In article ,
Swingman wrote:

"Silvan" wrote in message
Swingman wrote:

vegetable in the supermarket.

You're supposed to peel those off?

Well, you can leave them on, but they're real tough to floss off your
shiny brites. (not a bad idea, though ... just make them edible and
fortified with vitamins).

Besides, like many other "unnecessary complications" in a modern life
dictated by corporate whims, they are there for the convenience of the
corporation, not the customer.

Well, you can argue both sides of this one. For the convenience of the
corporation, yes, by allowing computerized scanning and whatnot. For the
convenience of the customer too, though, so your cashier doesn't have to
remember 700 PLU numbers, or sit there flipping through a stack of cards
every time you bring some wierd Chinese vegetable to the register.

OK, by gawd ... let's argue.

Cashiers worthy of the name were once required to know/memorize produce
prices.

*sigh* At the grocery I grew up shopping at, most of the cashiers had pricing
for the _entire_ inventory memorized. This was, admittedly, a somewhat
'strange' operation -- they didn't advertise (TV, radio, _or_ newspaper); they
rarely had 'sales' (except when they got a 'deal' on special-purchase produce
dairy, or meats), etc. And they carried *lots* of brands -- if they had only
4 brands of some item, that was a 'limited' selection. (I was *really* shocked
when I moved to the 'big city', and found the "big local operations" typically
carried the 'house brand' and *one* other) And this was a local operation,
not a national/regional chain. They hired good people, and paid them well.
*Lots* of the 'line' help made a career of working in their stores. There
was a nearly _two_year_ *waiting* *list*, to get on as a 'bag boy' there.

They were a *long* time putting in computerized bar-code-scanning registers.
And a source of *great* frustration to the people selling same. Cuz when
the salesdroids came calling, they said "Sure, we'll buy your system, *as*
*long*as* it is at least as fast as our current cashiers." They even
let the salesdroid pick the store cashier for the "time trials". It _was_
a 'stacked deck', nonetheless. He got to pick from the prime-shift crew,
only. Who all had at least 10-15 years on the job. Who could run the
register entirely "by touch" with one hand, while shovelling the groceries
past with the other hand. Who _didn't_ need to look at a price-tag on
_anything_, cuz they knew prices on the =entire= inventory. Who *didn't*
even need to turn the item right-side up, or turn it around, to know
what the item was. *AND* who, while doing all this, would greet at least
80% of the customers _by_name_, knowing them well enough to be exchanging
news tidbits / gossip / etc. *while* running the register full-tilt.
It was not uncommon to have _two_ baggers *per*register*, so that bagging
didn't slow down the line. grin

"Insult to injury", when there was a price difference during the trials,
between the proposed computerized system and the 'old fashioned' cashier,
it was *usually* the computer that was wrong.

Lots of cash-register salesmen went away *very* frustrated.

I think it was around _1990_, that they *finally* converted. More because
the quality of help available had declined, than that the scanners had
improved.