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Cheezburger Company Blog
And the number of cashiers that actually enforce the item limit is even less.
At the store I work at, we get in serious trouble for telling a customer that it’s an express lane. =(
The one time I tried to enforce this rule was during Thanksgiving. I told the customer twice that she needed to go to another lane, there was a limit. She didn’t listen to me, so I wouldn’t reset the machine for her so that it would work. She went and got my manager, I got written up and I never tried to enforce the rule again. So the moral of this is that the cashier working at that station has absolutely no authority to enforce that limit. The customer is always right even when they are a blithering idiot.
One time my sister counted what we had in our cart and didn’t let us go in the express lane because we had one item too many!!!!! It cracked me up!
Back when I worked it I enforced it when possible. However if there was a decent sized line by the time the customer with the large order came then I would be too busy to be able to notice it. I always appreciated when the other customers told them to change lanes
I didn’t know cashiers that enforced the item limit existed… and I’m still not convinced. I’ve never seen a cashier tell a customer to check out in another lane due to the item limit, ever. Not an exaggeration. Ever. True story.
We couldn’t at my store, even if there were full-sized lanes open.
Customers would also stand in the express lane when there was no cashier, and wait, even if there was another lane open.
As a cashier, you learn to pick your fights… and its true, most stores the Cashiers will get into trouble if they turn customers away from their line if they aren’t busy… even if other lines aren’t busy either…
As the person who made this graph, it is more of a comment on how customers don’t bother to take the time to be aware of their surroundings and how most of them are too busy trying to save time instead of worrying about how inconsiderate they are being to the people behind them in line.
Thanks for all your comments though, they’re entertaining!
As a former grocery store cashier, I have been reprimanded by my former employer for enforcing the limit AND for not enforcing it. (Once for a woman who said she was “only” eight items over the 12-item limit, which was actually signed as approximately six items or less).
Damned if you do, darned if you don’t.
The point of the express lane is to get people with small purchases through and out fast, for everyone’s convenience. While, ideally, the item-limit should be enforced to ensure this, the reality is that enforcing an item-count just slows things down – actually counting the number of items is an obvious time drain, but even if you just eyeball it, many customers who would get turned away will want to fight over the point. So, for the convenience of the cashier, the manager, and all the other people in line, these people get a pass. It’s a no-win, really.
Said cashiers do say nasty things about these shoppers when they’re gone, though.
And you really think anyone cares what a loser cashier thinks about them? Hey Captain Success, get a real job!
Uh, Yeah sure, quite a lot of the cashiers I know on a personal level are actually students earning a living to get themselves through college to get a better job
I do. I’m a cashier and it seriously pisses me off when people try to come through express with more than the limit. I politely tell them to take their asses somewhere else. (Not like that, of course)
I would like to point out that I work for a grocery store with express lanes, and if you point out to any customer, no matter how busy it is in the store, that its an express lane, its grounds for a coaching, and if you have one or more coachings already you could get fired for it.
Circle should also include those that use a credit card or check to defeat the purpose of an express lane.
I agree about checks but I fail to see how credit card is slower than cash. While the cashier is ringing stuff up i swipe my card. When everything is through he/she hits a button and out comes the receipt and away I go.
I’ve spent quite a bit of some waiting behind someone that is buying one thing but waits until they are told how much it is before they start digging out bills or change to pay for it.
i can’t stand people who wait to dig out the money. it’s like you do know you have to pay for it right? so why not have the money ready
I work at Market Basket, and i see people trying to swipe the card while I’m bagging the groceries… which doesn’t happen at Market Basket. So they’ll swipe it about three times while the cashier’s still doing her ringing up thing, then they’ll swipe it again while she’s pressing buttons, again when she asks whether it’s debit or credit. Now if it’s credit she swipes it herself, if it’s debit then another swipe commences… then another after the cash back question. Finally, the confirm amount thing comes up on the screen, which they ignore and continue to swipe the card. The cashier tells them to confirm the amount, and THEN AND ONLY THEN does the “swipe card” screen come up and you swipe the card. Be patient, listen to the cashier, and if it doesn’t say to swipe the card, stop swiping the card. THANK YOU!
lol! i’ve dealt with this before, but not in this extreme. you deserve a cookie
-hugs- i am so, so sorry these people exist.
