Ticked Off

[Tony Cooper]

There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
"Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
them.

Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
items.

The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)

Who is right?

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[grabber]

No-one is right. The supermarket is wrong for giving a ridiculous name
to its ten items or less queue, and the customer is wrong because she
has not boycotted the supermarket for its spineless surrender to
"grammar" peevers.

[Tak To]

I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
systems.

A nearby supermarket expanded about 6 months ago and in the
newly added space they set up a single queue check-out area.
(The old check-out stations are still there.) It is called
"Express Checkout" but there is no limit on the number of items.
The cashier stations are set up on a contiguous counter rather
than as islands separated by lanes. There is no conveyor
belt and the bagging space is rather small. Because of this,
people with a lot of item tend to use the old check-out
stations. So things just work out by themselves.

--
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

From my position safely on the other side of the Atlantic I think that
the complainer is right. The cashier would need to handle each one of
the ten cans of tuna fish. That would be regardless of whether they were
scanned individually or just one scanned and the other nine being
counted.


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Mark Brader]

Tony Cooper:

> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
> them.
>
> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or

> fewer" supermarket line...

Well, that's a bad start. "10 items or less" would be briefer,
and "1-10 items" briefer yet.

> with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other items.
>
> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>
> Who is right?

Whichever one the supermarket decides is right.

But if they allow the cashier to do as Tony says, I think the
complainer is wrong. Many stores don't; the cashier is not allowed
to observe that the items are identical and instead must scan every
one. In that case I think the complainer is right.
--
Mark Brader "We can get ideas even from a clever man." ...
Toronto "Yes, I think you can. Even ideas you should
m...@vex.net have had yourselves." -- John Dickson Carr

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Tony Cooper]

I'm not convinced the cashier has to handle all ten cans. She and
pick up one and scan it, eyeball the remaining number cans, and enter
the count digit in her cash register.

Still...I'm not taking either side.

[Mark Brader]

Tak To:

> I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> systems.

In one of their last few episodes, "MythBusters" did a simulation to
test this method. They found that while it did avoid the problem
of finding yourself in the slowest line, it also increased the
average time because people needed longer to actually get from the
waiting area to the first available checkout. And while the simulated
customers agreed that the experience was fairer, they also found it
more unpleasant.

One thing they didn't point out is that it also takes more space, as
there needs to be room for a line of people *with shopping carts*
and also an open area that they can route themselves across to reach
the applicable checkout.
--
Mark Brader | "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent...
Toronto | the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly
m...@vex.net | the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."
--David Dunning

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 2:48:47 PM UTC-4, Tak To wrote:

> I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out systems.

See Whole Foods in Columbus Circle, and I think 14th St. But not Edgewater.

[Peter T. Daniels]

How do they get to the bagging side of the cashier's station?

> Still...I'm not taking either side.

But the tuna fish is taking only one?

[spuorg...@gowanhill.com]

On Thursday, 12 May 2016 20:02:27 UTC+1, Mark Brader wrote:
> > I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> > systems.
> In one of their last few episodes, "MythBusters" did a simulation to
> test this method. They found that while it did avoid the problem
> of finding yourself in the slowest line, it also increased the
> average time because people needed longer to actually get from the
> waiting area to the first available checkout.

This is not the case in the Lidl where I have seen such a system. They have a "next customer to position x" call system, and the cashier calls the next customer while the current customer is paying. This does mean that sometimes you are waiting at the position for a few seconds whilst another position becomes free, but it does seem to speed up the service.

Owain

[David Kleinecke]

I havent yet seen a grocery store that uses a single queue but there
is a Fry's (electronics) in Concord with such a system. The incoming
queue is an aisle parallel to the bank of cashiers and there is another
aisle next to it to get from the head of queue to the available cashier.
They often - but not always - have a "traffic cop" at the head of the
queue telling people where to go. Seems to work well in less space than
the old system would require because the combined width of the two
aisles is less than would be needed for queues at cashiers.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

David Kleinecke skrev:

> I havent yet seen a grocery store that uses a single queue but there
> is a Fry's (electronics) in Concord with such a system.

I shop in two small supermarkets. In the smallest one I seldom
have to queue, in the other one I usually do. There is no system.
In practice people que up in a loose queue and close to the
cashiers they drift to the one they expect to be quickest.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Peter Duncanson [BrE] skrev:

> From my position safely on the other side of the Atlantic I think that
> the complainer is right. The cashier would need to handle each one of
> the ten cans of tuna fish.

They could be moved with one sweeping movement of the arm.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Katy Jennison]

On 12/05/2016 19:56, Mark Brader wrote:
> Tony Cooper:
>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>> them.
>>
>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>> fewer" supermarket line...
>
> Well, that's a bad start. "10 items or less" would be briefer,
> and "1-10 items" briefer yet.

"Up to 10".

--
Katy Jennison

[the Omrud]

On 12/05/2016 19:48, Tak To wrote:
> On 5/12/2016 1:45 PM, grabber wrote:
>> On 5/12/2016 5:55 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>>> them.
>>>
>>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>>> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>>> items.
>>>
>>> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>>> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>>> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>>>
>>> Who is right?
>>
>> No-one is right. The supermarket is wrong for giving a ridiculous name
>> to its ten items or less queue, and the customer is wrong because she
>> has not boycotted the supermarket for its spineless surrender to
>> "grammar" peevers.
>
> I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> systems.

Some supermarkets in Europe, particularly (IME) in France have more than
100m of checkouts. It would be a massive single queue, and it would
take an awfully long time to get from the single queue to the next
available till.

--
David

[Peter Moylan]

In this case the distinction between "fewer" and "less" matters. If the
sign says "ten items or fewer" then each item counts individually, and
the ten cans of fish would take you to the limit. If it says "or less"
then you can have ten large items or fifty small ones.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter Moylan]

One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
go to the end of a different queue.

A much simpler system, I believe, is to have a queue where a trolley
can't fit. People can have as many items as they like, provided that
they can carry them in their hands.

At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
(And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
unreasonably long.

[Tony Cooper]

I have unfairly maligned the complainer. I typed my post from memory
of what I read. Fact-checking reveals that the complainer used "20
items or less line".

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Peter Moylan skrev:

> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
> unreasonably long.

Now they are talking about a system where you scan your items
with your mobile and later pay with it - with no personnel
involved other than for random checks.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Tak To]

I forgot to mention that a number of supermarkets have
self-checkout stations; likewise for Home Depot and
Walmart. In all cases the stations are arranged in
way to facilitate the formation of a single queue.

[Robert Bannister]

I disagree. For me, the decision rests on the interpretation of "item".
I tend to think "tuna" is an item whether it is one can, ten cans or a
carton. Many others would disagree, but I can't see it is about
"fewer/less".

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Robert Bannister]

I have been in one supermarket where the express lane was marked
"Baskets Only". So, although you could a myriad of small items in your
basket, it kept out the huge trolley loads.

