12 Items Or Less: A Difficult Concept

[Chromatix]

Around here, there are *no* express checkouts. No SCOs either.

Mind you, all of the local chain supermarkets are cooperatives. Funny how that works...

[BethB]

When I have customers that knowingly do this, I will take my sweet ass time on their order and let the customers behind them make all the comments. works every time.

[emax4]

When I have customers that knowingly do this, I will take my sweet ass time on their order and let the customers behind them make all the comments. works every time.

Thank you! And by the management allowing customers to go through the express line with more than the maximum number of items, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's no need to have it fall on the shoulders of the cashier either.

Next time it happens, the management needs to be instructed to remove the sign so it's no longer express or remove that time so it won't count against the cashier when management allows customers to break the rules so that the employee gets penalized. Advise them that they can have either one but not both. Management needs to know that when they allow one customer to get away with it, it hurts the other customers in line, and that's favoritism, not customer service at all.

[RealUnimportant]

Oh good. That was exactly the effect I was going for ^_^

I thought you were just going for disturbing...

It's Gary Glitter, a glam rocker from days of yore.

I'm not sure where you are globally, but you might want to review his exploits of the last decade or so... He's not someone most people would want to be compared to!

[EricKei]

He's not someone most people would want to be compared to!

I am aware ^_^ Which is why I simply listed his name and not a wikilink It was more for the glitter part than anything else. (referring to my prior comments - my holiday cards tend to be glittery. As in, "Dammit Eric! I just cleaned this desk!" glittery. )

[Dreamstalker]

We don't have dedicated express lanes; cashiers just switch back and forth as an FEM tells them to. Which also creates a problem, as I've seen SCs with a cartload of crap dart over to a now-express lane as the cashier is turning on the express light and whine "But it wasn't express when I decided to come here!". Dedicated lanes seem like they would solve that problem, or at least let the cashiers chew them out.

Slayer, at my store you have to get lottery tickets at the customer service desk up front (which also creates some small problems relating to lines the way the counter is laid out--you have lottery addicts taking up all the space meant for money order/loyalty card customers).

[Jay 2K Winger]

I hated people who would come to the Express line at the wholesale club (8 items or less) with a full cart or flatbed (or multiples of either)-- and like the OP and others, I could not turn them away-- and then, because it takes longer to scan large orders like that, they say something like "I thought this was supposed to be the Express line!"

J2K: "If you'll look at the actual light on the register, you'll see it's 8 items or less."
SC: "Well, I need cigarettes and don't want to write two checks."
J2K: "Even so, if you come to the Express line with a lot more than 8 items, you really can't complain about how long it takes me to scan."

And it was the way I said it-- in a joking, 'you should know better, dear' tone-- that let me get away with saying such things without getting complaints.