cowdery wrote: Check-writing is a symptom, it's not the disease, which usually is a more general cluelessness.

Well said. Also well borne out by G Wiv's story... It sounds as though that lady could make anything a form of torture.

What's more, I'm old (i.e., age is no excuse) and I drive a Buick. (Which I love, by the way.)

Antonius

G Wiv wrote:So I'm in Costco last week, two behind a check writer.

At Costco, your only choices are cash, check or Amex. They don't take other credit cards.

They do take virtually all debit cards, though.

gleam wrote:They do take virtually all debit cards, though.

Ed,

I most always use a debit card at Costco. Once quick swipe and done.

Enjoy,
Gary

Gary, your little Costco story reminds me of a recent run in at the Wrigleyville Jewels, where nearly every aisle has been converted to do-it-yourself. (It's one way to cut down on labor costs, though they still have to pay someone to roll back odometers on the meats and vegetables, I suppose.)

I stepped into one of two very clearly defined, parallel adjacent lines, each leading to a discrete do-it-yourself register. I don't mind telling you, Gary, that I'm pretty good at picking the fast line, whether I'm driving down Ashland or checking out at Costco. It's a gift, and I credit God.

I picked the fast line, as usual. It was not the line with the woman of a certain age who looked like Kirstie Alley. Nothing wrong with Kirstie Alley, but I could see that the lady was going for Sex in the City or Desperate Housewives. Yet Fate gave her Fat Actress on her best day. And I think she knew it, especially after I called her Kirstie. But I'm getting ahead of myself, Gary. I had to earn the right to say "Goodbye, Kirstie," on my way out the Jewels.

She had on a bright orange poncho, designer jeans and red heels. Lots of eye makeup too. A little crazy looking, that mascara and eyeshadow, and those darting eyes.

Anyways, when my turn came up, I stepped to the machine.

Kirstie yells, "Excuuuse me, I was in line." Gary, you know that I'm nothing if not a gentleman. And I am reasonably afraid of off-kilter Kirstie Alley types as well. I waive her on. The fellow behind her says, loudly, "she wasn't in your line," and lets me take Kirstie's place, which by now has become the on-deck circle for machine #2. An honor, a responsibility, and a challenge is how I saw the patronage.

Machine #2 opens up. I have a pretty full cart, more stuff than Kirstie for sure. But I have fans rooting for me, people that I don't want to let down in the line behind me. I am their champion. I'm in the Zone, just me, my groceries, and an automated grocery clerk. Like Mario Andretti, I make la macchina an extension of my will. A symphony of fluid movement, electronic beeps, and swishing plastic bags ensues.

As you guessed, Gary, I walked out with neatly bagged and paid-for groceries while Kirstie was fumbling about and calling, unrequitedly, to no one in particular for help with the machine.

JeffB wrote:As you guessed, Gary, I walked out with neatly bagged and paid-for groceries while Kirstie was fumbling about and calling, unrequitedly, to no one in particular for help with the machine.

Jeff,

Watching tv last night, Kirstie comes shimmying on the tube and I start laughing out loud. My wife looks at me like I nuts, not an all that unusual occurrence, and I try, vainly, to explain the reason I'm laughing.

Her interest piqued by Kirstie A vs Sex in the City, she reads your post, and comes back in the room laughing as well.

It's my opinion every time Jewel installs a self-serve check-out machine they loose ground as there are always at least 3 people with "monkey looking at a donut" looks on their faces, box of Sugar Smacks in hand, at the machines.

Thanks for the laugh.

Enjoy,
Gary

I make a point, every time the machine accuses me of stealing ("Unexpected item in bagging area! Exterminator droid alert!"), of stopping cold, picking up all my stuff, and starting over at another machine. On a good day I can lock up all four machines, rendering them useless, before I abandon what I came to buy and go somewhere else that hasn't been improved by technology.

I used to love those machines but it seems as if they're getting worn out (or something) very quickly. You get an incredible number of error messages it takes an employee to cancel.

Last time I was in Jewel, getting ready to go through the express line, an employee said, "I'll take you over here," and got me to come over to one of the automatic machines. I thought he was going to ring up for me. But no, he went back to ring up at a register. That's their new trick for getting you to use those machines. I had to call him back three times to clear error messages-- by the second *he* was screaming at the machine-- and another time to check my ID because I was getting over $50 worth of stuff and using a credit card. (That's a new rule, and it's not posted by the machines.) Then he couldn't get it to take my credit card and I had to dig up the cash. Lucky I even had cash. About halfway through this I was ready to walk out leaving all the stuff there.

That's interesting about the $50 limit.

They also have a built-in limitation in that the two bagging areas, or so it was said to me, sense weight. So once you've filled up two teeny plastic bags and start to move them out of the way to bag more stuff, it generates an automatic stop-thief alert. So basically they are discouraging, in two different ways, the purchase of more than about six things at Jewel. Well, believe me, Jewel, if you want me to buy less at your store, it can be arranged.