Debit/Credit cards are FAR faster than cash or check. A true express lane would require you use them.
there are credit only lanes by me
Actually, I’d like to see people get charged something like $0.20 for every item they go over the limit, automatically ringed on the register.
You have two buggies full of crap and wanna use the express lane? Sure! That’s another $40 in our pockets that we can pass on to consumers.
I also like the buggies where you stick a quarter in them to unlock and get your quarter back when they’re in the designated area. You never see those buggies sitting next to my buggy-banged-and-scratched-to-hell car.
The quarter in/quarter out for carts is a very nice idea. I always take the pains to put my cart away in the corral, because it annoys me when I find a good parking spot and some idiots have shoved a gathering of carts there…
i do the same. a supermarket by me has the lockdown thing if the cart is taken too far from the area. so people take it to the point where it locks down and then leave it there (a lot of people use the bus by me).
oh yeah, and my fave is carts in the handicapped spaces
A quarter?! Man, _trolleys_ in Aus have slots for $1.
It’s 1€ in France, and I’ve never seen one without these :/
lol, only €0.20 in Spain!
Yeah, I`m from Australia too, though at my local Woolies we don`t have them.
I understand there is an item limit. I also usually shop more than the limit, so I don’t use the express lanes. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Thus, the circle for customers who understand that there is an item limit should not be completely engulfed by the circle for customers who use the express lane.
New to Venn diagrams? This one says that of the people using the express lane, few of them understand that there is a limit for said lanes.
While true, Sal is simply suggesting that it show that some people who understand there is an item limit for said lanes also don’t use said lanes. Technically Venn diagrams do not show percentage, but they do show intersection. Because the smaller piece is entirely covered, it doesn’t show that there is anything else in the universe. This is fine for this point, but I think a pie chart would show it better if thats what was meant.
Maybe I think too much, but I like using the universe when Venn diagrams are used.
Sounds like you’re new to venn diagrams actually. The size of the circles is irrelevant, so all this chart says is that some of the customers who use the express lane understand the lane’s purpose, and that of the customers who understand the express lane’s purpose, there is not one who has never used an express lane.
Yet another venn fail on graphjam.
Aw come on, sure the smaller _circle_ could contain 90% of what’s in the larger circle, but we all know what was meant. How do you show that without losing lulz?
Put an amount in the label or the circle showing the percent of people who understand it, and OMG its a non-fail venn diagram
Precisely. I’ve yet to see someone label a quantity on a Venn diagram here. I might throw a party when it finally happens.
The diagram just says that A is a subset of B. It doesn’t deal with quantity.
I agree.
I was at the grocery store in the 10 items or less express lane with like three things. The guy in front of me had like 20 items. His young daughter, like 8 years old, counted everything and said, “Daddy you have too many items for this lane.” He ignored her.
the best is when there is a line for the express lane and the regular lanes are empty! i should take a pick next time for failblog
Eh, I’m a cashier. The express lane is more of a method of moving people through quickly. If you’re one or two items over the limit, that’s fine. More than that… Move along. (Especially where I work, there’s a few 7-item lanes. People will have 8-10 items and be worried, but… That’s not really a problem.)
Now, writing a check… That’s a problem. Unless you fill the check out before I tell you the total and just fill the total out after that. (It’s almost as fast as cards that way anyway and you can fill it out while waiting for the next person to be done.) To “P”, credit cards often don’t need a signature when the total is under a certain limit. (Where I work, it’s $25. I think McDonald’s is about the same.)
Also, one more note. Don’t automatically get angry if a person with a cartful is in the express lane. Sometimes, the manager tells them not to worry about it and to go through so the customer doesn’t have to wait. (I hate when they do that…) Or the express lane wasn’t an express lane before. (Some stores, like the one I work in, have lanes with optional express lights. The managers and supervisors control whether it’s on or off.)
This has happened to me. I had a manager ask me to go over to an express lane, or have even had the cashier call me over. Of course the manager leaves to do other things. Then a person with a couple of items comes in behind me. What should I do? Refuse to go into the express lane because I have three more items than the limit, while the cashier stands around and does nothing just because I am afraid to be stared down by someone who is a Type A stoking up for a heart attack. Puh-leaz.
