How To Be An Effective Supermarket Checker: The Front LIne (1965)

Think of how slow the lines would have been without bar codes.

Of course, back then every line was probably staffed, unlike now when you are lucky to have two lanes open.

R1- and the cashiers were very competent in those days if we are to go buy this film

"When Miss Joan Crawford appears in your lane, but mindful that she will be drunk. Don't let her drone on about God creating green or 'sow-saagh' for her paella made with Campbell's soup. Dissuade Miss Crawford from prattling on about Red Weirdos. Remember that other customers behind her are eager to get to their cars. However, never be curt with Miss Crawford or she will slap you so hard you won't be able to hear from your left ear for at least a week."

[quote]and the cashiers were very competent in those days if we are to go buy this film

And white. And spent HOURS on their hair every morning.

r3 Miss Crawford's order is usually fairly simple to check out-- only two items: Pepsi and vodka.

Did anyone else catch the theme from "The Donna Reed Show" around 6:25?

These bitches wouldn't last five seconds at Food Circus.

A completely lost art...customer service. And a bagger, too!!

Nowadays, they just push it through and wait until you finish bagging with the bags you brought with you!

And don't forget the ubiquitous tip jar, which will be appearing next!

[quote]And white. And spent HOURS on their hair every morning.

So, the were the aboriginal Dataloungers?

Naomi Harper owns this thread. When Thelma got a job at Food Circus, it was Naomi who trained her. Naomi was head checker, of course.

[quote]if we are to go buy this film

Oh, dear!

Wow it would be fun and fascinating to time travel and do a shop in a supermarket of that era. And to taste so many things.

Before computers and the destruction of the semi-skilled working class, those cashiers had brains. They probably memorised the prices of hundreds of the most popular items in the store, at least. They might be scanning prices but they kind of already know. Their minds were still operational. They could do simple math in their heads and knew how to accept cash and give change without everything coming to a full stop.

It looks like a lot of fun, but the fractions scare me. I’m sure glad my husband makes enough money that I don’t have to work.

R13 thinks everyone was smarter back when people believed homosexuality was a mental illness....

R15. My family origins are successful catholic tradesmen in Connecticut. No higher educations until my fathers generation, and then only a few. There were over a few generations lesbians and gays in that catholic family. Everyone knew, nobody thought they were crazy, everyone kept their mouths shut about it. They were smart people. It's clear to me remembering back to the 70s that many working class people had well oiled brains. Not a guarantee at all, nowadays.

The packaging and products make me feel very nostalgic. I was 12-13 in 1965, so I remember that era pretty well. Those blue and white Kleenex boxes were ubiquitous. And the Hormel chili can and Campbell's soup cans have hardly changed at all. The six-pack of 7-Up in those tall bottles in a cardboard carton, the loaves of bread -- for which the only options were usually white or wheat, the purple price stamps on the cans ... and trading stamps!

Most likely to be an unpopular opinion here, but I much rather use the self checkout these days. I want to just want to get what I want and leave asap.

I'm hoping the checkout-free model gains more traction tbh.

"Look....NO SELF CHECKOUT!!!!!!"

I know it is fashionable on here to be nostalgic, but I suspect if I were dropped in a 1965 supermarket, I would be appalled at the lack of selection and how gross and processed most of the foods were.

Imagine trying to get enough a decent coffee or loaf of bread.

Not so obvious, r21. Many of the chemicals and hormones had not fully saturated the food supply. For example cookies were made with lard. There wasn't corn syrup in EVERYTHING. Name brand coffee wasn't horrible.

Isn't that the second Mrs. Ziffel writing a check? Fran Ryan?

r23 Yes! I noticed her too. I wonder if the store had Purina Pig Chow?

Good Circus? These bitches wouldn’t last 5 minutes at Aldi, where customer interaction is verboten.

I think that sweet young checker trainee dropped out a few years later and became a hardcore hippie and druggie and eventually ended up working the register at Tower Records.

I heard she died in the mud at Woodstock. Urban legend I guess.

I see Miss Joan Crawford coming in through the automatic doors.

Does anyone have a couple of Milltowns I can use to get through this?

Does she want to be known today??

[quote]Name brand coffee wasn't horrible.

This is revisionist bullshit. The coffee sold in supermarkets in the US in the 1960s was GARBAGE.

So was the bread.

American food was crap until very recently.

In fact you're wrong. American food declined from the 60s to the 90s. So in 1965 it wasn't all garbage. I had a course in this at Cornell. I guess that university and the Food Science prof had it all wrong, though, and you are correct.

What I find scary?—how little has changed. But for scan codes and smartcreens, it’s essentially the same old thing we all grew up with…

I respect Cornell, greatly. My two best friends graduated from Cornell. But Food Science?—sound sketchy, for an elective?

One other point —the clip goes into great detail about the very slim margins in retail grocery sales, and how any small thing out of whack can hurt the bottom line.

The business is exactly the same today—barely 1% margins, but billions in gross sales…that’s why the grocery industry was sucked into the 7th circle of merger-hell. Volume and market share are still where it’s at…

[quote] I had a course in this at Cornell. I guess that university and the Food Science prof had it all wrong, though, and you are correct.

Cornell?

Couldn't you get into a good school?

R11- I approved of your comment which shows that at least I have a sense of humor.

