“Mrs. Simpson, the express line is the fastest line not always.” ~ Apu

September 9, 2016 4:25 PM

How to Pick the Fastest Line at the Supermarket [The New York Times] “You dash into the supermarket for a few necessities. You figure it will be 10 minutes — tops — before you are done and on your way home. Then you get to the checkout lanes and they are brimming with shoppers. Your plan for a quick exit begins to evaporate. But all is not lost. For anyone who has ever had to stand in line (or if you are a New Yorker, you stand on line) at a supermarket, retailer, bank or anywhere else, here are some tips from experts for picking the line that will move the fastest.”

From the article:

• Get behind a shopper who has a full cart
• Go left for faster service
• Look for female cashiers
• Study the customers ahead and what they are buying
• Choose a single line that leads to several cashiers
• Beware of lines with obstructions

posted by Fizz (156 comments total)

Isn't it best for stores to have a single line for all waiting to checkout and have the next available checkout clerk help them in the order in which they got in line? I know I read that someplace.
posted by hippybear at 4:32 PM on September 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Beware the person who looks like they have nothing, but is actually buying 50 gift cards that take 30 seconds each to process through the register.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 4:34 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm waiting for the day when 'personal shopping drone helper' will be a thing. Need some milk. Have your personal drone go to the store and pick one up. I don't really care if my drone waits in line. If any kind of misunderstanding occurs in the line-up, the drones simply fight for dominance and the winner receives the spoils of whatever the other drone was shopping for.
posted by Fizz at 4:34 PM on September 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

Those minutes add up. Richard Larson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who is considered the foremost expert on queues, estimated that Americans spend 37 billion hours a year waiting in lines.

lol. I know it can feel that way, but I'm pretty sure there's substantially less than 37 billion hours in a year. Does the Times not employ fact-checkers anymore?

What can you do to speed up service?
Mr. Samuel recommended:
• Always face bar codes toward the cashier.
• When buying clothes, remove the hangers and pull the tags out for easy scanning.

ok

• Use the buddy system at the express lanes. Split the items so you each stay within the maximum number allowed and then get out the door quicker.

I am charmed by the idea that Mr. Samuel thinks one will have any "buddies" willing to be seen shopping with them if they're gonna obsess about line expediency analytics to the point where they're fussing over barcode directionality
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:37 PM on September 9, 2016 [44 favorites]

If there are ten checkout lines, the people in nine of them aren't going to be in the fastest line; the odds are against you. I try to just reflect that in life, you're going to spend a certain amount of time standing in line in the supermarket, and you might as well take the opportunity to visualize your goddamn mandala or something. If you try too hard you're just asking Fate to look in your direction...
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:39 PM on September 9, 2016 [69 favorites]

Isn't it best for stores to have a single line for all waiting to checkout and have the next available checkout clerk help them in the order in which they got in line? I know I read that someplace.

Other than in the article, you mean?

Generally it's true, though the effects are lessened by whatever time it takes for people to notice that a cash is free and to walk over there. What this does more that speed up the overall wait time, though, is even it out substantially.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:39 PM on September 9, 2016

Isn't it best for stores to have a single line for all waiting to checkout and have the next available checkout clerk help them in the order in which they got in line?

That's how some bookstores did it and it would frustrate me as a cashier because people would get into disputes about who was next and expect me to decide.
posted by drezdn at 4:41 PM on September 9, 2016

I'm pretty sure there's substantially less than 37 billion hours in a year

Across the populace of the US (estimated at 318 million) there are 2,785,680,000,000 hours in a year. That's substantially more than 37,000.000,000 hours. By orders of magnitude.
posted by hippybear at 4:42 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Americans spend 37 billion hours a year waiting in lines

(37*10^9)/(324*10^6)/365*60 = 18.8 minutes.

I must not be an average American (well, for many reasons, but also this) and I've never been happier. Especially with all those babies are bringing down the average.

What's up you cool babies.
posted by supercres at 4:42 PM on September 9, 2016 [17 favorites]

A few more:

Get behind someone who is buying smokes. Smokers just want to rush outside and feel that sweet sweet punch of lady nicotine.

Stay away from lotto players. They are the WORST.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 4:42 PM on September 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

I'm surprised age of the cashier isn't mentioned. Definite U-shaped function with time per item. Sweet spot is 30-45, I think.
posted by supercres at 4:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Get behind someone who is buying smokes.

Depends on where you are, because at my main grocery source the cashier will have to stop ringing, find someone with keys to the cigarette case, then head over to that case, say hi to their friend on aisle 11, and then ring up the cigarettes. Double or triple the length if they have very specific cigarette requirements.
posted by drezdn at 4:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [11 favorites]

No connection with New York, but I stand in line, while my kids stand on line.
posted by MtDewd at 4:44 PM on September 9, 2016

Stay away from lotto players. They are the WORST.

The natural enemy of the smoker. "Give me 3 number 4s.....wait....no, make that 4 number 3s....." and calculating their Grandma's birthday plus the days left until Christmas, or whatever numerological gimcrackery they use.
posted by thelonius at 4:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

That's how some bookstores did it and it would frustrate me as a cashier because people would get into disputes about who was next and expect me to decide.

I can see how that would be frustrating for the cashier. It should be implemented in a way such that there is no ambiguity - one big wall or a rope line or something along ALLLL the checkout counters so everyone has to stream in from one end. The first place I saw to do this was Fry's, and now at least some Best Buys and some Old Navys (Navies?) do it too. So much smoother! I guess the grocery stores are not willing to commit the real estate or something.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 4:46 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

some Old Navys (Navies?)

Olds Navy?
posted by hippybear at 4:48 PM on September 9, 2016 [48 favorites]

Is it bad that the best tip I have is not to get in line behind the elderly. They still use checks!
posted by Ferreous at 4:49 PM on September 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Old Navi
posted by drezdn at 4:49 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

Fastest line is always self-checkout. Nobody uses it and you can go straight out. Stop&Shop near us has these funky Windows Mobile based barcode scanners where you scan as you go and then you go to self-checkout, scan one barcode on the device, pay with whatever (including Apple/Android Pay) and walk out.

It's utterly brilliant. So quick. No lines.
posted by Talez at 4:51 PM on September 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Is it bad that the best tip I have is not to get in line behind the elderly. They still use checks!

Or count out the exact change! Penny by penny.
posted by rsclark at 4:54 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's brilliant right up until the self-checkout gets itself into a snit and requires a cashier to come type a code into it; which is almost every time I have suffered to use one.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 4:55 PM on September 9, 2016 [13 favorites]

Isn't it best for stores to have a single line for all waiting to checkout and have the next available checkout clerk help them in the order in which they got in line?

Mythbusters:

In the initial test, the volunteer shoppers were free to choose their own checkout counter and queue behind it. The average wait time using this method was 5:39 and the average satisfaction rating was 3.48 out of 5.

In the second test, shoppers were guided through a single serpentine line and then directed to the next available checkout counter. The average wait time using this method was higher at 6:56 ... The average satisfaction increased to 3.80 with the single-line method due to it being regarded as fairer.

Adam and Jamie judged the myth as busted based on average time, but also called the single-line method better based on customer satisfaction.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:55 PM on September 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Self-checkout is only faster if the people using it before you know how to use it and aren't bizarrely baffled by it. Oh, and if the cashier is actually on top of correcting the inevitable errors that happen when for some reason your item refuses to scan.
posted by Kitteh at 4:55 PM on September 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

Fastest line is always self-checkout. Nobody uses it and you can go straight out.

