> Everyone has their own strategy of how to place items onto the line to slow down the cashier at just the right moment.
I am German and and I've never heard of this ^^. You just put the items on the belt in the order that they should go in the bag, then you can pack very quickly.
That's one of them. Even that is something that you don't usually do outside Germany. To get to the next level I recommend to put weighted produce to the end or just after items that are not straightforward to pack.
I do that in the US even where they have an employee bagging my stuff. In fact, I do that to ensure optimal packetization—for an IP analogy. :)
Otherwise I end up with 2 pieces of fruit in 1 bag, 1 bottle of soap by itself in another bag, followed by again more fruit in the 3rd bag… It's a fun fragmentation problem.
As a german in the US, I suddenly felt as if I had a OCD about the way to bag stuff. Store employees were more or less dumping things kind of randomly in bags without sorting by weight and by robustnes of the product. On the other hand declinining help with bagging seemed to be kind of unusual.
Other differences I noticed: Time at checkouts was at least 2-3 times longer than in Germany, even at the better german supermarkets cashiers are much faster. Also, in Germany I never encountered cashiers to comment on the goods I bought (I don't mind much, but it still felt a bit like an intrusion in privacy. I once bought a glass of Ghee - a common ingredient in southern german cuisine - and the cashier went on and on about how unusual it was that a white guy would buy it).
>Germany I never encountered cashiers to comment on the goods I bought (I don't mind much, but it still felt a bit like an intrusion in privacy. I once bought a glass of Ghee - a common ingredient in southern german cuisine - and the cashier went on and on about how unusual it was that a white guy would buy it)
In the US service employees are required to be fake "friendly." This was an attempt at that. I hate it myself.
I always associated ghee with India, I had no idea it was used in Germany too.
Its not really. Most people would get it from the "asian shop", but many "German" supermarkets have a small shelf for "international" stuff like asian noodles, taco shells and russian stuff.
Ever thought why you shouldn't use real butter to fry meat? Its because it will turn brown and black because of proteins. You can however extract the fat from butter by melting it: clarified butter. Ghee - if it has not been fermented/flavoured - is essentially clarified butter.
But the area isn't big enough. It only works if the cashier wait for you to put all your items in the belt, before start scanning. If you're still putting items on the belt when the cashier starts, the stuff will pile up on the little shelf thingy after the cash register. Now they're in the wrong order when you need to speed pack them afterwards.
I am German and and I've never heard of this ^^. You just put the items on the belt in the order that they should go in the bag, then you can pack very quickly.