More annoying than sucky

[Pixelated]

With the onset of the cooties my store -- after a faltering start -- set up a system where customers line up near the end of the registers (register #7) and wait to be sent to the first available cashier. People kept just walking into the register lines so management put up those barriers that so many businesses use ... the ones with the belts that roll up into the poles. Occasionally, if things were dead, the person monitoring the line would just unhook the length of barrier nearest a cashier and let a customer through, rather than having them march to where the line would've been if there'd been any other customers.

Well, apparently some of our customers have been watching that.

Had an older woman today unhook the strap in front of my register and just march up to the belt and put her stuff down. I couldn't see whether there was anybody waiting in the line but we'd been slow so I decided to assume that was a "no."

However ... I looked over and realized she'd left the strap dangling.

Me (pissed off): "Ma'am, please put that back."

Customer: "I ... I don't know how."

Me (thinks) Then perhaps you shouldn't have unhooked it in the first place, yes?

After some fumbling, she got it back together. I hope she remembers that next time ... although next time, if there are others in the official lineup, both the cashier and the person watching the line have authority to tell queue-jumpers like that to go to the back of the line where they belong.

[AnaKhouri]

Way back when I worked at TJ Maxx our policy was that if we opened a new register, we had to call over the next person in line to prevent people who had just walked up from checking out before people who had been waiting. I took to personally waking over to the next person in line and escorting them to my newly open register, otherwise newcomers would charge up and cut the line. Soooo much bitching when people realized they had to wait like everyone else

And I hated those stupid stanchions with the roll-up straps. People, grown-ass adults, nit even kids, messing with them and playing with them and acting like they'd never seen such a marvel even though they were the same as seatbelts...

[Pixelated]

I think there might have been another customer who did the same thing ... before this woman ... but I didn't actually see him cut through the barrier, and from where I was situated I couldn't see whether there was anybody in line (they need to hire some MUCH TALLER people ...) and if he did cut through the barrier, he did it very quickly and put the strap back properly.

Sooo ... not much I could do about it. Makes me wish they had a better barrier system. But of course that would cost money.

The vast majority of customers either go stand in line or ask the person overseeing the line if they can cut through ... almost always when there's nobody actually IN line. But of course then you get these few ....