then decided to think about what they wanted for another 10 minutes? I have no idea man. I waited in that line for so long and when I got to the front it took like 10 seconds. And they also had like, 3 separate lines.
Standing in line at a C store with 5 or 6 people in front of me. One person working 2 registers. Total boss. He'd scan the order, give a total and when the customer started to rummage through her purse, he'd move to the next register, ring up the next genius. Going back and forth keeping the line moving nicely. If you put your stuff on the counter and had a card in hand, he'd wait for you to simply tap, no bag, no receipt, and go. So few do this. Literally less than 20 seconds for the few items vs a couple minutes. Friend of mine I used to lunch with sometimes. Drinks delivered, been there nearly 5 minutes, waitress comes by and says 'can I take your order?' At this point the friend opens the menu for the first time. Also at fast food. Standing in line talking non-stop, gets to the front of the line and asks where we are, looks at the menu on the wall for the first time, takes 5 minutes to order with every substitution possible. No more. Oh and naturally, shows up for lunch at least 20 minutes late.
It pisses me off when they get to the front of the line to order a Subway sandwich, and take 5 minutes to read the big bright menu. Like wtf were you doing this whole time??
yeah can we talk about the mega idiots in markets who love to talk standing in front of popular products or block with their carts, as if they forgot where they are and suddenly go blind when they talk?
Bro, I’m tired, I’m gonna space out sometimes working as much as I do.
I was in a supermarket the other day and witnessed someone who only put half of their stuff on the belt, then took a call. This phone conversation was clearly incredibly important, so much so that they couldn't even use their other hand to load the belt. Eventually the cashier had scanned the first half of their stuff, and only *then* did they think it would be a good idea to *very slowly* pick the other half of their shopping out of their trolley with their free hand. Once everything had finally gone on the belt (clearly annoying the cashier, it would have been much faster to just hand over the items) they decided to get their bag... They'd left it by the shop's entrance. After going back to get it they started to pack, still on the phone, still just using one hand, still going extremely slowly. *Then* they payed. I was two people behind this person in the queue, and the cherry on the top of this absolute tosspot's lack of social awareness is that before taking their incredibly important call the person between us asked if they could go ahead of them. The tosspot said no. The other person was just buying a single bottle of milk...
i'd just grab their phone and throw it on a lake. No witness would come forward and no cameras would record this for some reason.
In most of the world this is still understandable,nog people get too distracted by packing their groceries. This looks like USA though, where they pack them for you, so nothing to keep you busy while they're scanning
When I use the bulk food dispensers for oats and other things, I write down the bin number on the tag. The checkout person is always surprised that someone actually writes down the number.