5 ms·

My local grocery store is like this. They never seem to have enough cashiers, and instead of having a single line served by many cashiers like most stores in t

My local grocery store is like this. They never seem to have enough cashiers, and instead of having a single line served by many cashiers like most stores in the area, you just have to pick your line and hope it works out. They normally only have two registers open, too. So it is abundantly clear when someone has managed to get ahead of you. No idea why this in particular drives me so nuts

ggm 5y ago
I think we situationally judge "fair queue" by two rules. 1) did my queue block? if so, its "unfair" your queue moves but I was ahead of you 2) if somebody jumps ahead of me, even if I am aware they were in another queue before me, I feel like I've been cheated
- noxvilleza 5y ago
  There's also some subconscious effect - you rarely remember when queues are fair to you, but you always remember when you get 'queue-screwed'.
lostcolony 5y ago
I'm the same way, and I'll tell you why. Because people are greedy assholes. There have been multiple times I've been in a place where there was one line, and then someone, coming in, seeing that one line, feeding into two or more registers/whatever, decides to go create a new line. The employees don't care who walks up to their register, and no one initially cares to make a big deal about it...but then you get a few more people who show up, think there's two lines, and voila, now there -are- two lines. Unless the store makes it impossible for more than one line to form, you'll end up with one line per register/whatever.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Seems like the places that make it work have a long aisle fenced by store shelves so it's very obvious.
  - ggm 5y ago
    This works for sure. Is this what techies call "head of line blocking" being solved?
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    Yep; but for some reason there are still stores being laid out where that isn't happening. Nearly every grocery store, Target, Costco, etc, that I've seen has per register lines. Even the relatively newly built that I've seen, they still set up per register lines.
drewzero1 5y ago
Everywhere around here has one line per register. At the beginning of social distancing one large local store built a barricade and enforced a single line so people weren't standing so close together. I went there once during that time and the line wrapped a quarter of the way around the store, ending over in the freezer department. It went faster than it looked, but that store also tends to have enough checkouts open and staffed with efficient, motivated workers.

ggm 5y ago

I think we situationally judge "fair queue" by two rules. 1) did my queue block? if so, its "unfair" your queue moves but I was ahead of you 2) if somebody jumps ahead of me, even if I am aware they were in another queue before me, I feel like I've been cheated

noxvilleza 5y ago
There's also some subconscious effect - you rarely remember when queues are fair to you, but you always remember when you get 'queue-screwed'.

lostcolony 5y ago

I'm the same way, and I'll tell you why. Because people are greedy assholes. There have been multiple times I've been in a place where there was one line, and then someone, coming in, seeing that one line, feeding into two or more registers/whatever, decides to go create a new line. The employees don't care who walks up to their register, and no one initially cares to make a big deal about it...but then you get a few more people who show up, think there's two lines, and voila, now there -are- two lines. Unless the store makes it impossible for more than one line to form, you'll end up with one line per register/whatever.

skybrian 5y ago
Seems like the places that make it work have a long aisle fenced by store shelves so it's very obvious.
- ggm 5y ago
  This works for sure. Is this what techies call "head of line blocking" being solved?
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Yep; but for some reason there are still stores being laid out where that isn't happening. Nearly every grocery store, Target, Costco, etc, that I've seen has per register lines. Even the relatively newly built that I've seen, they still set up per register lines.

drewzero1 5y ago

Everywhere around here has one line per register. At the beginning of social distancing one large local store built a barricade and enforced a single line so people weren't standing so close together. I went there once during that time and the line wrapped a quarter of the way around the store, ending over in the freezer department. It went faster than it looked, but that store also tends to have enough checkouts open and staffed with efficient, motivated workers.