Photo by PoPville flickr user rosiedawn

“Dear PoPville,

On Friday night around 7:00 PM, I stopped into the Giant at Park and 14th St, NW to buy a couple of things for dinner. After 5 minutes of shopping, I hopped into the express aisle with about 5 people in front of me. 35 minutes later, I finally made it to the front of the line and got out of the store. As angry as this made me that night, it’s not remotely unusual. In fact, over two years I’ve probably booked hours in lines stretching halfway through the shopping aisles thinking about how ridiculously awful checkout is at this Giant. Is it that they always put underage checkers on the express aisles where beer and wine are often purchased? Is it that there’s no capacity to open the invariably closed lanes that are all too common during peak hours? Or more likely, is it that there’s no incentive provided to staff to quickly and accurately get people through the line?

Whatever the reason is, I’m more concerned about what it will take for things to improve. I admit I always say I’ll call the manager (whose number is listed on every receipt) when I leave, but I’m just so ready to get out and put the whole awful experience behind me that I never do. I’m curious about what the PoPville community thinks could be done to inspire some change. On Friday, I programmed the number into my phone so I can actually call him while waiting in one of his outlandish lines – maybe if more people did that and described exactly how bad the lines are, we could get things moving. Are there other ideas out there?

And just to be clear – there’s no question that there are actions the Giant management could take to have a positive impact on the lines; this isn’t an issue where there aren’t viable solutions available. I bet your readers (who, like me, have had a lot of time while they wait in line to think) have tons of ideas.”