Express Line Logic

of course you were right, pru.

give her hell!

common sense is definitely not common. i believe it is extremely uncommon and getting moreso.

maybe she will think twice about it before she is rude to the next customer with such a small order.

sheesh!!!

You were right. It's called an incredibly stupid clerk. Many clerks are very good and very intelligent. You just happened to have the type that reinforces the stereotype of someone with a minimum wage job.

Pru,

I feel your pain. Sometimes I wonder what the word "express" means to both check out people and even more importantly, customers. This for one of the two reasons seems to be anything but express. In the time it took for this person to criticize the sheer volume of limes in that bag, she could have weighed them, scanned them, scooped up the money and been on to her next victim. Instead, express means stop. You were right here.

I'm into what's fast, not what the rules are. Getting people to move can be challenging. As you can tell, I have no patience with these things. I also love to observe when I'm stuck behind someone with two or three items and they, the customer holds the "express" line up for three price checks, haggling with coupons and then digging around for how they're going to pay for it. Blows my mind.

They should have a line for those that just want out of there with their goods. Perhaps call it the "ducks in a row" checkout or "Let's get the F**k out of here" check out, you know, something like that.

Pru,

Did you slap her?....uumm, well I dont suppose.

You have more patience than I, Pru.

It's the tyranny of the UPC codes. When my friend Bill was buying cat food a few days ago, all the six-ounce cans scanned at the same price, about fifty cents. The last one scanned at $1.56, so Bill (Mr. Logical) pointed out the discrepancy.

The cashier said, "That's the price, if it scanned that way." Her supervisor is called; Bill pointed out that all the items were exactly the same, and should be priced the same. The supervisor checked all the lot numbers, etc., and there were no discrepancies.

Finally, she announced "This one must have something special in it" and stuck to the scanned price. Of course, he left it in the store, but it's been a couple of weeks now and he's still bitching...

I hate to trash people in low-level jobs, especially these days when many well-educated professional people are doing jobs they never would have imagined they'd get stuck in.

I know from experience how poorly-trained people in retail often are, and their "supervisors" aren't much better.

Lemme guess, she was blonde... or at least surreptiously sucking the peroxide when no one is looking... She porobably goes home and bops herself on the head because her feet hurt at end of shift...

I remember being in a B Dalton bookstore years ago and asking for a Writer's Guide, and the clerk telling me they didn't stock it because no one was writing books anymore... she had a befuddled expression when I said I should have asked at Blockbuster if they quit making movies, too...

Was in a Safeway store, asking for PC Week magazine, and the clerk telling me they quit selling it, because it sold out so fast it was too hard to keep stocked...

This is why you should carry a tazer. After she gets back up you can politely ask, "how many items do you count now dearie?"