TAKAPUNA PAK'NSAVE INTRODUCES QUEUE FOR THE QUEUE, BLOKE GIVES UP AND GOES TO NEW WORLD
Two queues, one trolley, zero patience. A Takapuna sparky reckons he aged out of his apprenticeship waiting for the first cordon.
The Takapuna Pak'nSave has rolled out what staff are calling a "holding queue". It's a queue you stand in before you're allowed to join the actual checkout queue. That one then feeds the self-checkouts.
The new system, marked out with retractable belts and a bloke in hi-vis holding a clipboard, kicked off Tuesday morning. By 11am it had backed up to the hot bread. Shoppers with full trolleys were told to wait behind a line of tape. A second staffer then waved them through to a second line of tape.
Sparky Reuben Falesau, 34, abandoned a trolley near the holding pen. It contained mince, two-minute noodles and a slab of Export Gold. "Mate, I've wired three-phase boards faster than this," he said. "Bloke with the clipboard told me I was 'next next'. What the fuck is next next. I've got a job in Browns Bay."
Marlene Tuilagi of Sunnynook said she'd been in the pre-queue eleven minutes before being promoted. Then she waited another nine in the real queue. "The self-checkout told me there was an unexpected item in the bagging area. It was my handbag. Where else is it meant to go, the roof?"
A Pak'nSave spokesperson said the holding queue was a "flow management trial" to "improve customer throughput." Asked whether adding a second queue made the first queue shorter, the spokesperson said the trial would be "reviewed in due course." The bloke with the clipboard said he was on $24 an hour and didn't make the rules.
Falesau's trolley was still parked by the bread at 2pm. The mince was going off. The Export was warming up nicely.
The new system, marked out with retractable belts and a bloke in hi-vis holding a clipboard, kicked off Tuesday morning. By 11am it had backed up to the hot bread. Shoppers with full trolleys were told to wait behind a line of tape. A second staffer then waved them through to a second line of tape.
Sparky Reuben Falesau, 34, abandoned a trolley near the holding pen. It contained mince, two-minute noodles and a slab of Export Gold. "Mate, I've wired three-phase boards faster than this," he said. "Bloke with the clipboard told me I was 'next next'. What the fuck is next next. I've got a job in Browns Bay."
Marlene Tuilagi of Sunnynook said she'd been in the pre-queue eleven minutes before being promoted. Then she waited another nine in the real queue. "The self-checkout told me there was an unexpected item in the bagging area. It was my handbag. Where else is it meant to go, the roof?"
A Pak'nSave spokesperson said the holding queue was a "flow management trial" to "improve customer throughput." Asked whether adding a second queue made the first queue shorter, the spokesperson said the trial would be "reviewed in due course." The bloke with the clipboard said he was on $24 an hour and didn't make the rules.
Falesau's trolley was still parked by the bread at 2pm. The mince was going off. The Export was warming up nicely.