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I really dislike that most groceries don't have one big line that feeds into registers. It's just stupid to allow me to get stuck behind someone who's arguing about a coupon for 5 minutes while people who came after me flow through the other registers.
The grocery by me also never seems to have enough checkout staff to keep the lines short. There's a lot of people with full carts, and no express line. I end up waiting for 10 minutes to buy some bread and bananas .
I end up waiting for 10 minutes to buy some bread and bananas
I could literally walk down to the end of the street and buy my bananas from the gentleman who's been operating the same produce stall for the last decade, then a loaf of bread from the bakery next door, and be home within 10 minutes. I don't want to make assumptions, but if bread and bananas requires you to travel to a packed general store, wherever you live, it's a city planning hellscape.
That’s the US and supermarket dominance for ya.
US zoning laws are a fucking farce. They were developed to facilitate racial segregation in the 1910s and never really went away.
I’d say it’s the automobile that ruined it all.
Racism comes in more with white flight and suburban sprawl. Then it all collapses.
The automobile was just one additional way to do the racism.
You live in the suburbs and drive to the shopping malls because the blacks can’t afford the cars to get there.
Literally a society designed on apartheid.
The racism was always there. The automobile enables the racism to do more damage.
The supermarket can’t exist and ruin the small market without the automobile, no matter how racist society is.
And ultimately it's now trapped the people who supported it because they're now 80 and can't safely drive anywhere. Just decaying alive in their 3BR suburban cul-de-sac tombs while private equity waits like a vulture to reclaim the property.
can't safely drive anywhere
Pretty much no one is stopping them though!
then when the malls close and a new trendy mixed-use development spawns from the rubble, the blacks can't afford to live there, either.
And there's a chance you'll be stuck behind someone at each one, so your reply has got less to do with what you're replying to and more to do with your desire to make a different point.
The supermarket is a 5 minute walk from my apartment, and for the past few years didn't have big lines. I don't know if they changed staffing, or it got more popular, or what.
There are some smaller grocers that don't typically have long lines nearby, but I don't think they have the big tubs of peanut butter I lust after, or a few other things I sometimes get. I should probably check out the smaller grocers anyway
Hey that's all of Norway more or less. There's bakeries you could buy bread in for the low low price of 10 grocery breads, but you won't find anything else edible in a stall or small shop unless you're in one of the biggest cities.
I'm a believer in a future where there's only grocery stores in norway, everything else will be bought online and shipped.
The Costco near me used to have one single line for all lanes of self checkout machines, it was great. Then some months ago they switched it to a line per lane and I hate it so much. I think it's just stupid "perceptions" — people probably just "feel like" it takes longer when it's one long line, so they're happy to wait longer in a shorter line because visually "their turn is coming soon."
I think I've read that it is about perception, which is up there with children thinking the tall, narrow, glass has more water after pouring the short wide glass into it.
Very “1/4 pound burger is larger than a 1/3 pound burger because 4>3” coded.
For self checkouts I have always seen it as 1 line to a group of them. Some larger shops have multiple clusters of self checkouts with their own individual lines though.
I've learned a few things standing in grocery lines. Look for cashiers on the younger side, they just tend to work quicker and less small talk. Look for lines with no elderly, they are the ones who complain about the price tag showing 5 cents cheaper or an expired coupon, pay by check etc.. Look for no kids with parents, the parents get distracted and things just go wrong.
It's not a perfect system, but it's saved me many times.
Also 3 people with small orders will normally take longer than 1 person with a big order. One of the biggest time sinks is people paying.
Minor correction, please take it in the kindly manner it is offered:
Time sink indicates something that takes time. Time is sunk in a time sink.
Time sync would indicate a synchronizing of time.
Your meaning is very clear from context though, so no worries. 🙂
Trader Joe's has one line that feeds into all the registers, and all the registers are open & manned by overly-friendly attentive workers.