I went into the Costco here recently for the first time in probably 2 years and was horrified to discover they had removed the robo-checkers for all-manned checkout stations. They were the basis of my plan for quick-and-dirty surgical strikes into that horror of a store, get in get my stuff get out quickly. What I thought was going to be a 15 minute chore turned into a 45-minute chore all because they insist on having a human to interact with during checkout.
posted by hippybear at 4:56 PM on September 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's pointless - Americans are savages and couldn't queue to save their lives.
posted by GuyZero at 4:57 PM on September 9, 2016 [14 favorites]

Adam and Jamie judged the myth as busted based on average time, but also called the single-line method better based on customer satisfaction.

I take issue with their experimental methodology then because the basic math of queuing theory proves them wrong. A single queue with multiple processors is generally faster because single items with long processing times don't block a whole queue.
posted by GuyZero at 4:59 PM on September 9, 2016 [6 favorites]

Americans are savages and couldn't queue to save their lives.

What are you talking about? The US is second to the UK when it comes to polite queuing behavior.
posted by hippybear at 4:59 PM on September 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Also, all you people who don't know how to count that get into the 8/10 items or less line. I SEE YOU.
posted by Kitteh at 5:00 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I don't care in the supermarket but I do know how to pick a faster queue at Immigration.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:02 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's a little telling that the author managed to interview every conceivable kind of expert for this story except an actual supermarket cashier.
posted by thetortoise at 5:13 PM on September 9, 2016 [67 favorites]

I take issue with their experimental methodology then because the basic math of queuing theory proves them wrong.

But cashiers might process more slowly when they aren't held accountable by the people in their line. A single line waiting for multiple checkouts means that no one is directly responsible for getting people out of the store quickly. When you have a single line waiting for a single cashier, the checkout clerk is clearly directly responsible for the speed of the line and therefore may feel like working quickly is more important.

Of course this doesn't take the well being of the cashiers into account, but I certainly can see how a single line could be slower.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:14 PM on September 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

If you can get in the line with a squalling baby, people avoid that line.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:21 PM on September 9, 2016

I take issue with their experimental methodology then because the basic math of queuing theory proves them wrong.

I actually only take issue with their scoring function-- time through the line. Big deal; I know I'm going to have to wait. What I care about is variance. I want to know that everyone's waiting the same amount of time, or that variance isn't due to random chance of being stuck behind someone terrible.

Also, if memory serves, there was an issue with time spent walking to a register. That's easily solved by having the line "outlet" at one end of the bank of registers and the exit door at the other. Everyone has to walk across the bank of registers, either before or after they check out.

 ||==========[ line starts here ]
 ||
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 < registers
                        |Exit|
posted by supercres at 5:22 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I found myself getting irritated at a woman in front of me at a Loblaws at lunch because she plugged her bank card into the machine and did the whole debit transaction manually instead of just tapping.
posted by Flashman at 5:23 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I found myself getting irritated at a woman in front of me at a Loblaws at lunch because she plugged her bank card into the machine and did the whole debit transaction manually instead of just tapping.

That's seriously "take a deep breath" sort of First World Problems kind of irritation.

Either that or cut down on your caffeine / other stimulant intake.
posted by hippybear at 5:25 PM on September 9, 2016 [20 favorites]

I simply decided to stop worrying about lines. I used to obsess, pretty much as soon as I ever heard the maxim "the fastest line is always one you aren't in," but there was simply no system I could identify. Props to the researchers, I suppose.

Also, all you people who don't know how to count that get into the 8/10 items or less line. I SEE YOU.

Around here all of those registers are "15 items or less," which coincidentally is about the number of items that will fit in a hand basket.
posted by rhizome at 5:29 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

instead of just tapping

Tapping what? Her card? Is that a thing? I only know "tap to pay" as a phone thing, which I don't use, but maybe there are other tapping methods I'm unaware? Stores are barely capable of establishing that their chip/pin card slots are (not) functional, so a customer being educated to try the card-tap first will probably take years.
posted by rhizome at 5:32 PM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

coincidentally is about the number of items that will fit in a hand basket.

Ooh, that gives me an idea. They should really be "no carts" lines instead. Easier to enforce upon line entry, more compact. Carry or basket. Too narrow might run afoul of ADA, though.
posted by supercres at 5:33 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

This elderly person gets through the line in record time. Never use checks, don't use cash. The worst to be online behind is a single parent with a tired four-year-old.
posted by Peach at 5:37 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

The first step in picking the fastest line is to see which line I'm in and pick a different one. Works every time.
posted by blairsyprofane at 5:39 PM on September 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

instead of just tapping

Tapping what? Her card?

Yes, most Canadian bank cards and larger stores let you just tap your card to pay, if it's less than $100 or so. I guess thanks to the fact that we only have like 4 banks the system was rolled out pretty quickly over the past couple of years. It's a nice time saver (plus the tap makes a satisfying beep).
posted by Flashman at 5:40 PM on September 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

Wait, do they not have the tap card system in the US? Huh.
posted by Kitteh at 5:42 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Guess I'll be the one to point out the 'fewer' not 'less' thing here.

Now, carry on...
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 5:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

My trick is to always be nice to the cashiers.

Then keep an eye on which cashier is walking up the the registers in case she might nod and open up a new line for me.

That's only when I'm in a hurry.
posted by surplus at 5:46 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't care if it's 6 items or 8 or 10 or 37, but for the love of all that is holy, it's X items or fewer.

My amex card stopped tapping once. It was a tap card. It tapped and tapped and one day it wouldn't. I eventually called amex and had them send me a new card but in the meantime, I had to insert my chip and enter the pin. Sorry Flashman.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:47 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tapping cards is a foreign concept to the US as far as I know. My own card still requires a magnetic swipe, so I might be entirely mistaken. I also owned a flip phone up until just a few months ago.
posted by hippybear at 5:49 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

1) Always look for a lane with a bagger. Cashiers that have to bag things on their own are working twice as hard and twice as pissed off they're working alone. Some baggers are awesome at what they do: memorize their faces.

2) Buying liquor: don't get in the lane with the teen cashier. They'll have to call for ID check. Opposite applies as well: if you see liquor in a checkout lane + teen cashier, switch lanes.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:53 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

They don't do liquor in the grocery stores here in the Bible Belt.....
posted by thelonius at 5:55 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait, do they not have the tap card system in the US? Huh.

The McDonalds stores in my area took my Chase "Blink" card, which was contactless. Even the cashiers didn't know their payment terminals took it. It was a fun trick to pull by waving your wallet around.

Looks like it has been obsoleted.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:56 PM on September 9, 2016

Here in WA, oddly, they don't seem to require that cashiers be of legal drinking age in order to sell liquor to adults. First state I've lived in where that seems to be the case.
posted by hippybear at 5:57 PM on September 9, 2016

if only i had a penguin ... I guess you could say it was *puts on sunglasses* all tapped out.
posted by smcameron at 5:57 PM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Someone's watched Happy Feet too many times.

Oh, what's that penguin doing sitting on the telly?
posted by hippybear at 6:01 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

The best way to speed up your checkout experience is to shop at unionized supermarkets. The cashiers are paid better and stay in their jobs longer so they know wtf they're doing and develop some expertise at dealing with problems.

There's one cashier at my supermarket who's a real fascist about her 15 items or less, but it turns out four apples in a sack are one item (because sold by weight) while four star fruit in a sack are FOUR items (because sold by item) and HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? She hella scolded me for having 16 items due to the four star fruit.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:02 PM on September 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

If only you'd bought four-star fruit, that is of exceptional quality, instead of four starfruit, you'd have been okay.
posted by hippybear at 6:04 PM on September 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Also, it's 15 items or fewer. Less is only used for non-counting comparisons.
posted by hippybear at 6:04 PM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?