[Reinhold {Rey} Aman]

Katy Jennison wrote:

>
> Mark Brader wrote:
>>
>> "10 items or less" would be briefer,
>> and "1-10 items" briefer yet.
>>
> "Up to 10".
>

-----------
| |
| < 11 |
| |
-----------

--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~

[Peter T. Daniels]

What's that? 100 meters of checkouts -- more than a football field of checkout
lines? How many is that??

BTW every Barnes & Noble and every bank I've been in has single waiting lines.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:19:59 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
> unreasonably long.

Many of the stores that installed self-service checkout lines have removed
them, because (a) hardly anyone used them and (b) they often didn't work as
expected anyway.

[grabber]

This already exists in my supermarket and it's what I use. They call it
"scan as you shop". It's as you describe except a scanning handset is
provided for you to use: there is no use of phones.

I love this system. Before it, I used to have to go up and down the
checkouts in search of one with a nearly-full conveyor but no queue, so
that I'd have time to arrange my items carefully in a sensible order on
the belt. Going to a completely empty checkout would result in the
operator sending items off the other end of the belt before I'd finished
stacking it, and often even trying to pack them into bags for me,
inevitably mixing them up randomly and using more bags than necessary. I
don't know whether this problem would be as bad now that they aren't
allowed (in the UK) to give you free bags.

[grabber]

On 5/12/2016 11:12 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-May-13 03:45, grabber wrote:
>> On 5/12/2016 5:55 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>>> them.
>>>
>>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>>> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>>> items.
>>>
>>> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>>> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>>> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>>>
>>> Who is right?
>>
>> No-one is right. The supermarket is wrong for giving a ridiculous name
>> to its ten items or less queue, and the customer is wrong because she
>> has not boycotted the supermarket for its spineless surrender to
>> "grammar" peevers.
>
> In this case the distinction between "fewer" and "less" matters.

Hmm, not sure if you're serious. No it doesn't, because in this context
there is no distinction.

> If the
> sign says "ten items or fewer" then each item counts individually, and
> the ten cans of fish would take you to the limit. If it says "or less"
> then you can have ten large items or fifty small ones.

No you can't. It means you can have one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine or ten items of any size. You can't have eleven,
twelve, thirteen ... items. The only grey area AFAICS would be zero
items. I don't know how they would react if you tried the use the queue
for that.

[Tony Cooper]

In the store in which we sometimes shop they often have "buy one, get
one free" (BOGO) items. The first and second item are rung up at full
price and then an offsetting negative amount one item is added.

So, let's say you purchased 10 different BOGO items. That results in
20 items on the belt and 20 entries on your receipt.

Have you violated the 10 item maximum rule? In spirit or just in
fact?

If the person ahead of you in line did this, would it upset you?

[grabber]

In BrE, that is BOGOF, pronounced "bog off".

> The first and second item are rung up at full
> price and then an offsetting negative amount one item is added.
>
> So, let's say you purchased 10 different BOGO items. That results in
> 20 items on the belt and 20 entries on your receipt.
>
> Have you violated the 10 item maximum rule? In spirit or just in
> fact?

As I think has been pointed out elsethread, it depends on what the shop
means by an "item". My own preferred interpretation is that an item is
an item, rather than a collection of items grouped together as one for
some purpose. And by an item, I mean anything that is barcoded.

> If the person ahead of you in line did this, would it upset you?

I'm not sure I'd even notice. I very rarely have to wait in a queue at a
supermarket, but I don't find it stressful, because normally things
progress at a predictable rate. The only thing that annoys me is when
something happens that halts the whole process, particularly when
someone seems to be avoidably stalling the progress of the queue.

[Tony Cooper]

It doesn't faze me a bit. Most supermarket cashiers can scan 20 items
in only a fraction more time than they take with 10. Or, 40 if the
max is 20.

It almost always takes the customer longer to pay for the transaction
than it took the cashier to ring up the items. It seems it never
occurs to the average customer to get their debit or credit card out
while the cashier is ringing up the items, and it certainly doesn't
occur to many to have their coupons sorted out in advance.

Now that checks are seen less and less, that's speeded up lines. But,
if there's one check writer in the store, she'll be in the line I
choose.

[Dingbat]

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 10:25:47 PM UTC+5:30, Tony Cooper wrote:
> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
> them.
>

When I learned the idiom "ticked off", getting ticked off meant getting scolded or reprimanded, not getting annoyed.

[Tony Cooper]

It's been covered here. In the US it means "I'm angry about this".

[Rich Ulrich]

I have not seen any self-service stations get removed, and WalMart and
Target have joined my local supermarket in featuring a few stations.
The ones at WalMart and Target are not used as much - which may be
because they have more cashiers open with shorter lines.

However, "not working as expected" is probably true. One of the
three stations at my supermarket as been Not Working for two days.
And the machines do need regular attention while they are in use.

This is my experience at the supermarket, where I shop every day:

There has to be someone nearby who is constantly on call because not
many minutes go by (I think) without some problem. (And we are not
taking an express line because we want to wait around.)
A customer does not know how to enter an unknown fruit, or weigh it.
Paper receipts jam or the paper roll runs out.
The change-issuing machine jams.
An employee has to key in the customer's age (real or dummy) for
age-restricted items like matches.

For most of these, the machine will flash its light. And if it is me
with a problem, I'll signal distress at whoever glances my way.

And, oh, the self-serve registers need you to start by waving your
store card over the scanner. If you don't know that, you will hold
up the line until some friendly customer helps out with their card, or
until the employee-on-duty comes and waves a card.

--
Rich Ulrich

[charles]

In article <6c8926be-4bba-43b0...@googlegroups.com>, Peter

The ones over here work well enough, An increasing number of stores are
using them.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

[Peter Moylan]

On 2016-May-13 16:10, Tony Cooper wrote:

> Now that checks are seen less and less, that's speeded up lines. But,
> if there's one check writer in the store, she'll be in the line I
> choose.

That's so unusual here that the manager would have to be called.

[the Omrud]

I've never counted, but many of them have more than 30 checkouts. Most
supermarkets are rectangles - the row of checkouts runs along one of the
long sides, with a gap at one corner for entry.

--
David

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Robert Bannister skrev:

> I disagree. For me, the decision rests on the interpretation of "item".
> I tend to think "tuna" is an item whether it is one can, ten cans or a
> carton. Many others would disagree, but I can't see it is about
> "fewer/less".

So a thousand cans of tuna in a quick line would be quite
acceptable for you?

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

grabber skrev:

>> Now they are talking about a system where you scan your items
>> with your mobile and later pay with it - with no personnel
>> involved other than for random checks.

> This already exists in my supermarket and it's what I use. They call it
> "scan as you shop". It's as you describe except a scanning handset is
> provided for you to use: there is no use of phones.

But you pay in the traditional way?

Using the phone is a step up from the system that requires the
shop to aquire and maintain (and keep from being stolen?) new
hardware.

> I love this system.

If it were available here, I would use it. I haven't made paying
with my phone possible. I am not sure I ever will, but times have
a habit of changing, and so do habits.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2016-05-12 16:55:52 +0000, Tony Cooper said:

> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
> them.
>

> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
> items.
>
> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>
> Who is right?

