A reader brought up a good point:
Yes, there’s something my checker does that impresses me, but it’s negative not positive. Maybe you’ve already written about this before, but if not, please do. Please help me understand why every time a new lane is opened up they take the person at the back of the line, who has been waiting in line all of 15 seconds, instead of the person next in line who’s been waiting for 10 minutes??? Why is this standard practice at every store everywhere? Sorry, got a little riled up there.
My best guess would be that clerks do it out of convenience.
My experience with this evolved from the time I first started working at the grocery store.
I would grab the person who was at the back of the line because they were usually the first person I saw when opening a new lane. How is this so? When opening a new lane, I would grab the customer who is “hanging” out of the checkstand. I also figured at the time, since the customers ahead of them would have their items on the conveyor belt, they wouldn’t want to go to the lane that just opened up.
Last person "hanging" in line
As the years go by, I would let the customers decide amongst themselves by saying, “I can take the next person in line.” I’ve seen customers swear and yell at each other to determine who gets to go to the other lane first.
Fighting in grocery store line
No one likes standing in line longer than they should. Grocery clerks should take the responsibility to grab the next person waiting. Its best to grab the next available customer to avoid any problems that may arise and in the grocery store that will likely happen.
What does your grocery clerk do that annoys you?
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I always figured they do that because it’s easier for the last person to move their cart as opposed to the person who is next in line. I think it would have to make everyone else move so they could get out.
Hmm..I can’t think of anything that my checker does to annoy me.
No clerk in particular, but a new cashier scam that occurs sometimes when receiving cash payment for a sale to enter the amount offered as payment as a lesser amount, that giving the customer back too little change. The dishonest cashier keeps the difference. Just happened to my neighbor. He paid for a 26 dollar order with a fifty dollar bill, expecting 24 dollars change. Didn’t count the change, just put it in his pocket. When he got home he took the receipt and change out of his pocket. It said he paid with 40 dollars (two twenties) and received 14 dollars change.
Secretiangs
@Secretia – You have some wild stories! Those are shady clerks, the things people do to make a fast buck.
Yea, that bothers me tooo…Makes me wanna get the boxing gloves out
but its not that serious…
How did you get the security tapes of me fighting in line in Walmart??? How embarrassing…
My experience has always been the checker saying “I’ll take the NEXT person in line”…of course, there are always some at the back of the line that will try to beat the person there!
I fucking hate that so bad…when I was in the Marine Corps, they had one line in the grocery store. That was the most fair system I have seen. However, it also meant a really long line….so fucked and fucked.
Most of them around here in NC are pretty nice to deal with. They do have to welcome people that come into the store in an annoying way… “Welcome to your neighborhood ____ store” But that in’t their fault.
Hysterical image! I guess just because it’s easier to take the person at the back – otherwise everyone would have to navigate their cart out of those awkward checkout lines, but yeah, it doesn’t seem fair!
Judy@cutest-little-things
I always make sure to grab the next person in line when I have to open up a register. Mainly to avoid having some customer going off on me about it. One day when I opened up i thought I grabbed the next person in line, but accidentally got the person that was behind her. The lady that was actually next in line got out of that line and went and waited at the back of my line just so that she could go off on me. At this point there was nothing I could say to calm her down. I repeatedly said I was sorry and that I did not know how I didn’t see her waiting in line. I ended up taking $5 dollars off of her order and gave her 2 $1off coupons for future shopping trips and she was still all pissed off about it. She ended up writing to the office about me and actually used my first and last name in the complaint. Worst customer ever!
no annoyances at all. I’m hoping that the people who work at the local H-E-B are receiving a fair wage and benefits. That’s all.
lol @ mepsipax!
Thank you for writing about my complaint. I feel so special.
It still irks me like nothing else. Oh wait, there’s plenty that irks me about the grocery store. Next on my list to whine about is the fact that people take up the entire aisle like they’re the only ones shopping that day.
This is kind of the opposite in that I work in the library (but the rest of my family works in the grocery business!)…anyway, we’ll have 2 computer checkouts going and someone will always go stand at the 3rd computer just waiting and then they get all huffy that we don’t leave our customers and go down and wait on him. Doofus. Do invisible people usually wait on him other places?? I like when the checker at the store just goes and get the cart of the next person in line and takes it with them when they open a new register. My pet peeve – parking spots for “new & expectant mothers” – SPARE ME!!
Hilarious photos to go with this post. And this situation arises nearly every time I’m at the store. Your posts always shed new meaning–or a different angle–on things. Thank you. What do checkers do to annoy me? Start commenting loudly on every single item I am purchasing. What happens when the–er um–feminine items come down that line? A cloak of silence.
The only thing I can think of that drives me nuts is when the cashier stops everything they are doing to either talk to the employee bagging or to another cashier in a different lane about things entirely unrelated to work. If they can talk and still ring my stuff up, then by all means, chat away. Or if you need to stop because it’s related to work, then have at it. But stopping to talk about who’s going out with who at what time to what place to do what thing? No.
Other than that, I usually love the cashiers I get. I try to be nice and make it easy on them if I can. I remember what it was like to do that job and get crummy customers. No reason to be disrepectful.
I like to call this Line RAGE. Similar to Road RAGE. Early one morning there was only one cashier checking. A man walks in from outside straight to the cashier and hands her his bottle slip. There was 3 other customers already waiting in line. The cashier doesn’t say anything to the guy who has all his breakfast items on the belt. He is waiting for her to ring him up next. Instead she takes the bottle slip even though no one I said the man with a bottle slip could cut to the front of the line. The man who should have been next comes unglued and starts screaming. The angry man tells the bottle slip guy to meet him outside so he can kick his ass. The cashier calls my name over the PA system to come upfront immediately. I can hear the screaming and profanities. Once I arrived I realized that the only thing I could do was call 911 just incase it turned into an assault or a shooting. All I can say, “come-on people where’s your kindness and generosity”. Who care’s if you wait a few more minutes, in comparison in your life it’s merely the time it takes to blink of an eye.