What? Were you absent for Fruit Counting in grade school?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:05 PM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Apple Pay , no receipt, you can thank me later.
posted by docpops at 6:08 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

have alfred wait in line while you shop

use batarang on elderly lotto playing babies and everyone else who is still conscious after the sleeping gas OH GOD ALFRED WHERE'S YOUR GAS MASK oooh is that valrhona chocolate behind the cashier??!!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:09 PM on September 9, 2016

that "hella" just cost you a favorite, Empress
posted by thelonius at 6:13 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I do most of my shopping in the middle of various weekdays, which you'd think would be awesome in terms of line length and general fuckery. But just yesterday I got caught in a torrential downpour that I would have handily avoided had not the person ahead of me in line used ~22 coupons (I counted up to 15 and then gave up, but he kept going...), half of which were expired/definitely not applicable, requiring two manager visits.

And then the card reader broke.

I could not bail on this disaster line because I had already put my groceries onto the conveyor belt, whereupon some store elf IMMEDIATELY confiscated my hand basket.

I watched the "This is Water" video multiple times yesterday, is the moral of the story.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:14 PM on September 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

12 items or fewer for presciptivists, a dozen or less for the descriptivists.

Everyone gets a line.
posted by bonehead at 6:17 PM on September 9, 2016 [19 favorites]

I take issue with their experimental methodology then because the basic math of queuing theory proves them wrong. A single queue with multiple processors is generally faster because single items with long processing times don't block a whole queue.

Latency is a harsh mistress.

As far as tapping - we have it in America, but like Apple Pay it depends on having a suitable card (new in the last 16 months), a suitable terminal (deployed in the last two years, usually as part of the chip card catastrophe), for the vendor to have passed the chip card audit hoops, and for the vendor to have turned it on. And of course the cashier needs to have performed the transaction in a way that the terminal is ready for a tap - when most are primed to wait for the card to be inserted to hit the last modal button. The Square chip terminal does it but is sucepptible to the cashier. The local grocery coop does it, and doesn't need the cashier. And the only card I carry that taps is the new Costco card, though I'll bet that next year's reissue of my other card has it too.
posted by wotsac at 6:20 PM on September 9, 2016

The line at one of my local grocery stores is of the one-long-line-served-by-many-cashiers variety, except there is an extra supervisory type person who stands at the head of the long line and directs you to your cashier when it's your time. Not only does this mean that you don't have people asleep at the switch, standing slackjawed while three empty cashiers gesticulate at them with increasing exasperation, but also the director sends people to their appointed lane before that lane becomes totally empty. This means that there's no dead time when the cashier has finished with one customer and is waiting for the next one to arrive.

It works brilliantly.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:23 PM on September 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

It's brilliant right up until the self-checkout gets itself into a snit and requires a cashier to come type a code into it; which is almost every time I have suffered to use one.

As someone who has to supervise those things, I hope those machines die in a fire. They work with out issues probably 2 times out of 10.*

*if your machine is not working correctly, please for the love of god, do not hit the screen/belt. Please do not throw things. Please do not yell at me when I come over to help. Please DO read the screen that is in front of you. I cannot read for you. Thank you from your frazzled over-worked grocery store person.
posted by littlesq at 6:45 PM on September 9, 2016 [18 favorites]

I just go to Trader Joe's where there never seems to be more than two people in line at any cashier. It seldom takes more than five minutes to get out of there. Ever since my bank card switched to the evil horrible chip thing, I've switched to using Android Pay which is pretty quick.
posted by octothorpe at 6:51 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unrelated Costco protip if you are there with another person: park the cart somewhere out of the way against a wall where you won't obstruct traffic. One person stays with the cart, the other runs around the store and brings stuff back to the cart. In my experience, half the time spent in Costco is related to navigating the humongous carts in aisle traffic. A single person can shop pretty quickly running around in there without the cart to slow them down.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:51 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm usually okay with long lines. My rage point gets hit when I am in the middle of a long line, a cashier opens up a new register by announcing it to the people who are at the very end of the line.

My first job was at a farm market, and I was told very specifically that if you are opening a new register because the lines are long, you go up to the person NEXT IN THE LINE WHO DOESN'T ALREADY HAVE THEIR STUFF UNLOADED and tell them you are opening a new register and can help them there.
posted by Lucinda at 6:52 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

The fastest line is the one that you just left for the one 2 lanes over, which turns out to be the slowest line.
posted by indubitable at 6:52 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

As someone who has to supervise those things, I hope those machines die in a fire. They work with out issues probably 2 times out of 10.

The only time I've had to have someone come and work the robo-checkers at the Walmart I go to (infrequently, for a short list of items) has been for ID check because I'm buying alcohol. What happens to locations different from the one I frequent to make these machines malfunction so much more often? This is incomprehensible to me, that they only work 2 out of 10 times.
posted by hippybear at 6:53 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I regard self-checkout lanes as a way for supermarkets to eventually not have to hire people anymore, which can only hasten the arrival of the day when we are all fighting to the death in mohawks and fetish gear for the last cans of gasoline in the world. So I usually prefer to be rung up by a person. You've gotta pick your battles, and the way I like mine is futile and unnoticed.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:53 PM on September 9, 2016 [57 favorites]

Wrong! One must seek out the longest line possible, so that one may practice the relevant aspects of David F Wallace's famous "This is Water" speech.

(Or other forms of mindfulness, perhaps invented in earlier centuries, if you must...)
posted by sylvanshine at 6:57 PM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Wegmans' self checkout lines are usually the fastest way to get out of that store, but they seem to go in cycles of working fine/throwing up errors. I'm generally at Wegmans twice a week. I'll go several weeks with no problems at the self checkout, and then I'll have issues several times in a row. I don't know if it's system update issue or a calibration of the scale in the bagging area issue, but it's been a noticeable pattern over the last few years.
posted by mollweide at 6:57 PM on September 9, 2016

I regard self-checkout lanes as a way for supermarkets to eventually not have to hire people anymore, which can only hasten the arrival of the day when we are all fighting to the death in mohawks and fetish gear for the last cans of gasoline in the world. So I usually prefer to be rung up by a person. You've gotta pick your battles, and the way I like mine is futile and unnoticed.

Do you want your Nuka-Cola sold to you by a raider or a deranged robot sentinel that has lost its mind? The choice is yours to make. Have a very happy Fallout future?!!
posted by Fizz at 7:19 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Trader Joes near me has the line director there full time and by gum once you get to the head of the line you get run up before you can get your card out, but before a football game that line starts near the entrance and goes all the way around the perimeter of the store.

It's usually pretty entertaining, though. And moves fast.
posted by Peach at 7:20 PM on September 9, 2016

do any of you live near a Fresh Market? their checkouts are extra delightful — there is no light or other indication that a register is open. employee standing at a register? they may just be looking through a 3 ring binder or sorting beans of different size into different cups or whatever.
posted by indubitable at 7:25 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

>Do you want your Nuka-Cola sold to you by a raider or a deranged robot sentinel that has lost its mind?

Neither--I'll just get my Nuka-Cola out of safes, by guessing the five-letter, alphabetic, stored-in-plain-sight passwords...
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:28 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

What happens to locations different from the one I frequent to make these machines malfunction so much more often? This is incomprehensible to me, that they only work 2 out of 10 times.