I think there are other problems more important in this world. However,
it's up to the supermarket to define its terms. I did visit one
supermarket (in the USA, I think) that did that, with a notice that
said that several items packaged as one (like six cans of beer attached
to one another in some way) counted as one, but the same items loose
did not. That seemed to correspond with my idea of what as fair and
reasonable. Ten separate cans of tuna count as ten items, and ten cans
contained in one package count as one.

It hardly matters in France, because many shoppers can't count up to
ten anyway. If you arrive with 25 items someone will object, but if you
arrive with 15 in a ten-item queue probably they won't.

The supermarket I usually go to doesn't have a queue for few items, but
it does have credit-card-only queues, and a queue with priority to
disabled people and pregnant women -- anyone can use those, but they
have to give way if a qualified person arrives after them.


--
athel

[Adam Funk]

On 2016-05-12, Tak To wrote:

> I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> systems.
>

> A nearby supermarket expanded about 6 months ago and in the
> newly added space they set up a single queue check-out area.
> (The old check-out stations are still there.) It is called
> "Express Checkout" but there is no limit on the number of items.
> The cashier stations are set up on a contiguous counter rather
> than as islands separated by lanes. There is no conveyor
> belt and the bagging space is rather small. Because of this,
> people with a lot of item tend to use the old check-out
> stations. So things just work out by themselves.

The only thing that really p*sses me off at Amsterdam airport (which
is generally less unpleasant than most) is their failure to run a
single-queue system for going through passport checks.


--
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
--- Ambrose Bierce

[Adam Funk]

He's not kidding. The big chains like Auchan & Carrefour have some
enormous "hypermarchés" like that, usually in urban sprawl.

I don't know if the amusingly named ones like Pakbo & Atac are still
around.


--
The kid's a hot prospect. He's got a good head for merchandising, an
agent who can take you downtown and one of the best urine samples I've
seen in a long time. (Dead Kennedys t-shirt)

[Adam Funk]

On 2016-05-12, grabber wrote:

> On 5/12/2016 5:55 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:

>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>> them.
>>
>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>> items.
>>
>> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>>
>> Who is right?
>

> No-one is right. The supermarket is wrong for giving a ridiculous name
> to its ten items or less queue, and the customer is wrong because she
> has not boycotted the supermarket for its spineless surrender to
> "grammar" peevers.

Ha!


--
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not
preserved, except in memory. LLAP. --- Leonard Nimoy

[Cheryl]

I think it would depend how it was packaged. If it was one giant package
of cans of tuna, or perhaps packed in 9 or 19 easily countable packages,
why not? People check out cartons of cans of cat food or soft drinks.

I think I'd go with whoever said it was up to the supermarket to make
the rules. I haven't noticed much abuse of the express lines where I go,
although my second-ranked supermarket now has none at all. Or rather,
according to their notices, they're all fast or express or whatever
their jargon is lines. The closest one, which I go to most often, has
two express lines, one for up to 10 and one for up to 20 items.

--
Cheryl

[Cheryl]

On 2016-05-12 7:49 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-May-13 07:39, Katy Jennison wrote:
>> On 12/05/2016 19:56, Mark Brader wrote:
>>> Tony Cooper:

>>>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>>>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or

>>>> fewer" supermarket line...
>>>
>>> Well, that's a bad start. "10 items or less" would be briefer,

>>> and "1-10 items" briefer yet.
>>
>> "Up to 10".
>

> One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
> away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
> the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
> go to the end of a different queue.
>
> A much simpler system, I believe, is to have a queue where a trolley
> can't fit. People can have as many items as they like, provided that
> they can carry them in their hands.

Thus annoying people who have one giant and very heavy container of
detergent, or the old ladies who use their cart as much as a kind of
mobile cane as a place to put groceries. The supermarkets can't win;
they're going to annoy someone.

> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
> unreasonably long.
>

Those things haven't arrived at my closest supermarket, although other
supermarkets and some non-supermarkets have them. I hate them.

--
Cheryl

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Cheryl skrev:

>> So a thousand cans of tuna in a quick line would be quite
>> acceptable for you?

> I think it would depend how it was packaged.

I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
that defines a quick line.

> I think I'd go with whoever said it was up to the supermarket to make
> the rules.

In really don't have a problem with queues, and I share that
feeling with most if not all the people which I meet in the
supermarkets. The handling speed is usually satisfying, and if
some problem halts the movement, people take it easy.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 12 May 2016 12:55:52 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
> them.
>
> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or

> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
> items.
>
> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)

The sign, you say, is "10 items or fewer", not "10 types of item or
fewer". I think that answers your question.

And anyway, these days the majority of cashiers in my experience scan
every single item. Even if they still have a "times" key -- and many
do not -- scanning each item makes a miscount less likely.

If six cans of tuna are not bound together on the shelf, they are six
items and not one.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the
/right/ word is ... the difference between the lightning-bug
and the lightning." --Mark Twain

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 12 May 2016 23:10:35 +0100, the Omrud wrote:
> On 12/05/2016 19:48, Tak To wrote:

> > [quoted text muted]
> >> "grammar" peevers.

> >
> > I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> > systems.
>
> Some supermarkets in Europe, particularly (IME) in France have more than
> 100m of checkouts. It would be a massive single queue, and it would
> take an awfully long time to get from the single queue to the next
> available till.
>

The same is true in Wal-mart. though, of course, only two or three of
the 20+ cashiers are actually open. Luckily they don't group the open
cashiers together, so I get my exercise walking down the whole line
hoping (in van) to find register with a short line.

They used to have signs on certain registers claiming that those
registers were staffed from 8 AM to 10 PM, or a similar long stretch
of time. They got tired of complaints from me and others at the
regular breaking of that promise that they took the signs down.

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 12 May 2016 19:44:40 -0400, Tak To wrote:
> I forgot to mention that a number of supermarkets have
> self-checkout stations; likewise for Home Depot and
> Walmart. In all cases the stations are arranged in
> way to facilitate the formation of a single queue.
>

Wegmans had that, but then they put up two groups: under 20 purchases
and under 7, if I recall correctly. Each group has one queue. Of
course, people ignore the number-of-items restrictions anyway.

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 11:49:39 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
> and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
> agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
> that defines a quick line.
>

But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.

At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press
"times 10". And even if they do, the cashier must count those items
manually, which takes nearly as much time as scanning each one.

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 08:19:55 +1000, Peter Moylan wrote:
> One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
> away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
> the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
> go to the end of a different queue.
>

I'd like to award that cashier a medal.

My own feeling is that the "10 items or less" lines should be set to
charge a premium on extra items: the greater of 10 cents or 10%, say.
Since registers are all computerized, it would be easy to do. That
would make most people stop abusing them.

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 02:33:38 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
> There has to be someone nearby who is constantly on call because not
> many minutes go by (I think) without some problem. (And we are not
> taking an express line because we want to wait around.)
> A customer does not know how to enter an unknown fruit, or weigh it.

Or the lookup table is stupidly programmed -- zucchini under "s", for
instance, or radicchio under "l". This is a pet peeve of mine at
Wegmans.

("Squash" and "lettuce", if you can believe it.)

These are computers. There's no reason a given fruit or vegetable
couldn't be listed in every possible place consumers might look for
it.

