A Supermarket Tale

A London Sainsbury's Supermarket

I never seem to pick the right queue at the supermarket check-out.  I pick the one that just opened and I wait minutes while the cashier settles himself in.  I pick the one with just one person ahead of me while all the others have two or more and as soon as it's my turn a cashiers shift change occurs. Then there is the one where the stick-on barcode has fallen off and the computer says, "No" and I have to wait until a human finds the price.  Or, the woman ahead of me spends five minutes hunting through her handbag for her loyalty card and then another ten finding her debit card.  OK, maybe those times are slightly exaggerated, but it's true -  I never choose the route to the quickest supermarket exit.

So, this morning as I approached the check-out with my basket the usual choice had to be made.  I saw they had about five registers open.  They all had two or three people plus the one being checked-out.  As I headed for the nearest one, I heard a manager telling a cashier to open register 21.  I checked the numbers.  I was at 26.   I turned and took a step toward 21, but was cut off by a fast moving woman with a full trolley.

Now, what?  I could continue on and be number one behind the woman with the full trolley or step back into my original target queue where there were two women waiting with fairly small collections of items.  I processed for a few seconds thinking what ever I do I'm going to pick the wrong one and I stepped back to where I had been.

By then, the first woman ahead of me at 26 was being checked out.  She finished and the cashier started on the second, a little old lady with only five items.  I noted that the woman who had cut me off for first at 21 was still unloading her trolley and the cashier hadn't even started, because she was playing with the money, her chair, etc.  I chuckled to myself.  I'd finally picked the right queue.

Poor Dear Only Wanted One

Then it happened.  The little old lady ahead of me asked for a bag.  Horror!  A glitch in the system.  You see, in the UK, you have to pack your own bags.  Whether it's the more upmarket Waitrose or the more down market Tesco or Sainsbury's supermarkets - they scan, you pack.  Usually, they ask if you want a bag before they start scanning as you're suppose to pack as they scan.  In fact, some cashiers will only scan the next item after you've bagged the first.

The male cashier said he was out bags. "Well, that's helpful," I thought.   I did a quick inventory and sure enough he was all out of the bright orange plastic bags that say you are in Sainsbury's.  How could he not have notice earlier?  He called to his supervisor, Donna, who was monitoring operations from behind the customers.

Over the past year I have longed for the people who do the bagging in most supermarkets in New Zealand and the US, not because I mind packing my own bags, but because some people are so hopeless.  There are those who spend precious minutes fumbling with their bags before they even start.  There are the ones who move at a snail's pace.  And, there are the ones who waste time deciding which bag each item should go in.

The thing that probably bugs me the most is when the person ahead of me has packed their bags, paid their money and then stand there doing up their coat, fiddling with their handbag or repacking something in a bag as if they're the only person in the store.  It's a problem, because the cashier will not start on the next customer until the bags are removed from the packing area and the customer is on their way.  The length of the queue stretching down the food aisles toward the centre of the store never seems to matter.

So, the poor dear waiting for a bag set put my stress levels on the rise.  Supervisor Donna came over and asked the cashier what the problem was.  He said he was out of bags.  She said she'd get some more and went over to some boxes in the corner to the left of the registers.  Donna started fumbling around with the boxes - lifting, turning, but not opening.

Meanwhile, the little old lady stood there, five items in front of her, patiently waiting for her bag.  Not that it was her fault, but I quickly came to the conclusion that I had picked the wrong queue once again.

We - me, the cashier and the guy behind me - watched Donna fumble while we waited.  The poor dear had her back to Donna so was spared the sight.   I had seen a bunch of bags right there at the vacant register on our left.  In fact, at first that was where I thought Donna was headed.  I mean, the customer service oriented would have grabbed some of those and then went to work on the boxes, but Sainsbury's is not so oriented.

As we stood there, Donna's fumbling went from amusing to down right painful.  I couldn't take it anymore.  I thought, but didn't say, "For fucks sake," and reached over the counter to my left.  I ripped some bags off the rack and handed them to the little old lady, who thanked me and started to fill her bag.

My action activated some competitive gene in our cashier's brain.  Not to be out done by this up start customer, he swiveled his seat around to the right where there was a fully stocked rack of bright orange bags for the vacant register that shared the other side of his space.  There were literally six inches separating his empty bag rack and the fully stocked bag rack.  He too ripped some off and pushed them toward the poor dear who was now just about done packing her items.   She finished up and moved on ignoring the cashier's offering.

At that, my items started coming through.  I packed them into the bags that I had brought with me, paid, and took my leave.

Donna was still working on a box of bags in the corner, but that woman who cut me off for 21 was still there packing.   My quick thinking in a crisis had finally rewarded me with a quick exit - well, a quicker exit anyway.