The ones I have to look after have belts with scales and a sensor in the middle (unlike Walmart and Safeway and everywhere else sensible). So anything light, cylindrical (it rolls down quickly and the scale doesn't detect it or it gets stuck in the middle... because physics) or long doesn't register correctly half the time. Or people self-checkout huge orders that end up backing up and blocking the sensor and I have to come over and clear it. Or the weight of an item is slightly off (like by 1 ounce) and it won't be accepted on the belt. Or it'll be a loaf of bread. Seriously. Clearing age-restricted items is the easy part.
posted by littlesq at 7:30 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Steal everything and run out the door.
posted by HuronBob at 7:36 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

The only magazines at the checkout now are People and its clones, and tabloids. So, if the line is long, I read People or something. I have books on my phone, I should develop the habit of reading on my phone. It makes waiting in line kind of a respite, unless I'm in a hurry.
posted by theora55 at 7:45 PM on September 9, 2016

Yeah, shoplift. No lines involved.
posted by hoodrich at 7:55 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

It makes waiting in line kind of a respite, unless I'm in a hurry.

I use this time to judge the people in front of me and seethe. It's very therapeutic.
posted by Flashman at 7:58 PM on September 9, 2016 [12 favorites]

Once upon a time I routinely took a book with me to - well, everywhere, really - which was a great help in dealing with whatever waiting-period downtime Life was constantly throwing in my way (grocery store lines, car repair shops, airports, plane and car trips, the DMV...). Raised my overall equanimity quite significantly, plus I got a lot of reading done. My first Palm handheld PDA included a reader that could handle PDF files and early e-book formats (and it also had a shopping-list organizer app), which was even handier. Now I have a smartphone, which does everything my PDA did plus a whole lot more; and while I could go back to living without one I have no wish to do so.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:03 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Damn coin slot never takes goat.
posted by clavdivs at 8:07 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

Get into any line but the one I'm in.
posted by gyc at 8:07 PM on September 9, 2016

NFC/PayPass/PayWave/Tap-and-go doesn't depend on having a chip card reader or the store being set up to take chip cards, although the module did tend to have a chip card slot in it for a while there.

Good thing, since there were zero (US) stores taking chip cards in the mid-2000s when NFC first became a thing. Ironically, though, I went from having NFC on every card I carried to zero a few years back, so it's only good for Android Pay and Apple Pay now, neither of which work with any of my credit or debit cards. Google Wallet was so much nicer in that respect.
posted by wierdo at 8:22 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

As someone who worked at a supermarket as one of my early jobs as a youth, I HATE HATE HATE, places where they don't let you bag your own groceries. This is a real big thing in the midwest. They usually have a system where the carts go directly to the cashier, and there's no real bagging area to speak of so they have to put what they grab directly into the bag with no appropriate sorting.

They also seem to have managers breathing down their throats to not waste bags, so they mash tons of things together like meat and produce which is unforgivable.
posted by Ferreous at 8:31 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I always end up behind an older lady who is using her checkbook, which the teenage cashier might never have seen before. I'm not usually in a huge rush so I just try to find the zen of the whole thing.

Costco is ok unless you get stuck behind someone with a weird issue. They run two person teams at the register so things move quickly.

I hate the self-checkout machines with a passion, but sometimes they are the only option. I resent it every time.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:43 PM on September 9, 2016

It's less about picking the fastest line and more about picking the shortest line. I tend to suck at it for whatever reason.
posted by mantecol at 8:45 PM on September 9, 2016

Find the line that I am in. Go to the register next to it. Even if the line is seven people longer, you will be done and halfway home before I ever get to the register thanks to my awesome ability to always pick the line with old people buying lotto tickets AND someone with WIC vouchers. 7 of them.
I swear to god I would gladly pay a shit ton more in taxes if we could just give folks who need financial assistance to buy food a simple damn debit card and let them buy whatever the fuck they want. A) Because I think being poor isn't something you fix with shaming tactics and B) Cause I'm sick of losing hours of my life behind a poor woman who just wants to by her kids some groceries without having to jump through a thousand hoops.
posted by teleri025 at 8:46 PM on September 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I live next door to my mega grocery store. It's handy because I forget things - repeatedly and often.

Anywho.. the thing I can't get watching the folks at the self-checkout - how do these people make it through the day in this world. So many of them - young, old, white, black, you name an ethnicity, religion, etc - seem so completely baffled by the self-checkout machines that I can't believe they've come to no great harm in their daily life.
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:50 PM on September 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

The only magazines at the checkout now are People and its clones, and tabloids.

And Archie Comics. That's what I read while in line.
posted by ovvl at 8:59 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I only grocery shop at the Giant near me where you can use a store scanner or your mobile phone to scan and bag everything as you go, then you just use the dedicated machines for check out with your scanner order - takes 2 minutes or so and you're on your way. There's never a line because it's so fast. They will audit you every now and then, but since I've never had anything in my bags that I didn't scan, they only audit maybe every 6 months now. It is by far the most convenient and fastest way to shop, and I wish every store did it.

It's only bad when you're used to that and something happens (for me it's usually if you buy alcohol, or the produce self-weigh-and-print-a-barcode scales aren't working) so you have to go to self-checkout or a normal one. I used to be very calm and not so bothered by waiting, but I'm completely spoiled. Dealing with all the people who don't know how to use the self check out, or the person with the 50 coupons, tends to make me very stressed these days. And of course I always end up in the longest line...

I wouldn't go back to doing that regularly - think I might drive miles out of my way to continue using the self scanner if I had to.
posted by gemmy at 9:41 PM on September 9, 2016

I've often fantasized of "check only" lanes: You must use only this lane if you are paying by check, and you can only pay by check if you are using this lane.

Let them be each other's hell.
posted by sourwookie at 10:06 PM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

My No. 1 tip for picking a fast line: do not get into the line my mother is in. (Mom is about 5'7", with short, curly red hair. She will have a cart full of cat food, bleach, and ice cream, and she will be wearing comfortable shoes.) She pays by check because she absolutely will not learn to use a card terminal. Then the checkbook and pen have to be put back inside the purse, inside the pocket; the pocket has to be zipped closed, and then the purse has to be zipped closed as well. Then the purse has to be reopened to get her car keys out. Then she has to check and make sure she has all her bags in the cart.

I will be the person next to her going "Mom, you realize that every single person in line hates you for paying with a check, right? Most people don't even have a checkbook anymore. No, mom, we parked on the left, remember?"

We also have to arrange the bags of groceries a certain way in the trunk, and then take a very specific route home, even though the town is laid out in a grid, and you can zig zag home via many different routes.
posted by MexicanYenta at 10:32 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

My tip: Don't try to buy alcohol at the grocery store near a university on a Friday night near the start of the school year when the next-nearest grocery store is closed for renovations.

I'm totally on Team Self Checkout. Always the quickest option and they take pennies which is fucking amazing. Here in California you can't buy alcohol at them, so concerns of the robots taking over aren't quite as high.
posted by clorox at 10:34 PM on September 9, 2016

Hi 👋🏻 Cashier here, speaking from experience in OR working at both a Fred Meyer (owned by Kroger) and an independent grocery store.

There are a lot of factors that happen in cashiering. Sometimes the UPC doesn't scan for whatever reason. Sometimes I don't know the code of the rare fruit that wasn't there yesterday. Sometimes the sale isn't in the system and when I ring it up the person in line corrects me but I can't tell if they're lying or mistaken and my boss definitely does care. The list goes oooooon. There's definitely a rhythm you get into when you're cashiering, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were certain identifiable factors that contribute to your efficiency and speed while cashiering, things like when your last break was and such. For me, personally, I know the codes for all colors of bell peppers, all onions, most "typical" vegetables like broccoli, spinach, bananas, cauliflower, etc. Fred Meyer is better for this because they don't carry many "exotic" fruits and vegetables, whereas the independent store I worked at would typically have things I'd never seen before, and oftentimes were not in book of codes. For organic you just add a "9" before the code (4011 is banana, 94011 is for organic bananas).