[Lewis]

In message <1h7gxg0ryov5d$.d...@lundhansen.dk>

Dunno about a thousand, that would be multiple carts. But 100? Perfectly
fine.


--
'Where's the gritsucker? And the rock?' 'Ah,' said Vimes, 'you are
referring to those representative members of our fellow sapient races
who have chosen to throw in their lots with the people of this city?' 'I
mean the dwarf and the troll,' said Quirke. --Men at Arms

[Snidely]

Remember Friday, when Stan Brown asked plainitively:

> On Fri, 13 May 2016 11:49:39 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
>> and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
>> agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
>> that defines a quick line.
>>
>
> But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
> a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.
>
> At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press
> "times 10". And even if they do, the cashier must count those items
> manually, which takes nearly as much time as scanning each one.

I've seen cashiers wave 1 can 10 times, which /is/ faster than waving
10 cans 1 time.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013

[Lewis]

In message <MPG.319f72846...@news.individual.net>

Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 May 2016 11:49:39 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
>> and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
>> agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
>> that defines a quick line.
>>

> But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
> a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.

Not usually, though. 10 cans is scanning one item and punching in x10 on
the register.

> At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press
> "times 10". And even if they do, the cashier must count those items
> manually, which takes nearly as much time as scanning each one.

Some supermarkets don't let their cashiers put in a multiples for a
single scan unless they hit some threshold (I've heard 6, 10, and 12),
but that is not at all universal.

When I go to Whole Foods I usually am getting two items in multiples
(Milk and individual oatmeal cups). When I get to the express lane I
will hand the cashier one milk and one oatmeal and say something like
"three milks, 12 oatmeals" while I put my watch or phone on the sensor.

The entire process takes seconds, unless I use a debit card for Apple
pay, in which case I have to put in a PIN and answer a question about
cash back, which more than doubles the time.

--
I'm on the path, he thought. I don't have to know where it leads. I just
have to follow.

[Peter T. Daniels]

See Rich's list for just some of the ways they're difficult.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 4:45:10 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2016-05-13, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:10:40 PM UTC-4, the Omrud wrote:
> >> On 12/05/2016 19:48, Tak To wrote:

> >> > I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> >> > systems.
> >> Some supermarkets in Europe, particularly (IME) in France have more than
> >> 100m of checkouts. It would be a massive single queue, and it would
> >> take an awfully long time to get from the single queue to the next
> >> available till.
> > What's that? 100 meters of checkouts -- more than a football field of checkout
> > lines? How many is that??
>
> He's not kidding. The big chains like Auchan & Carrefour have some
> enormous "hypermarchés" like that, usually in urban sprawl.
>
> I don't know if the amusingly named ones like Pakbo & Atac are still
> around.

The two Walmarts I go to have mid-20s checkout lanes but
most of them aren't
open during my wisely selected shopping hours. In neither case do they extend
the full width of the store. Nos. 1-4 are the "Express" lanes (20 or less)
and most or all of them are usually staffed. I doubt they accept checks at
the register; I imagine you can cash a check at the service desk if for some
reason you don't have a credit, debit, WIC, or [what's the initialism for the
"food stamps" one] card, but since a checking account that doesn't include an
ATM card (usually also a debit card) is unimaginable these days, it doesn't
seem likely.

[grabber]

On 5/13/2016 9:40 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> grabber skrev:
>
>>> Now they are talking about a system where you scan your items
>>> with your mobile and later pay with it - with no personnel
>>> involved other than for random checks.
>
>> This already exists in my supermarket and it's what I use. They call it
>> "scan as you shop". It's as you describe except a scanning handset is
>> provided for you to use: there is no use of phones.
>
> But you pay in the traditional way?

Yes

> Using the phone is a step up from the system that requires the
> shop to aquire and maintain (and keep from being stolen?) new
> hardware.

Maybe this would be nice for the shop, but I have no particular desire
to give them access to my phone, or to equip my phone to access my bank
account.

There is very little reason for anyone to steal one of the scanners,
except perhaps malice towards the shop. I'm sure they can't be used for
anything else.

[grabber]

On 5/13/2016 1:46 PM, grabber wrote:
> On 5/13/2016 9:40 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> grabber skrev:
>>
>>>> Now they are talking about a system where you scan your items
>>>> with your mobile and later pay with it - with no personnel
>>>> involved other than for random checks.
>>
>>> This already exists in my supermarket and it's what I use. They call it
>>> "scan as you shop". It's as you describe except a scanning handset is
>>> provided for you to use: there is no use of phones.
>>
>> But you pay in the traditional way?
>
> Yes

Actually, not a particularly traditional way, as there is no other human
being involved. At the end of your shop you visit a checkout station,
which dowloads the details of your shop from the scanner to the
automated till, and then you pay by card (at least you do if you're me -
you can also feed in cash if you want).

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Stan Brown skrev:

> But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
> a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.

Yes. That's my point. Consider them 1 item and 10 items
respectively.

> At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press
> "times 10".

It is standard in Denmark to do so unless the cashier is
unfamiliar with the operations. It is also customary - at least
in the two Jutlandian towns that I know - to ask the customer how
many items in a bag of fruit without counting. I like that.

> And even if they do, the cashier must count those items
> manually, which takes nearly as much time as scanning each one.

I think it's much faster, but there may be som slow cashiers.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Percival P. Cassidy]

On 05/12/2016 04:10 PM, David Kleinecke wrote:

>>>> I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
>>>> systems.

>>> In one of their last few episodes, "MythBusters" did a simulation to
>>> test this method. They found that while it did avoid the problem
>>> of finding yourself in the slowest line, it also increased the
>>> average time because people needed longer to actually get from the
>>> waiting area to the first available checkout.
>>
>> This is not the case in the Lidl where I have seen such a system. They have a "next customer to position x" call system, and the cashier calls the next customer while the current customer is paying. This does mean that sometimes you are waiting at the position for a few seconds whilst another position becomes free, but it does seem to speed up the service.
>
> I havent yet seen a grocery store that uses a single queue but there
> is a Fry's (electronics) in Concord with such a system. The incoming
> queue is an aisle parallel to the bank of cashiers and there is another
> aisle next to it to get from the head of queue to the available cashier.
> They often - but not always - have a "traffic cop" at the head of the
> queue telling people where to go. Seems to work well in less space than
> the old system would require because the combined width of the two
> aisles is less than would be needed for queues at cashiers.

The Coles supermarket in downtown Brisbane (Australia, not California)
has (it had about a year ago, at least) a single queue, but an available
cashier simply waved his/her hand to summon the next customer in line.

Perce

[grabber]

On 5/12/2016 11:19 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-May-13 07:39, Katy Jennison wrote:
>> On 12/05/2016 19:56, Mark Brader wrote:
>>> Tony Cooper:

>>>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>>>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or

>>>> fewer" supermarket line...
>>>
>>> Well, that's a bad start. "10 items or less" would be briefer,
>>> and "1-10 items" briefer yet.
>>
>> "Up to 10".
>

> One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
> away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
> the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
> go to the end of a different queue.
>

> A much simpler system, I believe, is to have a queue where a trolley
> can't fit. People can have as many items as they like, provided that
> they can carry them in their hands.
>

> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
> unreasonably long.

