grocery-store interface question

[cellio]

Today, as I approached the checkout lines with a dozen bagels, my salad, and a few other things, I found myself wondering about the specification of "12 items or fewer". (Fewer! They actually said "fewer" instead of "less"!) I assume they do not mean 12 individual items no matter how packaged, else you could never go through with a case of pop or a bag of potato chips. So do they mean 12 scannable things, or 12 items at the smallest unit size sold? Would my dozen bagels be ok in a pre-packaged bag with a UPC symbol but not if the clerk had to type in "12 @ [price]"? Or is the fact that it generates a single line on the receipt what matters?

These thoughts brought to you by "total items: 20" on my receipt, a need to maintain my reputation as a pedant, a desire to test posting by email, and caffeine deficiency. :-)

Comments

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

a) In practice, they seem to mean "keep the number down, guys, though we won't look closely" and if they can get you to not show up with a full cart they're ahead of the game. Strictly, I've usually interpreted multiple instances of the same item (e.g. multiple fat-free yogurt containers, which is how it usually comes up for me) as multiple items, even though a properly trained cashier will key them in as "7 @ [price]" almost as quickly as one.

In other news, email posting succeeded, but (as you've likely noticed) produced two copies.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I always think of it as "12 individual units." Thus, the following in my cart:

- bag of 12 bagels
- bulk pack of 24 rolls of toilet paper
- bag of baby carrots (quantity unknown)
- bag of M&Ms (quantity unknown)

...constitutes four items.

[cellio]

Now let's talk about that bag of bagels. Bagels are sold by the unit, not by weight. So if you instead had, say, a bag of apples that you hand-picked from the produce section, that'd be one item because the clerk takes the bag, throws it onto the scale, and processes a number.

But suppose instead you had a bag of cucumbers at 2/$1, or bagels at 50 cents each, or whatever. Does the fact that the clerk has to count the items affect things? (Well, either that or trust you when you say a number -- which, so long as it's plauslbe, they usually do.) This was my dilemma. I had gone to the bakery and hand-picked a dozen bagels.

[cellio]

It was actually a separate post, though since both immediately acquired comments I won't be deleting one for redundancy.

I agree with you on what they really mean; I was just trying to QA the spec. :-) Besides, I try to follow the rules and set a good example and stuff.

For my care, by the way, I was rewarded with a bozo in front of me in line -- one who was having trouble wiht the credit-card thing and -- this is the bozo part -- would not listen to the instructions from the clerk about how to use it. This is not how that whole "reward for good behavior" thing is supposed to play out. :-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the fact that the clerk has to count (or ask for a number) changes it, if they're all packaged together. If every item had to be scanned individually (for instance, when I buy 10 yogurts of differing flavors and, thus, barcodes), then I'd count them individually for the "12 items or fewer" count.

That said, two packages of spaghetti, even if the clerk types in "2@" and then scans only one, counts as two items in my mind.

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

So, when posting via email, could you specify the icon, mood, and music?

Do they enforce the web-interface length limitation of some 4000 characters for email? I know they DO NOT for semagic submissions?

What happens to attachments? HTML vs. plain text posts?

I've always wondered what happens if you respond, via email, to one of those (you got a comment) messages.

[cellio]

So, when posting via email, could you specify the icon, mood, and music?

Yes. Features are documented here; these specific items are covered here.

Do they enforce the web-interface length limitation of some 4000 characters for email?

Oh, is that why some of my posts from HUC this summer were failing via the web form? I thought I was running into bandwidth problems (timeouts) because it was a slow connection. Anyway, I haven't checked length, but I made some pretty long posts in July via email and they went through just fine. But aside from that one incident this summer I haven't bumped into a length limitation on posts, so maybe I'm just insufficiently verbose. :-) (On the other hand, I've hit it with comments a few times.)

What happens to attachments?

I don't know; I haven't tried sending attachments to LJ via email.

HTML vs. plain text posts?

They tell you to post in plain text, not HTML -- but you can use HTML anyway so long as you stick an <lj-raw> at the beginning of the body.

I've always wondered what happens if you respond, via email, to one of those (you got a comment) messages.

I don't think you can. They give you URLs, but there's no relevant reply-to address.