There are definitely factors, like I mentioned earlier, that result in me working better. One is how hungry I am. If I'm hungry and suddenly I have a huge line and no backup I'm probably going to stumble doing my 10-key, or forget codes. I'm just fuzzy. I actually prefer not to drink coffee while cashiering because it dehydrates me and then I falter later. Another may be what I was just doing beforehand. There are a lot of times where I've been doing some hefty clerk duties, like rearranging an entire section in order to fit some brand new product in, and it's a major project that I'm responsible for, when suddenly I hear my name over the intercom and have to change gears.

I'm not sure if it's because the independent market I was working at had a diverse selection of products from the Middle East (it's a Lebanaese market) but the UPCs were all over the place, so positioning them a certain way didn't matter.

The thing I've learned is to not care. That doesn't mean that I'm going to lackadaisically scan things, but realistically I can only go so fast and people need to get that through their heads. It's faster to scan things that have bar codes, but if they're awkward shapes/sizes, or require a certain order for bagging, then that can take up time. Likewise, if someone has a bunch of produce and I know all the codes I can blast through those and bag them easily versus playing Tetris with the bagging. If someone has a bunch of weird produce that I don't typically see then that will slow me down. If someone decides to throw a tantrum because a sale isn't in the system because the produce guys decided to make it a sale only an hour ago and they decide it's my fault when it isn't then I'm not going to be able to do my job properly. Likewise, if my idiot manager for some reason schedules me for 9 days straight and someone calls out and we're swamped because of that I won't be fast. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Meat department is where it's at for grocery stores, in my opinion. There's something so refreshing when someone says "I want a half-pound of ground beef" and you grab .50 and they say "Good eye!" For some reason I am amazing at eyeballing meat amounts. I can't count how many times I've pulled out a huge filet of salmon, eyeballed where I suspect will be the place to cut for a specific weight, and gotten it on the dot.

Working in the deli sucks. Consistently understaffed, not paid well enough but expected to do like 3 or more jobs (I was hot case cook, deli clerk, prep cook for both, AND had to prepare and package things for the cold case, all because they wouldn't hire more people).

Ugh, grocery store life. So glad I work at a dry cleaners place now.
posted by gucci mane at 10:46 PM on September 9, 2016 [28 favorites]

Also, it is of my opinion that more grocery stores should install either one or two smaller checkout stations in the produce areas. A LOT of people come in and only buy produce, or the majority of their baskets are produce.
posted by gucci mane at 10:52 PM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

ALSO, adding to that thought, more meat/seafood sections should be by the produce areas. In my experience a lot people are buying meat and produce either for that night or for the next couple of days, so having a checkout station that's centered by the two really helps alleviate stress and traffic from the main checkout stations. This also helps worker morale, because you can cycle people to the produce station and let them have some downtime during certain times of the day, and that helps to keep workers from suffering from burnout.
posted by gucci mane at 11:07 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I (a male) have worked in a grocery store as a cashier. I can say for sure that even though I worked hard to be fast, my lane was probably not the fastest line to go through.

The fastest lane is the one where the checker is a pretty girl. She is the one who has the horribly sexist lines given to her. She hears the incredibly specific proposition lines given to her on a regular basis. Her customers express their fantasies to her as she checks out their groceries. She works hard to get them the fuck out of her life, but a woman can only work so fast. She gets them through as fast as she can. She knows her shit.

I guess I can conclude by saying that customer service is bullshit, y'all.
posted by Quonab at 12:00 AM on September 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Or grocery stores could actually, you know, hire more living human beings to keep all their check out lanes open during peak shopping hours.

Ha ha, just kidding.
posted by Beholder at 12:15 AM on September 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

I take issue with their experimental methodology then because the basic math of queuing theory proves them wrong. A single queue with multiple processors is generally faster because single items with long processing times don't block a whole queue.

How are we scoring this?

With multiple lines, the variance is higher, but if Mr Burns is still employing the same number of cashier, the mean queueing time isn’t strongly affected. Cashiers and customers don’t scan or swipe any faster.

Yes, finding yourself in the “blocked” line is lame, but in the single‐line arrangement, that blocked lane is still wasting the same person‐minutes—a smaller number of minutes spread over a larger number of people. Over a suitably larger number of shopping trips, it averages out.

I think what the Mythbusters encountered is that single line arrangements are slightly slower in the mean because of the small delay every time a new customer is waved forward. With multiple lines, the next customer is ready at the register the moment the transaction in front of them is over.
posted by Fongotskilernie at 12:36 AM on September 10, 2016

The Trader Joe's here in NYC have one line, but that line tends to wrap around the entire inside of the store, complete with employee at the end holding up a sign to show you where the end is so you can quickly decide to go to another supermarket. The Whole Foods have multiple lines, and a video board that flashes the next register available, moving down the row of lines one by one. Me, I just go to my local Key Food, where the lines aren't bad, the prices are somewhat decent, and the cashiers are mostly pleasant.
posted by old_growler at 1:03 AM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

"The fastest lane is the one I'm not in": this isn't just a joke, it's actually true on average.

They should really be "no carts" lines instead. Easier to enforce upon line entry, more compact. Carry or basket.

That's what they have at my local Trader Joe's. There are two lines, one for carts and one for baskets. Each line feeds to a different group of cashiers. If you have a basket, you're free to choose the line for carts, and I have found that that's usually the right move. Plus, it spares you the sound of baskets scraping the floor as people push them with their feet.
posted by aws17576 at 1:35 AM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Surprised there is no mention of avoiding getting behind people on their cell phone. But I guess that's just obvious. Also, the Krogers around here have given up on enforcing the 15 item limit in the express lane and have labeled them "About 15 items or less". Not that I have ever seen the express line limit enforced anyway.
posted by TedW at 3:43 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

TJ Maxx seems to have optimized this process pretty well. They use the CS-approved "N workers pick work items from a queue" method. That is, there's a single, long feeder line that winds its way through a gauntlet of impulse purchase fodder (phone accessories, candy, etc). When a cashier becomes free, a robot voice says something like "Next customer to checkout 7" and the customer at the front of the queue immediately knows where to go. The enormous and crowded Whole foods at Columbus Circle also uses this method. It's only really practical for bigger stores (10+ cashiers), but it works great. Some Trader Joes are switching to this as well.
posted by theorique at 4:39 AM on September 10, 2016

The brilliance of self-checkout is they never programmed an AI to argue the terms of a coupon with. This makes them infinitely faster and more efficient than any human cashier.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:23 AM on September 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

oooh, here's another one! don't get behind a military recruiter, because he'll spend 5 minutes after paying trying to convince the cashier to join the damn Army. [I've actually seen this happen]
posted by indubitable at 5:29 AM on September 10, 2016

Fastest line is always self-checkout. Nobody uses it and you can go straight out.

I was always amazed that at the WalMart in the poorer part of town, there was always a huge line of people waiting to use the self-checkouts; I always assumed there was a large degree of theft going on.

I am also notorious at picking the worst line, to the point that, one time recently, as soon as I entered the lane, right behind the person checking out, the checkout person stopped doing anything and just stood there. After about 5-10 minutes, I used my celphone to call the store and asked them to send a person over to lane 14. After another 5 minutes I backed out, much to the chagrin of the people behind me (who were presumably also thinking, "someone has to fix this pretty soon") and as I got checked out at another lane and on my way out I saw that the same people were in the same place, the cashier just standing there.