I can't speak for the UK as a whole, but none of the supermarkets near
me ever seem to have long queues: the norm is for at least a couple of
the staffed checkouts to be idle at any given time (in any reasonably
large supermarket). The self-scan checkout clusters are also popular -
there is hardly ever a queue at these.

[Cheryl]

On 2016-05-13 10:29 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Stan Brown skrev:
>
>> But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
>> a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.
>
> Yes. That's my point. Consider them 1 item and 10 items
> respectively.
>
>> At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press
>> "times 10".
>
> It is standard in Denmark to do so unless the cashier is
> unfamiliar with the operations. It is also customary - at least
> in the two Jutlandian towns that I know - to ask the customer how
> many items in a bag of fruit without counting. I like that.

I sometimes go to a small food store laid out with two long counters on
opposite sides of the room, each with its own checkout. There are some
self-service items, but their most popular items have to be requested -
soups, salads, pieces of quiche, fishcakes etc on one side and loaves of
bread, cookies and other sweet delicacies on the other. They used to let
you collect items from both sides and line up for only one of the
checkouts, but the last couple of times I went in there, I noticed the
staff strongly encouraged you to go to one checkout, and if you insisted
that you wanted a lemon tart along with the fishcakes, but didn't want
to stand in two checkout lines, they'd label the box with the fishcakes
and carry it over to the other side, where it would be waiting for you
at the cash after you'd requested the lemon tart. They must have been
losing too much to theft and fraud under their other system, in which
case (if you were taking the food out), they'd give you a box with the
fishcakes, and, assuming you didn't make your way outdoors, skipping
payment, you'd be asked what was in the box when you reached the
checkout on the baked goods side.

--
Cheryl

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

grabber skrev:

> There is very little reason for anyone to steal one of the
> scanners, except perhaps malice towards the shop. I'm sure
> they can't be used for anything else.

Aren't people steeling/removing the trolleys unless they have to
insert a coin? For what reason?

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

grabber skrev:

>>> But you pay in the traditional way?

>> Yes

> Actually, not a particularly traditional way, as there is no other human
> being involved. At the end of your shop you visit a checkout station,
> which dowloads the details of your shop from the scanner to the
> automated till, and then you pay by card (at least you do if you're me -
> you can also feed in cash if you want).

It is traditional to me.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

[Adam Funk]

I don't think that's really much of a problem. I think the £1 (here)
deposit on the trolleys (not in all supermarkets) is to get people to
return them to the front of the store instead of leaving them in the
car park.


("stealing"; the trolleys are already made of steel.)


--
I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our
century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make
an occasional cheese dip. --- Ignatius J Reilly

[Adam Funk]

IME they are abysmal when they are first introduced in a particular
supermarket & improve over time. But you do run into recurring
stupidity in the design; here are the two that really grind my gears:

1. if I start putting cash into the machine, it should automatically
start accepting it without requiring me to press "cash" first;

2. if I scan a bottle of beer, the machine should let me keep going &
not require approval until the end, rather than grinding to a halt
right there until the poor overworked attendant can get to my
machine.


--
I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality
I met with in Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of
my life. --- Sabine Baring-Gould

[charles]

In article <1tybdyw0...@lundhansen.dk>,

Bertel Lund Hansen <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

taking their shopping home or just to throw in the nearest river/canal.
Take your choice.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

[Tony Cooper]

Most carts that are stolen are taken home by customers who have walked
to the store. A supermarket in a neighborhood where there are
apartments near will have the most loss of carts from their premises.

Retrieving those carts is an occupation for some. It's not unusual to
see a truck patrolling a neighborhood and picking up carts. The store
pays a bounty on returned carts when the returner has an agreement
with the store. The store will not pay a bounty to a person who does
not have an agreement with the store because they don't want people
deliberately taking carts for the bounty.



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Rich Ulrich]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 15:09:35 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
wrote:

>On 2016-05-13, Cheryl wrote:
>
>> On 2016-05-12 7:49 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>>> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
>>> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
>>> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
>>> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
>>> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
>>> unreasonably long.
>>>
>>
>> Those things haven't arrived at my closest supermarket, although other
>> supermarkets and some non-supermarkets have them. I hate them.
>
>IME they are abysmal when they are first introduced in a particular
>supermarket & improve over time. But you do run into recurring
>stupidity in the design; here are the two that really grind my gears:
>
>1. if I start putting cash into the machine, it should automatically
> start accepting it without requiring me to press "cash" first;

By accident, I discovered that I don't need to press "cash" first.
But I usually do, anyway.

>
>2. if I scan a bottle of beer, the machine should let me keep going &
> not require approval until the end, rather than grinding to a halt
> right there until the poor overworked attendant can get to my
> machine.

My supermarket's machines are programmed better than yours.

The light above the station starts flashing when I scan a box of
paper matches, but I can continue to scan the rest of the items.

--
Rich Ulrich

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 10:41:41 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:

>On 2016-05-12 16:55:52 +0000, Tony Cooper said:
>
>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>> them.
>>
>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or

>> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>> items.
>>
>> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>>

>> Who is right?
>
>I think there are other problems more important in this world. However,
>it's up to the supermarket to define its terms.

The supermarket management doesn't seem to define the terms beyond
putting up the sign. It's the cashier and the customers in line who
have any input. I don't recall any cashier ever telling a customer
that they have too many items. After all, it's a customer and a store
doesn't want to alienate customers.

If anything is said when a customer is in the 20 items line with a
full basket, it's the other customers. And, usually, mumbled
complaints and comments to others in line.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 02:33:38 -0400, Rich Ulrich

<rich....@comcast.net> wrote:

>On Thu, 12 May 2016 20:23:49 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>
>>On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:19:59 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>> At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
>>> (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
>>> stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
>>> check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
>>> because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
>>> unreasonably long.
>>

>>Many of the stores that installed self-service checkout lines have removed
>>them, because (a) hardly anyone used them and (b) they often didn't work as
>>expected anyway.
>

>I have not seen any self-service stations get removed, and WalMart and
>Target have joined my local supermarket in featuring a few stations.
>The ones at WalMart and Target are not used as much - which may be
>because they have more cashiers open with shorter lines.
>

In the stores I frequent that have self-service stations, there two
rows of (usually) four stations separated by a wide aisle. There is
an attended station in the center of aisle at the exit end of the
rows.

The employee at the attended station assists people who can't figure
out where the bar code is, can't figure out why the machine says there
is an unexpected item in the bagging area, have picked up a product
without a bar code, or otherwise have problems.

WalMart is the only store that routinely shuts down the self-serve
stations, and I think this is because they don't have a person
available to be the attendant. Without an attendant, a cashier from
another line has to be called over.

It's not, from my observation, because they have more lines open. It's
because they are controlling cost by having fewer people available.

I like the self-service stations and usually use them except at Home
Depot. At Home Depot, there is often a discrepancy between the price
on the shelf and the price the bar code picks up. Home Depot also
seems to have more items that are not bar coded. I can get this type
of problem resolved easier at a cashier station.

