April 23, 2002
I was pondering the wonder of technology in retail sales recently while waiting in an interminable line to pay for my purchases somewhere.
The advent of bar code technology, I once read, would speed us through checkout lines and on our way to adventures beyond the mundane need to restock on toilet paper and dental floss.
Ah, the sweet innocence of youth. I tend to be a patient fellow, but I have yet to see any improvement in the speed through the checkout, and am tempted to bring reading material when there's nothing good in the tabloids.
I always love those little books: "Veterinary Cures from the Bible" and the Reader's Digest, with its "sky is falling" and "rotten, no-good kids" articles, but I prefer the library for light reading.
The new technology gives you time to think about these things.
Back when my mother used to go food shopping and bring me to help carry the bags, I thought it was super cool to listen to the almost musical melodies played by the mechanical cash register. The cashier had to be quick with the fingers and push the right buttons, then hit the big one that added the purchase to the list.
The grand finale of this mechanical symphony was the one that computed the total. If my mother bought a lot of stuff, you'd hear the cash register make mechanical noises and tumbling sounds for up to 15 or 20 seconds, then see the total in actual digits, not light-emitting diodes.
And there was none of this wimpy calculation of how much change was due. A good cashier could do it mentally and correctly every time.
Today, the music from a cash register is like comparing a whole-tone composition to Mozart. It's all bleeps, bloops and blurps, with weird messages like "confirm customer is 17" when you buy a DVD. I always make sure to tell the cashier it's great to be 15 but able to pass as someone older. They are seldom amused.
It's supposed to be faster, but every customer's purchases usually have to be scanned at least twice, there is at least one intervention from a manager needed and at least one trip to the "courtesy desk" by the cashier.
Throw in changing the register tape, opening a hermetically sealed container of pennies and dealing with a customer's nonfunctional check-cashing card, and I wonder sometimes if I'll soon see my handsome face on a milk carton, have to get a carton of frozen yogurt that hasn't melted or worry about my cat forgetting me.
That doesn't even include charge-offs, key turning and assorted other time-wasters, including the venerable "price-check" when an item doesn't scan.
Cashiers whine to advice columnists about how impolite it is for customers in line to talk on cell phones while waiting, but it's sometimes the only way to stay awake while waiting to pay for purchases. And I wish cashiers would tell me why the express lane is invariably the slowest lane in the place.
The only benefit of progress I find is that, while I wait in line, I have lots of time to think of column ideas.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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