#2 - Self Checkout

Thanks for your continuing desire to do everything right. The little things are what add up to make a society, and this blog is about how to do them right. Today's topic is...

Self Checkout

The Problem
For some time now, grocery stores have been replacing cashier jobs with automated checkout machines. Now, rather than an experienced and skilled cashier ringing up orders, we have orders being rung up by the general food-eating population. One thing that's true about people who eat food is that they don't do everything right.

My recent experience at a Pittsburgh area Giant Eagle is all too typical. I was attempting to purchase a dozen eggs and a package of crappy store brand cookies. There were two self checkout lines open and each one had a customer ringing up an order of roughly ten items. Zero people were in line when I got there so I was up next.

If you think I had paid for those cookies in under ten minutes you're wrong. On the left was a Romantic Couple Ringing Up Every Item Romantically. One thing about doing things romantically is that you are not doing them fast. On the right was a guy who decided his groceries would be best rung up by a two-year-old. One thing two-year-olds aren't good at is everything.

Another common problem, not encountered here, is the shopper who looks through all her groceries to find The. Perfect. Item. To. Ring. Up. Next. She's scanning items in alphabetical order. The Cyrillic alphabet.

The Solution
I have read the cashier training manual from a large Western New York-based supermarket chain, so let me paraphrase. It is just scan, scan, scan, scan, until all your items are scanned. Then you place them in a bag and go home.

You know what is romantic? Getting out of the goddamn store. And if you want to let your two-year-old learn manual dexterity, let him drive the fuck home. I want to buy my cookies.

#1 - Walking

Welcome to the site and thanks for your desire to do everything right.

The little things are what add up to make a society, and this blog is about how to do them right. Today's topic is...

Walking

The Problem
Modern humans have walked the earth for around 200,000 years. Never in that time have we been worse at it. Armies used to march hundreds of miles - now one member of our species can't march properly to the Dippin' Dots stand.

If you see one person walking down an empty street, he's almost always doing so correctly. But people in more crowded areas are prone to suddenly stopping - which is really goddamn annoying to the person behind them.

While the random stop always will remain the worst problem, people also may walk really slowly - oblivious to the bottleneck behind them - or they may veer wildly back and forth, even when their destination is directly in front of them. The latter behavior is only excusable while drunk.

All in all, the larger the number of people around, the worse each one is at walking. At a really big event like a baseball game, amusement park, etc., movement is virtually impossible as one quickly becomes surrounded by homo sapiens sapiens moving about - or not - in random fashion, blocking any conceivable path to hot dogs.

The Solution
We need to publicize that walking is quite simple. It is just step after step until you're there.

If you're walking five steps, it's step, step, step, step, step and then you're there. Most people are pretty clear on this.

What people don't realize is it never gets more complex. If you're walking a full mile, it is just step, step, step, step, 2000 times until you're there. It is natural to stop if stopping is necessary, say, to not get hit by a car. But in the situation where there's nothing in front of you, step, step, step away.

Update: Ten minutes after posting this, a large woman stopped dead in her tracks in front of me in a doorway to converse with someone, leaving some girl to awkwardly hold the door so Sudden Stopper wouldn't get hit with it.