The Great Divide

I am sure this doesn't really belong in the "Game Room" but I've talked about random stuff before and so today is no exception.

I have to tell you, I'm a little concerned about the cashier's at the grocery store. There needs to be some changes - albeit minor ones - if I'm going to get through the checkout without feeling somewhat angry.

You might be thinking "hey why not use self checkout and avoid this whole problem?". The answer to that is NO. I'm not being old-fashioned, I don't like self checkout (for groceries anyways). If I'm picking up batteries or a couple of items in an electronics store that's fine, but groceries require some skill to ring up. You might say I should know better, but if I have to flip through a catalog looking for the code for a rutabaga I'm not going to be happy. In most cases, the cashiers already know it. There are other reasons too but that's for another post.

Anyways, my main question here is----"WHY DO CASHIERS NOT PUSH THE DIVIDERS DOWN TO THE END?". Do they not realize how incredibly difficult it is for the person heading for that belt to get that thing? When it's near the cashier it's useless. Either I have to reach over someone else's groceries (which is just a no no in my book) or I have to ask the person in front of me to get the divider and put it down for me.

Which brings me to the next question - divider etiquette. I think you're only really responsible for the divider that goes between your groceries and the person in front of you. That being said, if everyone put a divider down AFTER their last grocery item, this would solve a lot of problems.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not putting this all on the cashiers. The grocery store chains have some responsibility in this too. They build lanes with huge channels for these dividers and then populate them with like 2 or 3 dividers. Come on now -- fill that space up with dividers. They have advertising on them and can't cost very much being all plastic, so why be cheap? Doing this would mean that the extra "push" the cashier has to exert would be reduced, leading to less instances of work injuries acquired from repetitively slamming dividers down to the end of the channel.

All I ask is that we all work together here. Stores - buy more dividers. Cashiers, exert a little effort and shove those dividers down to the end. And shoppers, be nice and put a divider after your food. You're only helping yourself in the end - otherwise you run the risk of a stranger leaning over your food or getting into your personal bubble. That leads to a whole other topic--- fragrances in a shared work place. I'm "divided" on that topic, too!