In choosing which queue to join in the supermarket, the only criteria I tend to use are related to the characteristics of the queue itself (demographics, amount of shopping, number of people etc.). This does not take into account one of the potentially largest variables - the competency of the cashier. Joining a promising queue can end in disaster if the cashier doesn't know how to work some function or other of the till or is very slow because they are just new. The indicator would be a rating out of ten displayed on an LED board at each aisle based on the speed, experience, training and seniority of the cashier.-- stupop, Oct 19 2001 Queueing http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/queueingwhat egnor proposed [stupop, Oct 19 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] I'd Like To Buy A Vowel http://members.aol....lfhigh2/words6.htmlFinnish, Welsh, Moroccan... Vowelfull Words [hippo, Oct 19 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] If you are one of those people who are sick and tired of finding an overwhelming level of incompetence in today's workforce, you should read this rant. http://yukimizutani.tripod.com/rant6.htmlAnd I sit here with qualifications up the yang, verbal skills through the roof, math skills unsurpassed without a calculator, medicinal background, computer background, can fake a smile with the best of them, and still remain unemployed. [LoriZ, Dec 27 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] [swivel6] That's similar to what egnor proposed. BTW, is 5 vowels in a row the record for English words?-- stupop, Oct 19 2001 I see your point, but I think this might be a bit demeaning to inexperienced cashiers. I wouldn't fancy sitting at a check-out with a huge sign over my head that said, to all intents and purposes, "I am a shit cashier".
After all, they might be fully competent; maybe, they just don't give a damn.-- Guy Fox, Oct 19 2001 aqueous was the one I was thinking of, stupop. Only four, but a good word nonetheless.see also 'abstemious' and 'facetious' for words that have all five vowels once in the right order.-- lewisgirl, Oct 19 2001 I'll give you "Miaoued". See link.-- hippo, Oct 19 2001 As a consequence of the welfare-to-work programs that brought long-term unemployed people into Krispy Kremes and Krystals and Kentucky Fried Chickens as cashiers, There are many people behind counters all across the USA who don't want to be there and are not capable of the job. True recent experience:
At a fast food joint, the bill for my order was something like $6.27. I handed the cashier $11.27, expecting a nice crisp fiver for change. He got this deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, and said, "um, I don't think the cash register can do this."
Or another example: nice young lady at the drugstore counter, for some reason, hadn't cleared the last sale. My purchase was only a few dollars, plus tax, but she thought I should pay her $50 (approx. - can't remember) because that's what the register said I owed. She had no grasp of order-of-magnitude guesstimating, no sense of number at all.
I know, its probably not their fault. They grew up in schools that used calculators starting in 2nd grade (the stupidest idea I have ever seen in education, aside from so-called "outcome-based" crap).
But if you have no grasp of numbers, get a different job. Dig postholes. Pave roads. Whatever.
So a croissant.-- quarterbaker, Oct 19 2001 qb- thought you were talking about Kentucky Chickens being hired as cashiers. Now that's scraping the barrel!-- lewisgirl, Oct 19 2001 I vote against this on the grounds that it removes the element of skill from assessing the quality of cashiers. I reckon 4 years of working part time in a supermarket has to buy me some privileges.-- pottedstu, Oct 19 2001 They'd all be blank in my local (as are the cashiers).-- angel, Oct 19 2001 Another word with six vowels:-- beauxeault, Oct 19 2001 Haayoaie by Oueaiaaare on Ijouaououne near Ouaouioust is a Koeieuier, but I'm busy so seculorum amen, euouae. Bydd y cyllyll yn y cwpwrdd wrth y bwrdd, enjoy your Ouaouaron.-- thumbwax, Dec 27 2001 thumbwax: That is either Welsh or utter gibberish. Either way I say "Talk some goddamn sense!-- kaz, Dec 27 2001 'Tis Welsh, at least the "Bydd y cyllyll yn y cwpwrdd wrth y bwrdd" part is. Something about knives and cupboards. And that first part looks Finnish (with a little English and Dutch blended in).-- bristolz, Dec 27 2001 bri 'trouble' stolz is partway there. Check link to translate what appears to be gibberish.-- thumbwax, Dec 27 2001 Where'd I get the "trouble" thing, Thumb?-- bristolz, Dec 27 2001 ignore the testosterone - there's a lot flying around tonight - makes for interesting reading-- po, Dec 27 2001 From the Floating Fruits whatchacallit, Trouble-- thumbwax, Dec 28 2001 Ah. Not much to base a nickname on.-- bristolz, Dec 28 2001 :(-- thumbwax, Dec 28 2001 Okay, okay. It's great.-- bristolz, Dec 28 2001 This idea should be extended to airport check-ins. There could even be a dynamic objective measure, showing the rate at which passengers and kilos of luggage are being checked in at each desk.-- Gordon Comstock, Jan 03 2002 Wouldn't be hard to do this at a supermarket. Just let the cash register calculate seconds per processed item, and link it to a small LED display.