Mike G wrote: So basically they are discouraging, in two different ways, the purchase of more than about six things at Jewel.

They explicitly discourage the purchase of more than 15 things through the self-checkout. Maybe that's why...

I've never had any problems, really. If it says "unauthorized item in bagging area", I just take it out and put it elsewhere in the little self-checkout island. When I'm done, I put it in my bag and trot off. I find the cub foods self checkouts are actually more obnoxious than the Jewel ones, but not by much.

I don't like 'em, but I generally get through faster than if I waited for a real cashier.

But they don't explicitly discourage it, in the sense of signage. They just discourage it physically and in practice. Anyway, between that and the Fresh Values card nonsense and the shilling for this week's Extreme Value On Utter Processed Crap, they've certainly discouraged me from shopping there.

Mike G wrote:But they don't explicitly discourage it, in the sense of signage. They just discourage it physically and in practice. Anyway, between that and the Fresh Values card nonsense and the shilling for this week's Extreme Value On Utter Processed Crap, they've certainly discouraged me from shopping there.

The jewel at Ashland and Roosevelt actually has a sign saying the self-checkouts are for 15 items or less, so maybe it depends on location.

At my local Jewel's the other day the sassy, shilling cashier, when queried,
"so, what are today's deals?" by the woman behind me, responded,
"well, I wouldn't say that."

-and so ensued much derisive laughter from everyone in hearing
range

As for self-checkout droids: I try to finagle the one station w/ extra bagging space, then stagger my bags atop the sensors.

When confronted as a potential canned-tomato-thief, I simply remove the offending item and oh so casually, ram it back down on the sensor. It usually shuts it up.

All of you anti-check people will likely be glad to hear about this, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

LAZ wrote:All of you anti-check people will likely be glad to hear about this, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Hopefully, soon we will be able to go to The Jewels and give them the finger.

I always suspected Cub Foods was where the Antichrist would appear, asking for his faithful to show their sign. (While on the other hand, the new Left Behind movie was at Costco, showing which side they're on...)

From my bank's email newsletter this week:

Which is faster -- writing checks or paying electronically with a debit card or credit card? A recent in-store research study by Visa® USA and National Market Measures found that the average signature-based debit card and credit card transactions are nearly three times faster than the average check transaction. This was surprising news to almost half of the check-writers, who believe writing a check is faster.

The time to process a payment using a signature-based debit card was 26.1 seconds, while credit transactions averaged 30.2 seconds, both significantly less than the 75.2 seconds it took to process a check payment.

Of course, Visa funded the study, so I'd imagine they have a bias. But still.

My question is, why the difference between debit and credit?

gleam wrote:My question is, why the difference between debit and credit?

The average person takes 4.1 seconds longer to sign their John Hancock vs. typing in their PIN? But I guess that has to include time for the person at the register to hand over and receive the signature slip.

z

Yeah, but it explicitly says "signature-based debit" transactions..

"The time to process a payment using a signature-based debit card was 26.1 seconds, while credit transactions averaged 30.2 seconds, both significantly less than the 75.2 seconds it took to process a check payment."

My question, as a check writer, is what would you do with your extra
49.1 seconds?

Apple wrote:My question, as a check writer, is what would you do with your extra
49.1 seconds?

Why, Visa has suggestions for you!

Time Spent Waiting in Check-out Lines-- What Else Could You Do?

49 seconds/day - Check voicemail/email

5.7 minutes/week - Pay bills online

24.5 minutes/month - Watch an episode of HBO's "Entourage"

5 hours/year - Fly from Oahu to Los Angeles

gleam wrote:

Apple wrote:My question, as a check writer, is what would you do with your extra
49.1 seconds?

Why, Visa has suggestions for you!

Time Spent Waiting in Check-out Lines-- What Else Could You Do?

49 seconds/day - Check voicemail/email

5.7 minutes/week - Pay bills online

24.5 minutes/month - Watch an episode of HBO's "Entourage"

5 hours/year - Fly from Oahu to Los Angeles

LOL! This made me laugh! This and the news that the proposed Arctic drilling didn't pass made my day!

LAZ wrote:All of you anti-check people will likely be glad to hear about this, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I signed up for this immediately when I heard about it. I still need to go into the Cub Foods store to finalize things and get my fingerprint encoded; but seriously, I am absolutely rapturous about this (pun intended?). I am such an absent-minded airhead, I very often find myself pulling into a parking lot and realizing, 15 minute drive from home, that I forgot my wallet. Well, at least I can now steer over to Cub Foods (which, by the way, ain't half bad, and is definitely better than the average Jewel or Dominick's). All I need is my finger, and to my way of reckoning, if I'm missing that, I've got more serious problems to deal with.

JimInLoganSquare wrote:[ Well, at least I can now steer over to Cub Foods (which, by the way, ain't half bad, and is definitely better than the average Jewel or Dominick's). All I need is my finger, and to my way of reckoning, if I'm missing that, I've got more serious problems to deal with.

Jim,

While I'm not a regular at Cub it's one of the few places I know that always, well almost always, has turkey thighs in stock. I give them an overnight brine and then smoke, no waterpan, in my WSM.

Far as giving Cub the finger, you sure that's polite?

Enjoy,
Gary

gleam wrote:From my bank's email newsletter this week:

Which is faster -- writing checks or paying electronically with a debit card or credit card? A recent in-store research study by Visa® USA and National Market Measures found that the average signature-based debit card and credit card transactions are nearly three times faster than the average check transaction. This was surprising news to almost half of the check-writers, who believe writing a check is faster.

The time to process a payment using a signature-based debit card was 26.1 seconds, while credit transactions averaged 30.2 seconds, both significantly less than the 75.2 seconds it took to process a check payment.

Of course, Visa funded the study, so I'd imagine they have a bias. But still.

My question is, why the difference between debit and credit?

As someone that works as a Technology person in the banking industry, my guess would be that the debit card transaction has a shorter path in verifying available funds against the owner's bank account vs. the verification against available credit by the credit issuer. Typically the volume against credit issuers is very high - the classic peak days like the day after Thanksgiving (black Friday) or Christmas Eve generate volumes that are frequently used in benchmark studies on high transaction volumes and response times. Of course there's not enough data in the quoted stat to make an informed analysis of what's really going on, that's just my best guess.

My guess is actually that, with a larger sample size, they'd take about the same amount of time. The margin of error with this one was +/- 5 seconds or so.

G Wiv wrote:Far as giving Cub the finger, you sure that's polite?

I plan to be very polite. And I'm only going to let them borrow it for a second. I am planning to go in this weekend to get the chip implanted ... er ... swipe my finger through the scanner to activate my account. I'll then complete a transaction and report back here about the experience.

UPDATE: I went to my local Cub Foods on Elston Sunday and was told they would not be up and running with the numerical wrist tatoos ... er ... biometric fingerprinting ... until sometime in December. I'll check back in then.

The fingerprint thing is actually benign compared to the methods employed at a Barcelona nightclub last year. They actually allowed customers to opt for an implanted chip for VIP access.

Even worse? The chip was RFID, so it could be detected and you could be tracked (at a very short range) without even knowing it. At least the fingerprint deal is very obvious.

This could really be a whole new topic called Just Kinda Missing the Point Of Why You're In Business, but I don't want to make a whole new topic about that, so I'm just going to kvetch here for a minute about what I observed today:

1) Century theaters in Evanston, where I saw United 93 (warning: do not watch this movie if you expect to fly during the remainder of your lifetime). They have new hot dogs in this theater. They are branded Nathan's hot dogs-- and before someone wants to get on my butt for attacking New York hot dogs, be aware that the nationally distributed Nathan's dogs are made by the John Morrell Co. of Cincinatti. The point of which is... this is a New York dog like I'm a Yorkshire terrier, bland and skinless (I mean the hot dog, not me). Net result of switch to higher-perceived-value branded dog from previous no-name dog: a much less satisfying movie dog experience. But... it's a famous Nathan's! Just Kinda Missing the Point there...

2) Walgreen's. Pick up some basic kid-household OTC pharmaceutical products. Most of which have now been moved behind the counter, since apparently you can use Spongebob Vitamins to make crystal meth, I guess. Get to checkout counter and Grandma Checkout thrusts a fistful of aggressively pink breast cancer donation cards in my face. I have to tell her three times no, and she gives me a distinctly disapproving look as I bundle up my things and skulk out, the only person all week who has apparently taken the pro-breast cancer side in front of her. Really makes me want to run back to Walgreen's. Shaking me down at the cash register, isn't that Just Kinda...

3) Swing by a Dominick's, a rather sad, wan Dominick's, has the air of a store in a dying rust belt town (special on sling blades, aisle 4...) Grab some 12-packs of Coke for a party, recognizing that I'm going to get screwed for not having a Fresh Values card which is, of course, one of the reasons I hardly go there anyway, the loyalty card is working hard to enforce my loyalty in all other directions. As I'm getting them, the guy who's setting up a Pepsi end cap tries to pretend he's just another customer and starts to tell me how much better a deal it is on Pepsi than on Coke. Yeah, except for the fact that it's not Coke, I grumble to myself. Jeez, getting shaken down first by Grandma and now by the Pepsi dude, that's Just Kinda... At the checkout I hear that they too are shaking down people for donations for animal literacy or rectal replacement surgery or something, but luckily the guy checking me out sees a deeply unsympathetic glint in my eye and confines himself to efficiently processing my transaction. I manage to escape Dominick's without being shaken down twice.

4) I go to CB2 to get some funky cocktail napkins for this party. CB2 has exactly two kinds of funky paper napkins in stock, and of the one I can tolerate, they have exactly one pack of 20. They had more choices of hipster napkins at GUM in the Brezhnev era. Given that the entire point of CB2 is funky cocktail party accountrements for the hipster lifestyle, this seems to be... Just Kinda Missing the Point Of Why You're In Business.