More grocery stores around me are creating this: one line to a huge silo of like 15+ self checkouts and one employee that just like corrals you to whatever is open and helps out with issues
In grocery stores that have more trust for the community this can work really well however it may be a double edged sword: Wegmans has a very pleasant experience for example. The scanners are effective, they don’t bother weighing your bag to make sure you didn’t steal, they can even auto identify produce with shocking accuracy, and they still keep several manned lanes open. However, that last point is key as Wegmans has rolled out facial recognition technology to track shoppers. That is probably the main reason they feel comfortable lowering their guard in those ways and it’s far worse imo. What’s even more fucked up is that this is mainly widely known bc New York requires them to post signs informing people who enter the store of this, whereas other states where they operate like PA and NJ don’t have this regulation and they silently track customers
It’s frustrating beyond belief that once again we have to trade our dignity for a reasonable experience
What's amusing is, even big stores are capable of this. Back when Black Friday was huge still, places like Walmart would set up this style of checkout queue.
Checkers (in South Africa) has two big lines, each serving about 10 registers. I imagine having two is slightly more efficient than having one, because the next person doesn't have to walk as far
The main queue is a really good idea
The store I work at has started coaching the self checkout assistant to bring customers with a large cart of items that try to use self checkout to an empty lane and ring them out. We do this to try and keep the self checkout relatively quick moving with smaller baskets
Time to use the self checkout to save time!
No thanks, I'll just go to the regular checkout lane from now on.
I wanted self checkout to avoid awkward social contact, not to feel even more observed, damn.
Capitalism says no to technology as liberation. Technology as oppression only.
Unexpected item in the bagging area
For me, it's the card readers freezing when i try to do split payments. They use the worst card readers available on the market
please wait another 5 minutes to pay in cash
Never had any issue like that.
The rest of the things you mention just never happen.
Self checkout is a godsend. No more waiting in line. No more awkward small talk with the cashier. No more unpacking and repacking your groceries.
if you need to get a lot of stuff you just grab a portable scanner at the entrance or use your phone. Scan and bag while you go through the store, then return the scanner and just scan your phone at the self-checkout terminal and pay. Zero friction.
They have AI systems now trying to detect if you're stealing stuff by scanning one item while putting multiple items in your bag. All it really does is make it so you can't hold multiple items in one hand while scanning and packing them one at a time with the other. The number of false positives make it so the one sorry employee running the stall is never actually going to stop actual theft.
Damn, self-checkout here in Tokyo has none of that, it's really a breeze
Had to explain to my daughter why there are so many empty checkout lanes, and it struck me that I’m gonna have to explain a lot of ruins of a civilization that used to be a bit more human.
And then there are the store who are entirely self checkout aside from one person to enter codes or some shit. Gee thanks, I can drive to the store, find my own stuff, cart it around, check myself out bag my stuff and you get to maximize profit?
I wish scan and go would be more common.
Remember, kids: it's not a breadline if the capitalists make you wait in line for no damned reason.
1 of the 2 is an overworked regular, the other a student that started last week.
Also, I avoid self checkout, it takes away jobs.
I just avoid checkout altogether. Saves everyone time.
Taking away jobs SHOULD be a good thing. Why the fuck do we want people to do shit work like that if it isn't necessary?
We really need to be pushing more for a ~30 hour work week.
Theft was so bad at the Home Depot in Cleveland they replaced the cashiers. Now it's awkward. They didn't bring back the old counter so the cashier uses the self checkout for you
I feel so fortunate to be able to shop at HEB. They always have a ton of registers open and quickly flex as volumes change. I feel this meme on the rare occasion I go to Target though
Last time I went to target if like like a Kmart just before the company gave up. My bank even flagged the purchase as fraud because they couldn’t believe I was in there.
The grocery stores lines are nothing compared to drive-thru and parent picking up their kids lines. Plus they're wasting a fuck ton of fuel too.
Panel 3 : 2 cashiers in middle of empty ones and solid people/carts queued up to get in both.