I keep thinking of a cashier in Walmart decades ago when they were a smaller operation that were not in any particular drive for profits.
This lady was tired. Burned out. Sick of the drama kind of thing. Customer in front of me had been stockpiling candy bars. The brand and type escapes me thinking that far back. Anyway she had cases from the shelf piled on the conveyor.
Cashier opens a case. Something like 48 bars in it. Carefully examines and counts for product name, count verification and carefully taps all that :
: into the computer cash register which was a new thing with the alpha numberic pad causing people to line up a dozen deep in that little walmart store. (There is a little wally world and a really big wally world. The difference is the little one only had like 3 cashiers while the big one had 50...)
Anyway. after carefully tapping all that :
: into that poor tiny keypad and entering the price 1.48... she sighs.. finally. Taps the add button. Places the candy bar back into the case itself... proceeds to pick up the entire case which was like a two foot by one foot box.
Passes it over the scanner.
BIP! 1.48 x 48
Next case, next case next case. The subtotal grew exponetially.
Bip bip bip bip and bip.
Thats 48 cases per bip.
Even today I wonder how that all worked out after all that careful tapping of the candy bar into the computer.