I'll use the self-service station at Home Depot if I have a small
number of items that are bar coded, but not if I'm buying - for
example - a bunch of PVC connections.

[bill van]

In article <lu0cjbhh4ga37k34k...@4ax.com>,

Shopping carts are often used here by homeless people who keep their
possessions packed in and stacked on the carts. Those possessions
typically include a tarp that is used by day to cover everything else,
and stretched by night from the cart to whatever structure is handy to
provide shelter from the rain.

Many supermarkets here including Safeway, the largest chain, equip their
carts with a sensing device to prevent theft. When it detects a signal
from a transmitter embedded in the concrete at the outer edge of the
supermarket's parking area, it locks the wheels on the cart.
--
bill

[RH Draney]

On 5/12/2016 3:19 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
> away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
> the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
> go to the end of a different queue.

I've always fantasized about being a cashier at such a counter, ringing
up the first ten items on the belt, telling the shopper his total, and
then suggesting that he take the rest of his items back around and get
in line again....r

[Mark Brader]

Peter Moylan:

> > One problem with such rules is that people who break them usually get
> > away with it. I have, however, witnessed one case where someone reached
> > the head of the "ten items or less" with a trolley and was then told to
> > go to the end of a different queue.

R.H. Draney:

> I've always fantasized about being a cashier at such a counter, ringing
> up the first ten items on the belt, telling the shopper his total, and
> then suggesting that he take the rest of his items back around and get
> in line again.

I've always fantasized about the cash registers being programmed to
enforce the limit. "Sorry, sir, it won't let you buy 11 items."
--
Mark Brader | Obviously an off by 1 error somewhere. You know
Toronto | the kind, where you intend to put something simple
m...@vex.net | like "while (1=0) {" and type "while (1=1) {" instead.
--Stephen Perry

[Peter Moylan]

Unfortunately those collectors don't pull trolleys from the creeks. Just
yesterday I was reading about a flooding problem, in a suburb south of
here, caused by half-buried supermarket trolleys that were diverting
water in the creek.

That's an extreme case, due to its being an extreme suburb, but I've
seen a lot of uglification of creeks caused by dumped trolleys.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[grabber]

Some kids like to play with trolleys, giving each other rides and
advancing science by seeing if they float when pushed into ponds, etc.

I've always tended to share Adam's view that the deposit is more about
getting people to put the trolleys away nicely than combating their
removal, but thinking about it now, the places I use where you have to
insert a pound coin do tend to be near lots of other shops. It may be
just a coincidence - it would be a very odd sight to see someone pushing
a supermarket trolley down the high street or through a mall.

[Joe Fineman]

Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:

> Each group has one queue. Of course, people ignore the number-of-items
> restrictions anyway.

It surprises me that no-one has thought of penalizing that behavior by
adding (say) a dollar to the charge for every item over the limit. That
could easily be automated.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Artificial & natural have no more moral content than indoor :||
||: & outdoor. :||

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 4:34 PM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Robert Bannister skrev:
>
>> I disagree. For me, the decision rests on the interpretation of "item".
>> I tend to think "tuna" is an item whether it is one can, ten cans or a
>> carton. Many others would disagree, but I can't see it is about
>> "fewer/less".
>
> So a thousand cans of tuna in a quick line would be quite
> acceptable for you?
>
Probably not, but ten (as the man in front of me had a couple of days
ago) doesn't make my blood boil.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 5:49 PM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Cheryl skrev:

>
>>> So a thousand cans of tuna in a quick line would be quite
>>> acceptable for you?
>

>> I think it would depend how it was packaged.

>
> I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
> and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
> agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
> that defines a quick line.
>

>> I think I'd go with whoever said it was up to the supermarket to make
>> the rules.
>
> In really don't have a problem with queues, and I share that
> feeling with most if not all the people which I meet in the
> supermarkets. The handling speed is usually satisfying, and if
> some problem halts the movement, people take it easy.
>
Moreover, in every supermarket I've been in, if you are only holding a
couple of items, people in front with more will insist you go before
they do.

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 6:35 PM, Snidely wrote:
> Remember Friday, when Stan Brown asked plainitively:

>> On Fri, 13 May 2016 11:49:39 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>> I replied to Robert Bannister who seemed to say that the number
>>> and packaging didn't matter so long as they were the same item. I
>>> agree with you since for me it's the number of cashier operations
>>> that defines a quick line.
>>>
>>

>> But the "number of cashier operations" is one for ten cans of tuna in
>> a single package, and 10 for ten separate cans of tune.

>> At least in the US, many registers don't allow cashiers to press

>> "times 10". And even if they do, the cashier must count those items

>> manually, which takes nearly as much time as scanning each one.
>

> I've seen cashiers wave 1 can 10 times, which /is/ faster than waving 10
> cans 1 time.

I would guess that that is how they usually do it. Because they are set
in a pattern of waving items, this is actually quicker than if they have
to stop and think about pressing the 'times ten' buttons.

It's like the when you are entering a large number of items on a
calculator or computer from a register and multiplying by a number in
the next column you can easily find yourself pressing the buttons to
multiply by two or ten - the fraction of a second required to recognise
that this an action you can easily do in your head is longer than the
time taken to keep on pressing keys as you have been doing for all the
others.

If, on the other hand, there are several items that need 'timesing',
especially in the supermarket situation where these might be heavy
cartons sitting in the trolley, then pressing the multiplication key
makes better sense. Most check-out staff are not stupid.

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 2:00 PM, grabber wrote:
> On 5/13/2016 6:45 AM, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> On Fri, 13 May 2016 06:35:21 +0100, grabber <g...@bb.er> wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/12/2016 11:12 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 2016-May-13 03:45, grabber wrote:

>>>>> On 5/12/2016 5:55 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>>>>> There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper
>>>>>> called
>>>>>> "Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>>>>>> them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>>>>>> fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>>>>>> items.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>>>>>> other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>>>>>> cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Who is right?
>>>>>