Around here, the people on WIC are the slowest -- I totally understand because we were on WIC when my daughter was little, it's not the people's fault, but in North Dakota they use an antiquated system of paper checks, with dates they're allowed to be spent and indications of what they're allowed to be spent on, which adds a massive amount of time to checking out. Items are sorted into piles of which check will pay for which items and which items need to be paid out of pocket, I'm surprised the grocery store lobby hasn't pushed for something simpler. If I see powdered baby milk, or two or three quarts of whole milk (rather than a gallon, because the check says it'll only pay for quarts), I pick a different line.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:22 AM on September 10, 2016

They should really be "no carts" lines instead.

So, you'd force the person buying 4 gallons of milk or whatever to get in line behind the two-full-carts-and 35-coupons couple? 4 gallons of milk weighs more than 32 pounds, and I doubt that many people will carry that in a basket.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:26 AM on September 10, 2016

Fastest line is always self-checkout. Nobody uses it and you can go straight out.

Except that 3/4 times that I've used them, I've made the computer upset about how quickly I moved a box from the scanner to the belt or something else that caused it to start beeping and flashing the alert light while I try to flag down an employee to get the thing reset.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 AM on September 10, 2016

One of the largest supermarkets around here adopted single line. People line up in a perpendicular line to the checkout, at the entrance there's a screen telling the next in line which checkout lane to go to. It might be slower, but at least this way it prevents queues bleeding into the shopping area - one time during Christmas I couldn't buy everything because some of the queues were blocking the aisles, and there's 0 stress for being in the slow lane. They still have a couple of express and priority cashiers. And there's a self-checkout, although there's always problems there.

Otherwise, although I don't know how different it is elsewhere:
- Avoid lines with people with a lot of produce - they have to be weighted, the cashier has to look up the code, and because the produce area is often a mess, people will argue a lot about the price (or thinking the price/kg was the price, for pre-packaged stuff like strawberry boxes or bagged oranges).
- If it's a place you know the cashiers, avoid long lines in checkouts manned by trainees. They are slower operating the belt, have to look up the codes for some products, and might not know the kinks of the machines (like, say, only reading the discount coupons at a 30 degree angle).
- If you're carrying few items, you can gamble going behind someone with a full cart. Around half the time, they let me pass. One time, one guy almost halfway through two full carts asked me if I wanted put my things next and give him the money. I suppose he had a coupon that turned part of the total into credit, and considering it saved me some 10 minutes (looooots of tiny tiny stuff), I see no problem in that.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:42 AM on September 10, 2016

As a formerly super fast cashier, I was excited at first about self checkouts, but the delay where it calculates how much weight you should put in the bag vs how much you did put on the bag means my lightning skills were wasted and I could never find a rhythm. Now it's been too long and I can't remember all the codes anymore, anyway.

As part of my effort to chill out about things generally, which includes not speeding (much) or cursing other drivers, I just go to a lane with a cashier I recognize (no noobs) and try to make it pleasant for them; that usually makes it nice for me, too. I used to go often in the morning before work and they would only have an unmanned self checkout (there'd be someone around, but not paying attention and sometimes all four registers would be f-ed. That's dumb.
posted by MsDaniB at 6:50 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, and I hate it when someone bags for you. I stopped paying attention for a second at Fred Meyer once and the guy double plastic- bagged each of my gallons of milk. Real life horror story.
posted by MsDaniB at 6:53 AM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Or grocery stores could actually, you know, hire more living human beings to keep all their check out lanes open during peak shopping hours.


Compare and contrast; Target vs. Wal-Mart.

Target has a policy to pull someone from facing or other duties to run a register, if the lines start getting backed up.

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has -- I'm nearly certain -- done complicated studies to determine just how long people will wait before abandoning their cart and leaving the store. I have regularly had to wait 30-45 minutes for the line to clear. I don't shop at Wal-mart much anymore.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:26 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Another person not to be behind is someone buying portobello mushrooms.
posted by TedW at 7:26 AM on September 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

instead of just tapping

Tapping what? Her card?

Yes, most Canadian bank cards and larger stores let you just tap your card to pay, if it's less than $100 or so. I guess thanks to the fact that we only have like 4 banks the system was rolled out pretty quickly over the past couple of years. It's a nice time saver (plus the tap makes a satisfying beep).

So the system of having a chip/pin in your card was instituted to make things safer and more secure, avoids fraud and theft. But that takes time, so they instituted the tap system where you can bypass the chip and simply tap your card.

Hmm.....
posted by Fizz at 7:40 AM on September 10, 2016

Fastest line is always self-checkout. Nobody uses it and you can go straight out.

Not always. There's one Kroger near my house where there are regularly people with two carts crammed full of groceries using the self-checkout lanes. Aside from the slow pace of their scanning, they then have to spend extra time carefully stacking and arranging the individual bags on the checkout stand so the machine can keep track of the total weight of the order.

I completely fail to understand the reasoning there.
posted by Preserver at 7:41 AM on September 10, 2016

What always slows down a lane is the person with a hundred discount slips from various papers that need to be scanned. That said: I seldom worry about a delay in a line by remembering how lucky I am to be able to buy food and pay for it for my family. Here in my take on lines:

THE LINE TO THE LEFT OF YOU AND THE LINE TO THE RIGHT OF YOU ALWAYS MOVES FASTER THAN WHICHEVER ONE YOU CHOOSE
posted by Postroad at 7:43 AM on September 10, 2016

Here in Toronto, my local McDonald's takes the prize for the absolute worst queuing experience because there is no queuing system, just some slipshod simulacrum of a queuing system. Give me a queue or give me chaos, but don't offer me a hybrid.

Flashback to the late 70s (roller skates and FFM hair optional): McDonald's really did sell fast food. A cash was either open or closed. A cashier was available at each open cash. You stood in a little line at each open cash, and when you got to the cashier, they took your order, took your money, and collected your food from the warming bins. The food was usually hot and good enough and once you started placing your order, the whole process took a minute or less.

But then they expanded the menu. And added drive-through. And expanded the menu again. And decided that every customer deserved "freshly prepared food". That is, they nuke a pre-cooked hamburger patty, slap it into a bun with condiments and wrap it up. This gets you a burger that is always hot and usually good enough, but the process can take several minutes because the cashier can no longer handle the entire transaction, but must shoo you away halfway through the process and start serving someone else.

Most McDonald's that I've been in over the past decade have much more chaotic counters. The old one-line-per-(open)-cashier system is broken because the customer must give up their spot in front of the cashier to let someone else start the order process. No bank-style single line system has been put in place, except for a very few stores, because no goddamn good reason I can think of. "Pickup spots" are designated with signs beside each cash, although some people move to the open stretch at one end of the counter. As a result, you get little pockets of people bunched near each cash, but some are waiting to order and some are waiting for their order to come, so as you approach the counter, you have to quiz people to make sure you aren't butting into line. You will even find that some people hanging out several feet away from the counter are a mix of waiting-to-order and waiting-to-pick-up, so they have to be quizzed, too. If there were a single queue, it would be easy to go to the next open cash without taking someone 's spot or going all Gallup on them.

Once your order is taken and you're herded away from the cash, you never know if "your" cashier will deliver your food, or if one of the runners behind the counter will deliver. Sometimes your name is taken, written on the receipt, then called out, but other times a runner simply calls out the details of an order. Sometimes the food takes a lot longer than you would expect based on the number of people in the store, and this is because drive-through customers that you can't see are given priority.

