For A Faster Checkout Line At Aldi, Follow One Unspoken Rule

If you've never shopped at Aldi, there are some important things to know before your first visit. For example, you have to bring a quarter to unlock a shopping cart, you will be required to bag your own groceries, and you may just hear someone saying "caw-caw" if you're in one of the center aisles. It's a unique shopping experience that makes your local Aldi well worth visiting, especially if you're looking for affordable products.

One way Aldi keeps its prices low is through efficiency. Cashiers are reportedly watched carefully to ensure they don't waste time doing anything that may decrease productivity. To that end, they are expected to ring up around 1,200 items per hour, an extraordinary goal ... but nevertheless one employees are evaluated on when it comes time to distribute pay raises.

There is one unspoken rule that will benefit both you and the employee at the register: position the items so the cashier doesn't have to search for the barcode. By the end of the month, all that time spent turning the package around before finally finding and scanning the barcode can add up to a lot of wasted hours. Loading the conveyor belt quickly while positioning the barcodes toward the cashier will help them achieve their speed goals.

To help employees meet this speed requirement, Aldi does something to help them be more efficient. If you pick up an Aldi-branded product – by design, very few of its offerings are brand names – you will see oversized barcodes on all sides of the packaging. This was designed to increase the cashier's speed and decrease customer wait times.

Poorly-performing cashiers can be in danger of losing their jobs if they don't meet the above performance goals. However, a Redditor claiming to be an Aldi shift manager wrote that while cashiers do have a certain number of items per hour they're expected to scan, as long as they're doing their best to meet that goal and are providing good customer service, their jobs are safe. Still, there are leaderboards behind the scenes posting employees' speed numbers though, according to the Redditor, cashiers at their store enjoy friendly competition with their co-workers.

In a self-checkout world where most supermarkets have very few cashiers, it's important to show your appreciation. Do what you can to make their jobs easier and help them get you through the line as quickly as possible. The cashier will thank you, and all the people behind you in line will thank you, too.