>>>>> No-one is right. The supermarket is wrong for giving a ridiculous name
>>>>> to its ten items or less queue, and the customer is wrong because she
>>>>> has not boycotted the supermarket for its spineless surrender to
>>>>> "grammar" peevers.
>>>>
>>>> In this case the distinction between "fewer" and "less" matters.
>>>
>>> Hmm, not sure if you're serious. No it doesn't, because in this context
>>> there is no distinction.
>>>
>>>> If the
>>>> sign says "ten items or fewer" then each item counts individually, and
>>>> the ten cans of fish would take you to the limit. If it says "or less"
>>>> then you can have ten large items or fifty small ones.
>>>
>>> No you can't. It means you can have one, two, three, four, five, six,
>>> seven, eight, nine or ten items of any size. You can't have eleven,
>>> twelve, thirteen ... items. The only grey area AFAICS would be zero
>>> items. I don't know how they would react if you tried the use the queue
>>> for that.
>>>
>> In the store in which we sometimes shop they often have "buy one, get
>> one free" (BOGO) items.
>
> In BrE, that is BOGOF, pronounced "bog off".
>
>> The first and second item are rung up at full
>> price and then an offsetting negative amount one item is added.
>>
>> So, let's say you purchased 10 different BOGO items. That results in
>> 20 items on the belt and 20 entries on your receipt.
>>
>> Have you violated the 10 item maximum rule? In spirit or just in
>> fact?
>
> As I think has been pointed out elsethread, it depends on what the shop
> means by an "item". My own preferred interpretation is that an item is
> an item, rather than a collection of items grouped together as one for
> some purpose. And by an item, I mean anything that is barcoded.
>
>> If the person ahead of you in line did this, would it upset you?
>
> I'm not sure I'd even notice. I very rarely have to wait in a queue at a
> supermarket, but I don't find it stressful, because normally things
> progress at a predictable rate. The only thing that annoys me is when
> something happens that halts the whole process, particularly when
> someone seems to be avoidably stalling the progress of the queue.
>
Likewise. I usually find myself chatting to one or more persons in the
queue. The main irritating thing is when the person in front has an item
that hasn't got a bar code or can't be found on the (new) cashier's list
because it's been labelled in a strange way. This means somebody has to
go and look at the shelf the item came from to find one that does have a
bar code or else the supervisor has to be called.

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 2:10 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:

> It doesn't faze me a bit. Most supermarket cashiers can scan 20 items
> in only a fraction more time than they take with 10. Or, 40 if the
> max is 20.
>
> It almost always takes the customer longer to pay for the transaction
> than it took the cashier to ring up the items. It seems it never
> occurs to the average customer to get their debit or credit card out
> while the cashier is ringing up the items, and it certainly doesn't
> occur to many to have their coupons sorted out in advance.
>
> Now that checks are seen less and less, that's speeded up lines. But,
> if there's one check writer in the store, she'll be in the line I
> choose.
>
>
>
You forgot the little old lady who has the exact right money...
somewhere: a bit here in her purse, some more loose in her handbag, the
rest in various pockets and other bags and, oh, here's the rest right
where she was looking in the first place.

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 4:03 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:

> On 2016-May-13 16:10, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> Now that checks are seen less and less, that's speeded up lines. But,
>> if there's one check writer in the store, she'll be in the line I
>> choose.
>

> That's so unusual here that the manager would have to be called.
>
I note though, that a few weeks ago they decided not abolish cheques
altogether for the time being.

[Robert Bannister]

On 13/05/2016 4:40 PM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> grabber skrev:
>
>>> Now they are talking about a system where you scan your items
>>> with your mobile and later pay with it - with no personnel
>>> involved other than for random checks.
>
>> This already exists in my supermarket and it's what I use. They call it
>> "scan as you shop". It's as you describe except a scanning handset is
>> provided for you to use: there is no use of phones.
>
> But you pay in the traditional way?
>
> Using the phone is a step up from the system that requires the
> shop to aquire and maintain (and keep from being stolen?) new
> hardware.
>
>> I love this system.
>
> If it were available here, I would use it. I haven't made paying
> with my phone possible. I am not sure I ever will, but times have
> a habit of changing, and so do habits.
>
At the moment, with my iPhone at least, paying by waving my phone around
appears to be only possible if I have an account with an American bank.

[Robert Bannister]

Our trolleys have some kind of sensor so that if they are moved more
than a certain distance from the shop (i.e. beyond the edges of the car
park) the brake goes on. Obviously, you can still move them, but it
wouldn't be easy to bounce your shopping all the way home any more.

[bill van]

In article <8637pls...@verizon.net>,

Joe Fineman <jo...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
> > Each group has one queue. Of course, people ignore the number-of-items
> > restrictions anyway.
>
> It surprises me that no-one has thought of penalizing that behavior by
> adding (say) a dollar to the charge for every item over the limit. That
> could easily be automated.

I have a feeling that many customers would decide to shop somewhere else
next time, and that that is why the stores won't do it. Also, depending
on what consumer legislation is in effect, it might be illegal to charge
more than the sticker price.
--
bill

[Lesmond]

On Thu, 12 May 2016 12:44:43 -0700 (PDT), Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 2:58:53 PM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 May 2016 19:49:56 +0100, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

>> >On Thu, 12 May 2016 12:55:52 -0400, Tony Cooper
>> ><tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >>There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
>> >>"Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
>> >>them.
>> >>Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
>> >>fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
>> >>items.
>> >>The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
>> >>other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
>> >>cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
>> >>Who is right?

>> >From my position safely on the other side of the Atlantic I think that
>> >the complainer is right. The cashier would need to handle each one of
>> >the ten cans of tuna fish. That would be regardless of whether they were
>> >scanned individually or just one scanned and the other nine being
>> >counted.
>>
>> I'm not convinced the cashier has to handle all ten cans. She and
>> pick up one and scan it, eyeball the remaining number cans, and enter
>> the count digit in her cash register.
>
>How do they get to the bagging side of the cashier's station?

You don't have moving belts?

I was a cashier when I was in high school. This was back in the days of no
scanners. If someone came to the express lane with 30 cans of cat food, it
was a lot easier to type in the price, hit the multiple button and be done
with it. Far easier and quicker than someone with 15 individual items. And
at least the cat food could all go in one bag, as opposed to meat, bleach,
bread and eggs.

Yes, it's different now. But most stores don't much care, especially in the
self-checkout lanes.

--
Queen of the fucking universe.

[charles]

In article <nh5j7...@news1.newsguy.com>,

mine is that after the allowed number of items the price doubles for the
first, quadruples for the second, etc.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <h02cjb5hkiuadqsp5...@4ax.com>,

Why is there a concern over buying paper matches?

--
charles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <557f800b...@candehope.me.uk>,
charles <cha...@candehope.me.uk> wrote:

> In article <6c8926be-4bba-43b0...@googlegroups.com>, Peter
> T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 6:19:59 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> > > At the supermarkets I go to the self-scan queue is the most popular.
> > > (And that's a single queue, by the way, to access five or six checkout
> > > stations.) I feel a bit guilty about using it because it's putting
> > > check-out operators out of their job. On the other hand, I often use it
> > > because there are so few check-out operators that the other queues are
> > > unreasonably long.
>

> > Many of the stores that installed self-service checkout lines have
> > removed them, because (a) hardly anyone used them and (b) they often
> > didn't work as expected anyway.
>

> The ones over here work well enough, An increasing number of stores are
> using them.

I think the stores that removed them were experiencing thefts that could
be more easily disguised by using the self check out lanes, especially
if the overseeing employee was busy with other customers.

--
charles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <i5ccjb5u2n29ga0li...@4ax.com>,

California passed a minimum wage law that will raise it to $15/hr over a
few years. One of the fast food places (Carl's Jr?) has indicated that
it will install self serve kiosks in (some?) of its restaurants. These
will allow the customer to order and pay for their food without needing
to talk to an employee while ordering.

This was brought up in an article about robotics, but it could have just
as easily been in a discussion about economics.