This wouldn't stop Murphy the Legislator though, because there will always be random events like:
-Just a minute, my wife/husband is just picking up one more thing
-There is no barcode on this product
-Gotta change paper in the printer
-All outta paper
-Gotta go fetch paper in the basement
-Oops, I Forgot My Wallet
And you can be sure these will happen in the queue with a cashier rating of <0.5 s/i.-- MaxMad, Dec 10 2003 great idea, you can make a sproting event out of it, most disgruntled customers delt with in 17 minutes. $7.14 top price-- jelly jim, Apr 24 2006 Why not let the customers rate the cashiers, on a one to ten scale, using the credit card keyboard thingie, and display the avarage of the last ten customers' ratings?
This would also provide an alternative means by which management could measure the performance of the cashiers, other than rings-per-minute, which does have the problems described by [MaxMad], I know that from personal experience.
Of course I was a crap cashier, but I'd like to think it was due to the job not fulfilling my intellectual needs, rather than incompetence.-- JakePatterson, Apr 24 2006 I have noticed that the "Express Lane - 15 items or less" seems to be the training point for new cashiers. I usually avoid that lane if I am in a grocery store where I do not recognize the checkers.
Also, I have noticed that the number of customers in line appears to be a greater factor in time-spent-in-line than the volume of groceries. I will select a checkstand where there may be only one person with a large volume of groceries, rather than a checkstand with say, three people but a lesser total volume of items to price.
Perhaps you could have an electronic sign above the checkstand that is tied into the inventory control / price scanning system, and shows the current volume, in items per minute, at each checkstand. The display could show the total number of items scanned by the cashier since his/her shift started, the average time elapsed between scans, and the average time spent per 100 items. Then you could easily compare the data displayed and select the fastest checker. The data would be purely objective. Also, management could tie this into bonus incentives, so the fastest checker would get a nice little pay bonus for every pay period - say, fifty dollars.
Croissant.-- Xoebe, Apr 24 2006 How does one create a sproting event?-- normzone, Apr 24 2006 Whether the customers are a bunch of jackasses, who dont help, have ten returns and cant find something. All those factors come into play. You should also remember that long before you showed up at the store the cashier had to deal with 400 other people just like you. Impatient and a sense of entitlement.-- Antegrity, Apr 24 2006 To better determine competancy levels, have the customers rate the cashier on the keypad card swipe machine. Throughout the day the cashier will not know what his ratings are but the customers will. Therefore if you see a short line, and a poor rating above it, you know that you have been warned.-- Jscotty, Apr 25 2006 A cashier's speed at moving groceries through the scanner is but a small portion of the overall speed that a customer gets through the line. I often find that what really slows down a line are the customer's questions like- do you have ___? where is ___? can I go get one more ___? Not getting the checkbook/ card ready while I'm scanning things through. I'll finish and then have to wait while they write out everything like what store they're at (like that was going to change while I was scanning?) or finally fish their card out after I've been staring at them when I'm done.
Please don't get me started...Oh, God, it's too late- I'm going.
(rant) If you're going to help bag, that's great but do so after you have prepared yourself to pay. It's my job (as menial as it is I still take pride in what I'm doing because *I'm* doing it) to do the scanning, bagging, thank-you-ing, smiling, and all that jazz. It's the customer's job to pay and get the hell out of my line and smile ('cause that's nice).
II know that there are verrry slow cashiers out there and some pretty stupid ones as well and I can't give you any advice for them. All I can say is get to know your store and find the cashiers that are fast and polite and go back to them. It also doesn't hurt to tell the managers about the good ones. It will get back them (the cashiers),maybe instill a sense of pride, and possibly make them work harder. (end of rant)
p.s.- (minirant) GET OFF THE CELLPHONE! (end of minirant)
thank you.-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Apr 25 2006 Oh, one more thing- breathe. It's just life, people, there'll be others.-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Apr 25 2006 random, halfbakery