So to summarize: when you walk into a modern Canadian McDonald's like the one on the north edge of the Junction, the process is fragmented. The positioning of other customers is often ambiguous and requires asking each likely person directly if they are waiting to order. And the number of people inside the store is not a good predictor of speed of service because drive-through. It's a lousy customer experience and must be frustrating for the crew as well.
posted by maudlin at 8:44 AM on September 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

The express lanes at my local Target are a group of 4 checkout stations, arranged in 2 aisles of 2. EVERY TIME people start queuing up in a single line, which makes sense to me fairness-wise. EVERY TIME some cashier or the manager yells at the customers "Each cashier is its own line! Pick a cashier!" There must be a reason they do this (maybe the single line gets too long and blocks traffic flow behind the checkout?) but most customers get really annoyed at being forced to choose.
posted by misskaz at 8:44 AM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I suspect, but do not know, that the problem at your target is that there's a slight mismatch between what's best for the store and what's best for the customer. What's best for the store is that the cashiers minimize time between customers, which means that as soon as a customer is done, there's already a customer standing there, having started to offload their stuff onto the counter for the cashier to sign. That means either separate lines or pre-queueing in a single line, but moving individuals to a check out slightly before it is available so they're already there and ready when it becomes available. That usually takes a staff person to direct it, because people don't do that on their own very well. Separate lines is less fair for individual users who might end up waiting more or less time than other users, but it's more efficient for the store -- they get the benefits of limited headspace between customers and they don't have to have an extra staffer to direct traffic.

(The pre-clearance center for the US border at Pearson airport is *brilliant* at this. Everyone who ever manages a business with line-ups should have to go watch them move a queue for awhile.)
posted by jacquilynne at 9:04 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

A red flag that hasn't been mentioned yet -- not sure how ubiquitous "price-matching" is around the world, but beware the person clutching a handful of flyers/coupons.
posted by raider at 9:18 AM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is how you do it (SL YT KITH)
posted by raider at 9:19 AM on September 10, 2016

Most McDonald's that I've been in over the past decade have much more chaotic counters.

I've always been puzzled by this as well. Burger King and Wendy's have a system that works better (single cashier and a waiting area after that).

You have to wonder if McDs kept the existing queue system only because they didn't want to admit that BK/W's system was better.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:21 AM on September 10, 2016

This whole thing made me think that my deliberately choosing the longest line behind people with hugely full carts (because I'm going to end up in the longest line anyway, might as well just go with it) finally pays off, hahahahah.

I refuse to do self checkout because (a) the more we patronize that, the less jobs people will have, (b) it frequently fouls up with that weight of the bag thing, and (c) if I end up breaking the thing and having to call a cashier for help...that just gets ridiculous. How dumb is it to have four self-checkouts and having to station a cashier on hand just to help them when they foul it up anyway? Isn't that even slower than if I just bought two items in the 15-or-less line?

I am in favor of professional baggers because the cheapest grocery store I go to clearly doesn't have the space or budget to hire extra people to do the bagging, so I'm stuck with my items trying to cram them in my self-brought bags ASAP in a tiny space while the cashier's already moving on to ringing up the other person and shoving their items into my pile. And I know damned well I don't know what I'm doing when I pack that shit, too.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:08 AM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Easy solution, and very patriotically American:

First register is normal.
Second register charges $1 on top of the total.
Third register charges $5.
Fourth register charges $20.
You get the idea. If lines are still too long, you raise the premium.

For bigger stores that have better data analysis this could be a dynamic system responding in real time to supply and demand.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 10:41 AM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait, you can still pay with a check in grocery stores in the US? I vaguely remember my grandmother doing that in Norway in the 80s. When I moved to Mexico in 1998, I was surprised people still used checks, but at least they didn't use them at grocery stores.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:42 AM on September 10, 2016

Yeah, if you ever see someone with 20 jars of mayo and a binder, get the fuck away. Extreme couponing people are the FUCKING WORST to deal with as a cashier. Almost every single one I ever dealt with treated it as some form of combat with the store. Trying to apply things we didn't allow, being asses about item limits, arguing non-stop about pennies; all so they could hoard way more condiments than they could use before they expired.
posted by Ferreous at 11:46 AM on September 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

all so they could hoard way more condiments than they could use before they expired.

They mostly sell them, via eBay and the like; or barter them with other extreme couponers who got other stuff.
posted by Etrigan at 11:49 AM on September 10, 2016

Not only can you still use checks, but you get people who think that checks still let you float money they way they used to due to the time between payment and processing the checks. Now they just scan them and basically run them as debit. You'll also hear older people still complaining that they don't mail you back cancelled checks anymore.
posted by Ferreous at 11:50 AM on September 10, 2016

hippybear: "I'm pretty sure there's substantially less than 37 billion hours in a year

Across the populace of the US (estimated at 318 million) there are 2,785,680,000,000 hours in a year. That's substantially more than 37,000.000,000 hours. By orders of magnitude."

And here I was thinking it only felt like 37 billion hours.
posted by Splunge at 11:54 AM on September 10, 2016

I did enjoy when I was a teen and some extreme coupon person was straight up screaming at me because I wouldn't give her triple coupons (we didn't do that!) My manager came over scolded them for being rude, they start screaming at him about how they just lost a customer and his reply was great "why would we want you as a customer?" They walked out INCREDIBLY angry.
posted by Ferreous at 11:58 AM on September 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

Usually I can skim through two or three of the latest issues of my favorite magazines, so if in not in a hurry, I'll pick a couple and head to the back of the longest line.
posted by jfwlucy at 12:24 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mr. Roquette and I have been through it with coupons. I find coupons stressful as Hell. I think that coupons and loyalty cards should be illegal. He never saw a coupon he didn't LOVE. It took a lot of doing, I THINK I've cured him of that one. He also teases non-stop while shopping. Any time I just want to 'gitterdone!' I do my level best to leave him home. He DOES find good deals on stuff and deserves a say in what we're going to eat. So he comes along 95% of the time if we have major shopping. We don't do self check out ever. It's a pain in the dupa and takes too long. I try not to stand behind babies. If someone has a fussy baby though, I let them ahead of me. I know how bad they want out of the store and how hard it is to shop with kids. I pretty much try not to shop after school lets out and we try for days after the 10th.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:26 PM on September 10, 2016

I'm surprised at one omission in the article:

Get in the line with the most males between the ages of 25-50.

In my experiences, males in that age range are far less likely to ask questions or are at least less likely to wait until they reach the point of sale before doing so.
posted by dances with hamsters at 3:25 PM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was always amazed that at the WalMart in the poorer part of town, there was always a huge line of people waiting to use the self-checkouts; I always assumed there was a large degree of theft going on.

Maybe they like the self checkouts because the machines don't treat them as presumed thieves just because they are poor.
posted by colt45 at 3:27 PM on September 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm surprised by the comments about Trader Joe's with sensible queueing systems. The one here is terrible. Individual lines and very, very chatty cashiers. I've been in line and seen cashiers open up new registers, check out one person, then immediately go back to standing around at the manager area in the corner, all while I'm still standing in the same spot and still listening to the cashier and the people in front of me chat about whatever, even well after finishing the transaction. I usually have no problem with waiting in line, but that was too much even for me.
posted by Maladroid at 4:32 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

The local supermarket (whose cashiers are generally great) got bought by a larger local chain, and they apparently changed all the produce codes. The poor cashiers all looked miserable for weeks re-learning the codes.
posted by lazuli at 6:08 PM on September 10, 2016

Surprised nobody has mentioned the amazing speed of checking out at Aldi stores. What follows is shameless gushing about efficiency. First, the cashiers get to sit at a console-like stations. Crucially, all the items have multiple bar codes on all surfaces so that the cashiers can scan as fast as they can move. Then they put the items directly from the scanner into the empty cart from the previous customer. Large items have a huge code visible from several angles. Finally the newly filled cart is removed--you bag your own groceries at a separate station, or at your car--while your empty cart takes its place and scanning continues almost without interruption.

