I don't believe you
I am frequently confounded by the sheer amount of time some people will take to make a purchase. You (I) would think that most of one’s time and stress in a store is spent in the browsing, choosing, etc portions, and that the actual cash-register money transaction would be a straight-forward relief.
Often this happens at a grocery store, and I am getting pretty good at identifying likely offenders before I get behind them in line. Among other things, they have a certain dull look to their eyes that gives them away as A) not capable of grasping the finer points of paying for shit and B)not holding ‘time’ in terribly high regard. These people are buckled down in life for the ride and haven’t bothered to look out of the window since 1987.
Maybe (definitely) I overthink things, but as far as I’ve been able to figure out there are only two personal quirks that cause you to take forever in line: you like to talk to cashiers, or you don’t understand how coupons work.
I have neither of these problems, but I can forgive the former because some people just love to talk to everybody and that is generally okay. I’m not so callous as to interrupt someone’s conversation to save 20 seconds at the checkout. And coupons: okay, sometimes there are unexpected restrictions and the print is small and hard to read so maybe you bought two boxes of soap thinking it was for the price of one but actually that wasn’t the deal at all. When confronted with the fine print at the register, what I, and I think most people, do in this situation would be to say:
“Oh, I didn’t see that, okay I don’t want the other box of soap”, or just paying for it anyway since you're right there.
The time wasters, however, will say something more like:
“No, the coupon says buy one get one free”, not at all looking to understand or be convinced but sticking with their first impression of the coupon and being completely unwilling to back down. Even after the cashier explains and points out where on the coupon the real deal is, they refuse to believe it and keep coming back to what they “thought” the coupon said even though everyone else in hearing distance knows that what they thought was wrong and since when does thinking something make it real, anyway?
Resolution usually requires getting a manager or another employee to verify the cashier’s interpretation of the coupon. The time-waster still clearly doesn’t believe what’s being told to them even though it's printed right there on the coupon and thinks they’re getting cheated by the store.
This could easily dissolve into a poverty/race issue but the fact is that these people always have multiple coupons and should have learned by now to expect something like this. Or at least to believe the cashier the first time.
Often this happens at a grocery store, and I am getting pretty good at identifying likely offenders before I get behind them in line. Among other things, they have a certain dull look to their eyes that gives them away as A) not capable of grasping the finer points of paying for shit and B)not holding ‘time’ in terribly high regard. These people are buckled down in life for the ride and haven’t bothered to look out of the window since 1987.
Maybe (definitely) I overthink things, but as far as I’ve been able to figure out there are only two personal quirks that cause you to take forever in line: you like to talk to cashiers, or you don’t understand how coupons work.
I have neither of these problems, but I can forgive the former because some people just love to talk to everybody and that is generally okay. I’m not so callous as to interrupt someone’s conversation to save 20 seconds at the checkout. And coupons: okay, sometimes there are unexpected restrictions and the print is small and hard to read so maybe you bought two boxes of soap thinking it was for the price of one but actually that wasn’t the deal at all. When confronted with the fine print at the register, what I, and I think most people, do in this situation would be to say:
“Oh, I didn’t see that, okay I don’t want the other box of soap”, or just paying for it anyway since you're right there.
The time wasters, however, will say something more like:
“No, the coupon says buy one get one free”, not at all looking to understand or be convinced but sticking with their first impression of the coupon and being completely unwilling to back down. Even after the cashier explains and points out where on the coupon the real deal is, they refuse to believe it and keep coming back to what they “thought” the coupon said even though everyone else in hearing distance knows that what they thought was wrong and since when does thinking something make it real, anyway?
Resolution usually requires getting a manager or another employee to verify the cashier’s interpretation of the coupon. The time-waster still clearly doesn’t believe what’s being told to them even though it's printed right there on the coupon and thinks they’re getting cheated by the store.
This could easily dissolve into a poverty/race issue but the fact is that these people always have multiple coupons and should have learned by now to expect something like this. Or at least to believe the cashier the first time.