Also good line to avoid
A mathematician with time on his hands has figured out that often the “express” lane slows you down.
The manager backed me up on this one. You attract more people holding fewer total items, but as the data shows above, when you add one person to the line, you’re adding 48 extra seconds to the line length (that’s “tender time” added to “other time”) without even considering the items in her cart. Meanwhile, an extra item only costs you an extra 2.8 seconds. Therefore, you’d rather add 17 more items to the line than one extra person!
Put succinctly… weight people in front of you more than items.
But I have two rules that to help you even more.
Rule 1… never pick a line, of any length, with a male checker. Men suck at the job, don’t like the job, would rather be doing ANYTHING else. Unless empty, choose another line.
Rule 2…if you are ever shopping and there are no lines, note the time, and shop then.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Isn’t picking a female cashier my rule???? Sometimes the rule doesn’t work. Last week I picked the female cashier who was actually taking the money from the customer ahead of me and I was next. Turned out she was a trainee and the people who got in the next line after me, finished first.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Any line I get in automatically stops. That goes double for elevators!