You can’t get out of the damned store!
You go out to get three things: cat food, bourbon and fresh fruit. Three different stores and, if you’re like me, the odds are pretty good you’ll walk out of all three without buying anything. The problem is the same everywhere: long lines with little hope of reasonable progress in any of them.
I’ve been walking out of stores for years but I just started keeping track 6 months ago. I walk away when whatever I’m trying to buy isn’t worth the wait. That happens 40 to 50% of the time.
I used to think it was always the stores’ fault, mostly for not having enough open checkout lanes and for minor stupidities like out of date price codes and clerks grumbling with each other about actually having to work. But once I started paying attention, I realized that it’s almost always the customers’ fault.
It doesn’t take much. You’ve seen it a million times. One cretin in a line can hold up everything. The most common is the surprised customer, surprised that she actually has to pay for stuff. The clerk says “That’ll be $82.40” and surprised customer starts digging into a purse so big that it has to be checked on airplanes. Somewhere in there is her wallet and you wait, resisting the urge to bop her over the head with your bottle of Gato Negro, while she digs it out and then rifles through it looking for a card that isn’t maxed out. Half the time she’s talking on her cell phone while she does this and you, hemmed in front and rear by other people’s shopping carts, have to listen. It’s a blessing when she speaks a language you don’t understand.
You’ve seen the price checker who waits until something is rung up, notices the actual price and decides not to buy it. This means removing the item from the computerized cash register’s memory.
They argue about prices and sales. “No sir. The 2 for 1 is on the 2 liter Cokes, not the 6 packs of cans.” They argue about expired coupons. They split orders, sometimes three or four ways and always get the wrong thing in the wrong order. It goes on and on.
The double latte with a shot of decaff espresso, vanilla and soy milk (isn’t there a way old school coffee drinkers can get a cup of joe with nothing in it but coffee?) The sweater that she wonders if it can be in another color and can somebody go look. The husband who gets into line while the wife is off somewhere still shopping, or, more likely, wandering around aimlessly bumping into displays.
Two types of time eaters get free passes: moms with little kids (we’ve all been there) and geezers (we’re all heading there).
At a rough guess, 20% of the customers in any given line are wasting your time – thoughtlessly, stupidly! Short of dragging them out to the parking lot and locking them in the trunks of their cars overnight, there’s not much you can do about the morons, but some stores are trying.
Costco and Walmart are good at fast checkouts, so is Macy’s. No problem in the real upscale stores. Winn Dixie, a supermarket chain in Florida, has check-yourself-out lanes and they work pretty well although every now and then a moron manages to screw them up.
Eventually technology will come up with a solution. It’ll probably involve hand held terminals that allow pre-registered customers to scan items as they go into the shopping cart and pay for them with a quick card wipe. There’ll be a bagging area and the occasional spot check for thieves. Until then, I try to shop as late or as early as possible. See you there.
Something about this sad situation reminds me of why newspapers and magazines are going out of business and nobody with a IQ above body temperature watches network news anymore. They blame the Internet while at the same time they go out of their way to irritate their logical core market – drive people away and smile smugly while they’re doing it. Retailers are probably doing the same thing without the smugness. I’d rather buy things in a store, and I would do it more often, if only I could get in and out without being driven batty.