The supermarket queue wars: who is to blame?

The customer who doesn't bag: the silent war of supermarket queues

How long can it take to pay and bag your shopping? The answer seems trivial, but some turn this operation into a ritual of passive resistance that provokes the anger of the entire queue. The phenomenon, colloquially dubbed 'la charo', has generated an intense debate about manners, supermarket design and civic patience.

The ritual of slowness: what exactly happens at the checkout

The pattern repeats itself: the person does not bag the products while the cashier scans them. They just stand and watch, as if supervising. When the scanning is done, they start bagging at a leisurely pace. Then they take out their wallet, look for the card, check the card reader screen, and type the PIN with a concentration worthy of defusing a bomb. All this with the trolley placed in the middle, blocking the way.

Some argue it is a right: each customer pays and collects their shopping at their own pace. Others point out that the problem is not slowness, but the lack of simultaneity: not bagging while the cashier scans turns a two-minute operation into a five-minute one. And with a queue behind, those extra three minutes multiply.

Is it the customer's fault, the cashier's or the design's?

The debate points in several directions. One school of thought blames the cashiers, who start scanning the next customer's shopping before the previous one has collected theirs, creating a mix of products that forces the next person to wait or invade someone else's space. Others blame the checkout design: in some supermarkets, such as Carrefour, the single-queue system with a divider works reasonably well; in others, such as Mercadona, the space between the tray and the trolley is so tight that any slowness becomes a bottleneck.

Some have resolved the conflict with expeditious methods: asking the cashier not to scan their shopping until the previous customer has collected theirs, calling the manager, or simply invading the slow person's personal space until they estimulante ilegal up. The anecdote of the manager who forced a customer to bag outside the queue while checking her receipts circulates as an example that the problem can be solved when someone with authority intervenes.

From the supermarket queue to the petrol station: a Spanish pattern

The phenomenon is not limited to supermarkets. The same profile of person who blocks the checkout is the one who brings an entire petrol station to a standstill: they don't know how to choose a pump, don't know which fuel to use, don't know how to pay, and when they finally get going, they put on their coat inside the car before setting off. The patience of other drivers, logically, runs out.

Behind the complaint there is a broader diagnosis about manners in Spain. The recurring observation is that many people wait their turn in the queue and, when it is their turn, act as if everyone else's time did not exist. It is the culture of 'I've waited, now you can go to hell', which manifests at the supermarket checkout, in the car park or when giving way at a junction.

Is there a solution to the problem?

Proposals range from the widespread use of self-checkout to redesigning checkouts with physical barriers that force customers to collect their shopping before the next person's is scanned. Some supermarkets have already got the message: Carrefour's single-queue system or Lidl's movable bar reduce the problem. But at Mercadona, where the average customer spends 150 euros on a family shop, the saturation is such that any distraction becomes torture for the person behind.

Meanwhile, the definitive solution is still pending: either we redesign the checkouts, or we learn to breathe deeply. Or perhaps we simply accept that the weekly shop is also an exercise in stoic philosophy. After all, time in the queue is the only time no one can steal from us. Even if it feels endless.