The last time I worked as a cashier was part-time in high school. The store was only about a year into using the barcode scanning system when I started working there. There were definitely growing pains.
During the day, teams would push carts full of binders, scanners and label makers throughout the store, replacing price labels on shelves and displays whenever there was a sale so that the advertised price would ring up accurately at the register. Then they would do it all over again after the sale had ended. Often, merchandise would ring up at the regular price, requiring a runner to go lay eyes on the shelf to see what was up if the customer made a fuss.
Many annoyed customers would share - with anyone in earshot - their theory that perhaps the system was programmed to ignore the sale price every so often in the hope that shoppers wouldn't notice. I dismissed these theories at the time because a) I didn't know much about computers and, b) I witnessed the chaos of the bugs being worked out. Meetings which would sometimes leave department managers in tears.
Three decades later, on the other side of the register, I find myself wondering if those conspiracy theorists weren't right about merchants (particularly chain stores) having an incentive to leave things broken. I mean, rarely have I seen a price disparity work out in the customer's favor. If it was just a fluke, shouldn't there be as many cases of items ringing up at the sale price after the sale had ended?
Maybe cashiers and store managers today have had a different experience and could share their thoughts.
PaulAllen / Paul Allen
npub1m6…79dnn
2025-01-01 23:34:48
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2025-01-01 23:34:48Event JSON
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