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posted by
martyb
on Sunday September 18 2016, @04:56PM
from the slowest-line-is-the-one-I'm-in dept.
from the slowest-line-is-the-one-I'm-in dept.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a former math teacher who claims to solved the question "Which checkout line up will be fastest?"
In a nutshell he has concluded that the number of people in the lineup is more important than the number of items a person has in their cart.
The critical factor, he says, is the average of 41 seconds that it takes a shopper to pay the cashier and engage in idle chit chat.
So a long line of people in the Express line, with two or three items each, will actual move slower than the checkout with one guy with a full shopping cart.
YMMV.
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Efficiencies in Supermarket Checkout Lines
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @05:01PM
My gal claims that female checkers are faster than male, and after watching for the last handful of years, I think she may be on to something. The guys just don't move as fast.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:15PM
More than a quarter century ago I used to work supermarket retail as a starving student and even back then they had the technology to track "items scanned per minute" and stuff like that. Independent grocers just got laser scanners about the time I became a teen and got into the field, figure like late 80s.
Employment was very sexist in that hotties ended up with customer facing jobs like cashier (my boss thankfully was a dirty old man and the cashiers were all unusually attractive, which was nice because I dated a few) and large male barbarians like myself stacked 80 pound bags of salt all day, and there was and still is basically zero crossover. Observation in decades since, shows not a whole lot has changed since I was a teen McJob employee. We had overflow registers booted and loaded for rush hour times for the stockers or even managers to use when utterly necessary. I suppose all male shelf stocking crew was good training for later all male CS classes, all male EE classes, etc.
The hotties were ranked on job performance based on long term running total of drawer cash accuracy (like since you've been employed the running total difference of the register count vs the actual cash count of your drawer should trend toward 0 and be a small number) and the other thing they were graded on was speed. And the boss only hired them if they were like 9/10 or better. So their complete set of carrots and sticks were all sticks except for the carrot of being graded on speed. They were promoted to the cash room and the service center desk based mostly on speed. I know that sounds stupid to take the best cashiers and have them sell lotto tickets and process western union transfers instead of cashiering, but it made some sense in that they were probably the best because they were the smartest and fastest learning and the service desk did all kinds of crazy shit, like the general manager and/or owner didn't know how to say "no" so we accepted utility company payments and all kinds of weird stuff.
The guys, on the other hand, were more project success based ("I told you to stock those 9 pallets, you got all 9 done in your shift, good job") and when we cashiered during rush periods or covering for cashier breaks it was mostly just "god help me you will not sell beer or tobacco to the underage police officer" and they didn't really care how fast we worked ... just showing up to help the cashiers was considered "thanks!"-worthy. As part of our training, if we could pull it off, when we got lost and forgot what button to press or that code 4792 was produce-bananas-per-pound we were encouraged to talk to the customer vs looking pissed off or staring into space or swearing. Our old fashioned registers had like 200 keys and I think I eventually learned or pressed all 200 keys, possibly even correctly. I am not too proud to admit I'd ask the cashiers for help, while I was cashiering, with produce items because 1) I had no idea what the hell the plant was much less what its code was 2) I felt the need to flirt with the cashier.
In summary what looks to you like some weirdo talking about lasagna recipes was actually some kid who only cashiers like thirty minutes per week desperately trying to remember how to cashier.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @07:22PM
So this is what I gather from this thread.
Women are more likely to be selected for cashier jobs in the first place because employers prefer them for the job (ie: looks and getting customers in the door since customers prefer women too).
When there is a man at the cashier he is likely just filling in for someone else and so he has less experience.
Hence the women are naturally going to be faster since they are the regular cashiers and hence they are more experienced.
So when we see a slow man it's because he's inexperienced and he's filling in for someone else. He is being more chatty to kill time for the fact that he doesn't know what he is doing due to a lack of experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @10:24PM
Also men should be in the back someplace lifting something heavy not in the front attending to the cash register.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @12:16PM
When I were a lad they put the queer and camp fellows on the delicatessen and checkouts along side the totty.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 19 2016, @05:16PM
Additional detail: If the supermarket has a lingerie section, guy cashiers are kept as far away from it as possible, even when that requires switching multiple cashiers to cover a break.
The belief is that most women will just drop those purchases on the nearest shelf corner, rather than hand them to a guy cashier, and that's way too much margin to lose.
(Score: 4, Informative) by davester666 on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:45PM
You also have to evaluate the people in line. Is there an old lady with a large purse who is more likely to be a coupon clipper, but have to spend several minutes finding all the coupons (and thank goodness we're past the "How much is it again, I'm paying by check")? Mother with 3 infants all running in different directions? Person on phone more interested in the conversation than buying the groceries?