Actually, I enforce the limit on a more realistic scale, sending a person away if they don’t have an express lane-worthy order. (Typically 12 or less small items.) If a person has a problem with the amount because of the number even though the person is getting through quickly and they voice it, I speak up for the customer. As long as I simply and politely tell the person I told the other customer to come through because the number isn’t a strict limit and it’s just a normal express lane (which is simply designed to be fast) I can’t get in trouble for it.
they have some lanes designated as “cash only” or “credit only” by me. so i laugh when a person goes in the cash only lane with a debit card. the sign clearly says (in big letters) cash only, so there is not credit card machine. it’s not the store’s fault that they are an idiot.
*yawns*
Short is bliss.
Persons who made this graph – 1
Persons who understand Venn Diagrams – 0.
Good point though.
There should be a sub-set of people who don’t understand that 12 cans of cat food don’t count as one item (“cat food”) and 8 candy bars don’t count as one item (“candy bar”)…
Actually they do, because the register doesn’t need to ring the individually, they just need to ring one and quickly count the others
Yes, the register does need to ring them individually at many stores. Normal cashiers can’t use the quantity key at my store.
Based on my various interactions with people ahead of me with way more items than the posted limit, most of them seem to understand there’s a limit. They simply don’t care.
Which is why they’ll spend at least a portion of their time in hell in a supermarket express lane with just 1 item in their basket, and 50 crazed check-writing demons ahead of them with hundreds and hundreds of items each. And repeat, ad infinitum.
Sometimes, honestly, it is just much faster to find a non-express lane that only has one or two people in line… sure, they have more stuff, but usually its not too bad. Unless you’re me, then you end up in that lane with the person who had to go send like 5 employees to get a price check or new item because there was a problem with one, and each time they go out they just disappear. I began to wonder if there was something extremely distracting between points A and B… I seriously waited at least a half hour and all I was buying was a single loaf of bread… but I wasn’t in a hurry.
The store I go to has designated every lane as an “express lane” with a 10 item limit. There are no regular lanes.
Kinda stupid, IMO.
i like/hate the self check-out lanes. they are faster if you just want a few things. but suck when you get someone who doesn’t know how to use it. i saw an older lady literally jabbing the screen like it was a keyboard with keys that stick.
I TOTALLY agree, there are some people who just don’t know how a card swiper works… can someone post a video of how to swipe a card on youtube? maybe a video about how to comprehend the pictures of which way the card should be swiped.
Unfortunately, the people who are card-swipe illiterate are also youtube illiterate. And most card swipers will read the info from either direction. The trick is to figure out which side the mag stripe should be on.
the mag stripe is the hardest thing to find apparently.
our supermarket, during the day, will only have 2-3 lanes open. often, one of them is the express lane. so your options are slow or slower. =/
i <3 the self-check though, especially when there’s not a line for -them-. of course i hate going at crowded times, so i usually go either 10a or 10p – while everyone’s at work or already home sleeping. ;P
I work in retail, and I know exactly how this is. Even though the sign at the top of the register says “20 items or less”, we got in trouble if we asked them to go to another register. It didn’t matter if they had a cart full. Seriously, we only have so much counter space. At least the other registers have the conveyer belts. Gotta make the customers happy I suppose.
i’m a cashier at a very large supermarket/retail store (eight million employee worldwide). telling a customer that they have too many items is taken very seriously by management, and is a firing offense. so most of the time, i sigh and deal with it. people are stubborn and stupid.
I always do this, except for when it is busy. When it is not busy, my supervisor gets angry if I don’t call people over from regular amount of item lanes to express. The system is so flawed. However, Australia FTW
i just scrolled past most of your post to say ‘WOO CALIFORNIA!!!’
That is sooooo true
I was at a walmart and the item limit was 10 and this lady had what looked like 30 items, someone said behind me,I think she needs to go to kindergarten again if she can’t count,and she got all mad and went to a real line.It was hilarious
similar story about people not being able to read signs:
i worked at TJ Maxx for about a year, and after christmas we had certain registers set aside for returns only, with BIG BOLD signs that said RETURNS ONLY. i can’t tell you how many times people came up during the busiest times of the day, while there was already a line of people waiting for returns, with a huge cartload of awkward crap that had to be wrapped. I’d have to turn them away to the regular registers and they’d look at me like i was the biggest pile of crap in the world. My managers always reassured me that I was doing right.