>
> I like the self-service stations and usually use them except at Home
> Depot. At Home Depot, there is often a discrepancy between the price
> on the shelf and the price the bar code picks up. Home Depot also
> seems to have more items that are not bar coded. I can get this type
> of problem resolved easier at a cashier station.
>
> I'll use the self-service station at Home Depot if I have a small
> number of items that are bar coded, but not if I'm buying - for
> example - a bunch of PVC connections.

I've learned to look for that information and if it isn't visible, to
copy down the information on the shelf sticker. I do this even if I'm
going to use a cashier to save the inevitable search for the info while
I'm waiting.

--
charles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <lu0cjbhh4ga37k34k...@4ax.com>,

Like firemen who set fires, it would be possible for the returner with
an agreement to have an accomplice to take carts a few hundred feet
away. Probably the store has a way to spot check this.

--
cahrles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <acwdc5s14me3$.d...@lundhansen.dk>,

Bertel Lund Hansen <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

> grabber skrev:
>

> >>> But you pay in the traditional way?
>

> >> Yes
>
> > Actually, not a particularly traditional way, as there is no other human
> > being involved. At the end of your shop you visit a checkout station,
> > which dowloads the details of your shop from the scanner to the
> > automated till, and then you pay by card (at least you do if you're me -
> > you can also feed in cash if you want).
>
> It is traditional to me.

How many years before something is traditional for you?

--
charles

[charles]

In article <yrfzbaqirevmbaar...@192.168.0.6>, Lesmond

We do, but the belt stops at the cashier who has to lift off the item and
place it in front of the scanner.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <unj9jb5jnlm55i117...@4ax.com>,

"Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 May 2016 12:55:52 -0400, Tony Cooper
> <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >There's a small column in each day's Orlando Sentinel newspaper called
> >"Ticked Off" where readers send in comments about things that annoy
> >them.
> >
> >Today's column includes a complaint about a woman in a "10 items or
> >fewer" supermarket line with ten cans of tuna fish and a few other
> >items.
> >
> >The complainer feels that this is over the 10 item maximum, but the
> >other shopper feels that the tuna is one multiple-priced item. (The
> >cashier would scan one can and key in 10 times the one-can price.)
> >
> >Who is right?
>
> From my position safely on the other side of the Atlantic I think that
> the complainer is right. The cashier would need to handle each one of
> the ten cans of tuna fish. That would be regardless of whether they were
> scanned individually or just one scanned and the other nine being
> counted.

That person was me a while back, though I was unaware I was that person.
I buy small jars of baby food because one of my cats needs to take pills
and hiding them in the baby food works better than sticking a finger in
her throat. I can only plead inattention, but I had many jars in the
cart along with other items and got in the "or fewer" lane. I was a few
customers back and thinking great thoughts while waiting. I suppose I
overheard "not more than x items in line" or something similar during
that time.

It turns out it was me they were talking about and I didn't find this
out until it was my turn to check out. I had more than x, but in my
head, they counted as 1 item "baby food". I can't explain the thought
process better than that, and I knew that they would be scanned
individually, but somehow, they were one item.

Sometimes I find my thought processes odd and interesting.

--
charles, I apologized profusely, but probably still have a reputation.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <dpnhtv...@mid.individual.net>,
Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

[snip-supermarket checkout lines]

> >
> You forgot the little old lady who has the exact right money...
> somewhere: a bit here in her purse, some more loose in her handbag, the
> rest in various pockets and other bags and, oh, here's the rest right
> where she was looking in the first place.

A while ago, I found a change purse somewhere in the stuff I've
accumulated over the years. I decided to use it to see if I could get
rid of some of the change that I accumulate in a container after
purchases.

I put some change in the purse, and when I buy something with cash, I
use the change to make up the correct amount, even if they have to give
me bills back. It works ok, as long as I remember to bring it to use, as
more often or not, I forget.

However it had humor value one time. Paying for something with sis
along, and there being no line behind me, (and an understanding
cashier), I took out the change purse, and began slowly removing coins:
"Here's a quarter, <pause>, and here's a nickel, <pause>, and so on for
several coins. I was trying to do Billy Crystal as an old man and came
close, if I do say so myself.


--
charles

[Lesmond]

How is that avoidable by the customer?

[Charles Bishop]

In article <MPG.319f71858...@news.individual.net>,
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 May 2016 23:10:35 +0100, the Omrud wrote:
> > On 12/05/2016 19:48, Tak To wrote:
> > > [quoted text muted]
> > >> "grammar" peevers.
> > >
> > > I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> > > systems.
> >
> > Some supermarkets in Europe, particularly (IME) in France have more than
> > 100m of checkouts. It would be a massive single queue, and it would
> > take an awfully long time to get from the single queue to the next
> > available till.
> >
>
> The same is true in Wal-mart. though, of course, only two or three of
> the 20+ cashiers are actually open. Luckily they don't group the open
> cashiers together, so I get my exercise walking down the whole line
> hoping (in van) to find register with a short line.
>
> They used to have signs on certain registers claiming that those
> registers were staffed from 8 AM to 10 PM, or a similar long stretch
> of time. They got tired of complaints from me and others at the
> regular breaking of that promise that they took the signs down.

In the early days of cell phones, Home Depot had a large sign near
customer service with a phone number to call if you had questions or
complaints. One time when I was there, and customer service was slow
because of too few employees there, a woman with a cell phone called the
number, and said there was a problem and asked for more help at customer
service.

I don't know if it was cause and effect, but not long after, the sign
was taken down.

--
charles

[Charles Bishop]

In article <67e1f23a-02fe-4fc7...@googlegroups.com>,
David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 12:47:25 PM UTC-7, spuorg...@gowanhill.com
> wrote:

> > On Thursday, 12 May 2016 20:02:27 UTC+1, Mark Brader wrote:
> > > > I wish supermarkets would institute single queue check-out
> > > > systems.

> > > In one of their last few episodes, "MythBusters" did a simulation to
> > > test this method. They found that while it did avoid the problem
> > > of finding yourself in the slowest line, it also increased the
> > > average time because people needed longer to actually get from the
> > > waiting area to the first available checkout.
> >
> > This is not the case in the Lidl where I have seen such a system. They have
> > a "next customer to position x" call system, and the cashier calls the next
> > customer while the current customer is paying. This does mean that
> > sometimes you are waiting at the position for a few seconds whilst another
> > position becomes free, but it does seem to speed up the service.
>
> I havent yet seen a grocery store that uses a single queue but there
> is a Fry's (electronics) in Concord with such a system. The incoming
> queue is an aisle parallel to the bank of cashiers and there is another
> aisle next to it to get from the head of queue to the available cashier.
> They often - but not always - have a "traffic cop" at the head of the
> queue telling people where to go. Seems to work well in less space than
> the old system would require because the combined width of the two
> aisles is less than would be needed for queues at cashiers.

The waiting aisle has both sides filled with impulse buys that people
who are waiting may pick up, adding to the profitability of the store.

chrles, old geek

[Snidely]

On Friday or thereabouts, Lesmond asked ...

By not grabbing THE ONE item in the bin that has lost its barcode.

/dps "at HD and Lowes', many a sticker"

--
"This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away be excitement,
but ask calmly, how does this person feel about in in his cooler
moments next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on
top of him?"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain.