To get the aldi rage...

[chillypop]

... when people pack at the till?

Aldi is predicated on low costs, meaning a smaller number of staff, meaning fewer checkouts open, meaning the etiquette is for customers to haul ass through the checkout. There's a packing area to accommodate this!

Today I found myself and many others waiting whilst an individual decided to meticulously pack a shop which was presumably to feed the population of a small country. Even the member of staff at the checkout seemed a touch bewildered.

Yes, a first world problem. Am I just being impatient?

Yanbu It annoys me when people don't use the packing bench. It's there for a reason

Is it their first time at Aldi?
I remember being bewildered the first time I went to a discount supermarket and had all my stuff thrown at me by the checkout operator.

The staff member should have told the customer to pack at the bench.

Surely all that needs to happen is the staff need to explain what to do.

I always pack at the till why wouldn't you??? Why would you reload your trolley to unload it and pack it???

Empty trolley onto till
Set up bags
Pack shopping as it comes off
Jobs done
????

I only ever pack at the till if Dh is with me and the bags are lined up in the trolley. We do it so fast that it’s as quick as just slinging it all in the trolley.
If I’m in my own I use the counter.

YANBU. If people can't keep up with the till staff, they should pack at the bench. I always pack at the till, but I always keep up!

I remember when all supermarkets were like this.

Maybe they were new to Aldi. I didn't know at first and now I catch the things being hurled at me at the speed of light and put them straight into the trolley.

Yep this is what I do too. It's as quick to throw everything into empty bags as it is into the trolley.

Of course I understand there may be people who are unable to load their trolley quickly at the checkout for certain reasons... but there is definitely a difference between someone clearly getting on with trying to get the transaction done and the person today who stood there dithering whilst making sure everything was perfectly bagged.

In our Aldi if you start slowly packing they pull your trolley around and throw the stuff in while they scan.

@amylou8 exactly!

@chillypop I really don't get what's so special about Aldi that makes people need to pack elsewhere? People manage it at every other supermarket 🙄

I unload trolley, stand bags in trolley and chuck shopping in. But I’m not meticulous and takes no extra time.

Last Aldi I went in was t like this.
All the tills were self checkout

If they even tried to do that to me they would get short shrift. I don't take with that sort of rudeness.

I always pack at the till. I line up my heavy stuff at the front of the conveyer, bread and crisps at the end. It's as quick for me to put it into bags, as it is to put into an empty trolley.

Opening your bags in the trolley and firing stuff into them is fine - packing them slowly with everything neatly packed isn’t ok. I group everything by food type on the conveyor belt so they can be fired into the open bags in a fairly logical order.

@Dobbysgotthesocks

At other supermarkets you have more tills open, therefore spreading out the foot traffic through the checkouts.

I hate the aldi method. They agressively throw things at you, or passive agressively pile them up in front of you. I've stood juggling a baby having things basically thrown at me rather than just give me a chance.

What is MUCH more sensible is the nordic method. The end bit of the til as a moveable seperator and two sections. One person's stuff gets rung through and they pay. They can then pack while the second person's stuff goes through. And then it's swtiched over again. Saves the time of waiting, and saves being assulted by cereal boxes while you desperately try get the stuff into your trolley in a semi sensible way (I don't even mean backing)

I only ever pack at the till if I've used the basket so have about half a dozen items, any more and it's in a trolley and I move to the bench to sort into bags if needed.

It's the ones who never have money or card ready to pay and have to ferret about in handbags or pockets for purse or wallet after taking an age to pack that are more annoying.

Few weeks back woman with mountains of goods, couldn't get in trolley bags quick enough, then tried to pay with her phone which for some reason didn't seem to be taking the money. In the end they had to open another till as the queues were getting longer.

Lots of people who haven’t shopped at Aldi before are doing so now. Maybe their first time? They’ll get the hang of it. Really not worth getting worked up about.

I pack at the till but I have trolley bags so it's just as quick as shoving it in the trolley

The problem isn't the packing at the till, it's the packing 'meticulously'. I pack at the till, three bags all open and ready in the trolley, they fire it through the checkout and I fire straight into bags. Rarely we get a small backlog but generally I keep up or keep ahead of the checkout operator. With toddler DD always at the end of her patience levels by the checkout I have no desire to elongate my weekly shop doing perfect packing either at the till or at the bench. Lob it in the trolley and get out ASAP!

I would disagree with this actually.
For the same sized store they have roughly the same amount of tills and I'm mu experience are very quick to open and close tills.

Tesco and stores like that are vastly bigger and not comparable