On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:45:47 +0100, Nightjar
wrote:

On 15/04/2013 15:31, Jethro_uk wrote:
....
There's definitely some slightly less-than-obvious issues at play with
supermarket queues. My wife tends to plump for checkouts which look like
there's not too much on the belt. Myself, I would rather wait a second
for a crowded belt to become free with only one customer in front, than
have half an empty belt with 3 customers in front. That's because in my
experience, the overhead of queueing is predicated far more on number of
customers than number of items.

I also avoid queuing behind any single older ladies

I go for the checkout operators I know to be efficient.

9 times out of 10 the fastest seem to be either Chinese or Indian. Avoid fat
ones, old ones, blokes, schoolgirl types, the disabled. Avoid queues with
mothers with kids, oaps, fat people, alcoholics.

I dread ever visiting Sainsbury's, besides the rank veg (mainly mushrooms and
broccoli) they are always understaffed and sometimes with fewer checkouts
staffed than Lidl. Asda are light years ahead with the till staffing and
somehow understand that a customer quickly and efficiently processed through the
checkout will make the shop and the carpark less crowded.

Fortunately I don't shop at any supermarket on a regular basis


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