So fast! The conveyor is extra long, giving you a chance to start unloading early, but I'm still hard-pressed to unload faster than the cashier can scan. If I can keep up, I can pay with card as the scanning is completed. The speed also leads to great attitudes--customers are more likely than not to let others with smaller loads go first. It's hardly any sacrifice since the line moves so quickly. More about their efficiency here.
posted by TreeRooster at 6:53 PM on September 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

So the system of having a chip/pin in your card was instituted to make things safer and more secure, avoids fraud and theft. But that takes time, so they instituted the tap system where you can bypass the chip and simply tap your card.

Canadian consumers aren't the ones bearing that risk though, nor are the merchants. It's the credit card companies that do---that was the deal they made to get merchants to switch. They have to manage that risk profile and subsequently how much that costs. They are under considerable pressure to keep their costs down---Wallmart just kicked VISA out of their stores in Canada for being too expensive. Costco just dropped AMEX for MC too.

It works out for the card users. The card companies and the banks have tuned the system to find an acceptable level of risk without passing on additional costs. We started with a $25 tap level, then $50, now, for the past few years, $100. It's been amazingly successful. I've heard that more than 85% of transactions now are cashless, and almost all are tap to pay. It's not just convenient, almost everyone expects it. And even with tap to pay, apparently card fraud is down something like 90%.

Not every merchant gets the privilege of offering tap to pay either. Some have lower limits, some don't have a tap to pay at all. I would not want to be a cashier for any of those merchants---they're constantly having to explain and apologise to customers for the lack of it.

It's going to be interesting to see if Apple Pay and the like get much traction in Canada. In many ways the banks and the credit companies have a few years leg up on them and you never have to charge your bank card to use it at the till.
posted by bonehead at 9:10 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I hate self check out. I'm doing the work of a cashier but for free! Is it sad that I think having someone else ring up my groceries while i read trashy tabloids a luxury?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:22 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, when the attendant walks around the register lines telling people self checkout is available I tell them "never," because you know what? Home Depot is cheap enough already without lowering their headcount further.
posted by rhizome at 11:10 PM on September 10, 2016

Costco just dropped AMEX for MC too.

Visa, not Mastercard, and I don't believe it had anything to do with chip-and-pin. No merchants like AMEX; they charge them more than the other cards.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:41 AM on September 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

$100 limit for the tap thing seems pretty low for supermarkets. That looks to be about $130 in exchange today and we come close to that often on our weekly trips and it's only the two of us.
posted by octothorpe at 4:48 AM on September 11, 2016

Costco in Canada is now taking MasterCard, not Visa. The comment was all about CC transactions in Canada.
posted by maudlin at 8:00 AM on September 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've found that I have to sign at the terminal for sufficiently large purchases at my grocery store (> $75?) made with Apple Pay. I have no idea what function it serves or how they would verify it (would they look on the back of my phone for a signature?).
posted by indubitable at 8:06 AM on September 11, 2016

I always have to enter my pin into the reader when I use Android Pay which makes it just as slow as swiping but still many times faster than the stupid chip reader.
posted by octothorpe at 8:31 AM on September 11, 2016

Whoever made the terminal noise for when your chip based transaction has been processed and you can remove your card decided "blaring error noise, that's the perfect sound to indicate a successful transaction!" Great design work champ.
posted by Ferreous at 8:36 AM on September 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I always get startled by that buzzer sound when the card is ready to be removed and half the time ask the cashier if I did something wrong.
posted by octothorpe at 8:57 AM on September 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't get chip and signature at all. I mean, the chip thing, great. I like it. Makes sure the card itself was issued by the bank and not printed up by some criminal. PIN, great. Now someone can't easily steal my real card and use it.

What is signature supposed to add? Cashiers don't even look at it. Non-repudiation maybe? So I can't claim it wasn't me that made that purchase? It would make more sense if the signature on record was shown on the merchant's terminal but NOT written on the card. Then I'd have to guess reasonably close with no example, so it would be like a PIN that I couldn't forget.
posted by ctmf at 9:57 AM on September 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think that coupons and loyalty cards should be illegal.
Except that some people actually need coupons and loyalty card discounts to stretch money for the whole month. If anyone has problems resisting buying 200 cans of tomato sauce or get stressed because OMG 50% off, it's their problem. Not mine, because we'd be even more screwed without them.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:03 AM on September 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

> I'm waiting for the day when 'personal shopping drone helper' will be a thing. Need some milk. Have your personal drone go to the store and pick one up.

Between Google Express, Amazon Fresh, and Instacart, this already exists. They use human beings sent to stores with pictures of the products to buy instead of robots (not sure about Amazon Fresh), and there's a fee, but you can have a gallon of milk delivered to your door instead of waiting at the store in line if you're in a service area.

In terms of lines, the local worker-owned vegetarian co-op grocery store has dramatically shorter lines by having more registers open, vs I've only ever seen two (!) registers open at the discount supermarket, even when the lines are snaked across the store and down the aisles. They are much cheaper, but I just don't think it's worth the savings to stand in line for 30 minutes for a box of cereal.
posted by fragmede at 11:48 AM on September 11, 2016

I just went to the grocery store and had plenty of time to think about this topic while waiting in line. At this store they had high dividers between each checkstand, so you can't compare how each lane is moving while choosing a lane. I ended up in a lane behind two people who were shopping for big families, which was fine, and with a very young, inexperienced, and slow cashier, which wasn't so fine. He would scan two or three items, then work ineffectively on bagging, then back to scanning, with none of the rhythm and efficiency of an experienced cashier.

Slightly better physical design, like being able to see from a distance how the lanes are moving, would have made things a lot better, and the poor kid would probably have been less stressed with a shorter line, too.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:54 AM on September 11, 2016

I hate self check out. I'm doing the work of a cashier but for free!

I worked as a checkout chick for nearly ten years and I refuse to use self-service now because (a) I used to get paid $20+ per hour for that shit and (b) why would I want to help my former employer get rid of those jobs? Plus yeah, how am I going to catch up on trashy magazines.

If the lines are long and there are check outs not being used I do another circuit of the store waiting for the 'all available staff to the service area, now please!" annoucement and then dash to one of the newly opened checkouts.

Never chose the one with a 15 year old boy serving someone with a tonne of produce. Odds are he will have no idea what 95% of those items are. On weekend and after school shifts I used to get to stand on checkout serving my customers and answering an endless questions from my neighbouring teen boy cashiers like "Kitten, what's the code for lettuce?" "That's a cabbage, Bryan".
posted by kitten magic at 5:20 PM on September 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

$100 limit for the tap thing seems pretty low for supermarkets.

What it really has done is eliminate cash from small purchases like convenience stores and fast food purchases (which apparently is hitting the coffee shop tip jars pretty hard). It's super fast though, quicker even than exchanging cash and getting change.

It also makes getting gas a lot quicker---just a quick tap to pay on the pump---and a whole lot nicer in the winter. You don't need to take a mitt off to punch a pin on the pump. That right there is a pretty good reason to switch in my view.
posted by bonehead at 7:43 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cub Foods has all their store coupons on a card/app now, which speeds up all the checkouts. I once had a Cub cashier ask me where each product for each coupon was in my half bagged, half belted groceries (it is a self-bagging store). Um, the coupon should not work if I didn't buy the product because these are store coupons and not the manufacturers' ones with entire product families! Recently, I went to a smaller store in another town and the cashier corrected me 3 times for the way I loaded my groceries onto the belt. By the third time I stopped responding and just stared at the chewing gum.
posted by soelo at 12:49 PM on September 12, 2016