R30- A&P's brand of coffee including Bokar and Eight O' Clock were always highly rated by Consumer Reports.

R35 do tell…

In the video PAT looks like Cora Godsey from The Waltons.

R21- Don't be SO in love with today. At least in those days NONE of the food was Genetically Modified and far fewer people were obese or overweight and our standard of living was near it's peak.

In my youth I was a supermarket checker (pre bar codes), restaurant counterman & cashier, and bank teller. You develop a focused frame of mind when it comes to pricing and negotiating cash that you keep decades later.

R23. Fran Ryan was a Stanford drop out…an early sixties’ version of Elizabeth Holmes—-you will listen and follow me! 😵‍💫

[quote]was near it's peak.

Oh, dear!

I’m surprised we haven’t heard from the TV Guide troll. Was that Hoss from Bonanza?

[quote]A&P's brand of coffee including Bokar and Eight O' Clock were always highly rated by Consumer Reports.

It was fucking garbage. And people made it even worse by burning it in percolators. Consumer Reports didn't know any better. It was comparing it to even worse trashy coffee.

The coffee in America in the 1960s was rubbish.

R45 was probably drinking instant. No doubt lured in by watching Lauren Bacall drink it in tv commercials.

And many many travelers to our country thought so as well R45.

No one used credit cards for their grocery purchases back then...or for much else, either.

In the 1970s, when we had to "slide" the credit cards and make a carbon impression of them, it was an ordeal. We also had to look up the cards in these newsprint booklets to see whether they were lost or stolen. They were printed in a tiny font and sometimes smeared and difficult to read.

Fun times!

R48- No one used credit cards for their food purchases in the 1970's because supermarkets did not really start accepting credit cards until the mid 1990's.

The last time I made a Cornell joke, the person I was speaking to was a Cornell grad. They lurk. Be careful.

r30=Ann Page

Yes it was a lark to take a Food Science course, but why not? I took 2 nutrition science courses, liked them, and the lesbian bulldyke professor poo-pooed food science. Food science was the corporate perspective. How to turn whole foods into addictive toxic crap. How to produce frankenchickens, etc.

R51= Jane Parker

I completed the suite by taking labor history class. And many of those lefties in the Labour school ended up at Harvard Law. That's America, folks!

My favorite "old grocery store" video.

A lot of the real abominable food was introduced from the late 60s and definitely in the 70s. Women's lib let working class and middle class white women go back to work. And sometimes the economy forced them back to work. Meat prices shot up. Families under budgets should have returned to basics and staples, but many did not, because Food Science and industry started delivering industrial crap and convinced naive consumers it was food. modern food.

People ate a lot of canned meats and vegetables in the '60s.

Hardly a high point in American cuisine.

True. But many housewives cooked "whole" foods. And still baked things from scratch.

Also through the 60s, there was still the idea of seasonal produce. But all the science came down in price.

Here's an article featuring the history of the industrial available all year apple, starring a Cornell food scientist, of course.

LOL poors

[quote] But many housewives cooked "whole" foods.

Yes, I cooked with Campbell's mushroom soup to make casseroles that were very sophisticated.

My Howard couldn't get enough of them.

International Checkers of the year? Did these ladies also have to participate in a swimsuit competition?

[quote]In the 1970s, when we had to "slide" the credit cards and make a carbon impression of them, it was an ordeal.

That "cha-CHUNK” sound I can still hear in my head after all these years…

I always received better service at Sam Drucker's store than I ever did at the supermarket in Pixley.

My mom went to school with Eddie Basha.

Notice that “Miss Cambridge’s” voiceover was missing any non-rhotic accent? I think the whole thing was a set up!

Just for R 63

Alan Partridge could teach you a thing or two.

R61= Mrs. Cunningham

I remember all of that. Our local Acme in 1965.

It was very social. You knew the checkout girls and the baggers. People were well dressed. There was decorum. Kids were afraid of authority, afraid of grownups so you were on your best behavior. The experience was much more formal. With the better service, I'd say it felt more luxurious than today.

My mother paid with a personal check. Wrote it out and gave it to the checkout girl.

There was plenty of everything but you didn't have 100 different brands of one item, so yeah, in that sense there was less choice. And you didn't have a lot of the more specialized and imported items you have today. But my town had 2 Italian markets were you could find things. And we still had a butcher shop and a fish monger.

Anyway, I'd rather be eating the meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables that were in the markets then. Less processed, fewer chemicals.

[quote]My mother paid with a personal check. Wrote it out and gave it to the checkout girl.

Wow, what a novel approach to using checks to pay for things in stores. Your mother was *quite* the innovator!

[quote]Anyway, I'd rather be eating the meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables that were in the markets then. Less processed, fewer chemicals.

Yes, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was DELICIOUS!

Is that your best snark, R71?

Glamorous

[quote]Wow, what a novel approach to using checks to pay for things in stores. Your mother was *quite* the innovator!

I included that to illustrate the level of trust, the innocence and quaintness of the era. But I have a feeling you'd be too stupid to understand.

R75 Bless your heart.

^ (Yep, I was right.)

R72 Nothing can equal the level of harmful chemicals that Americans have in their food today. Do a little research into why so many of them are banned in the EU and around the world.

Women had to smile for such a looonng time back then. At least five seconds.

American food was NOT garbage back then. I fully remember the fluffernutter sandwiches, made out of peanut butter and marshmallows.