I'm heading in that direction. I've noticed a new trend in store shopping, and I don't like it:
I'm a fairly typical Guy Shopper -- I know what I want, I enter the store, I find the item, I pay for the item, I leave the store. Lately, my progress seems inevitably slowed by other people and the reason they go to the store. You see, people don't go to the store to shop. If they wanted to shop, they'd do it on line like a normal person, right? Basically, lonely people go to stores because they need a friend, and they want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) to the cashier about their children, their vacations, their roof repairs, and everything else. It's endless.
And, of course, store employees are trained in customer relations so they do not hurry the conversation. They just stand and nod. Meanwhile, I'm holding a $17 item and a $20 bill and I'm trying to get to my car, and I have to stand there for 10 minutes listening to drivel.
Brick and mortar stores need to die -- or at the very least, I need to stop going to them.
“””Basically, lonely people go to stores because they need a friend, and they want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) to the cashier about their children, their vacations, their roof repairs, and everything else. It’s endless.””””
That’s absurd. I go to stores and never experience that.
I’m a “guy shopper”, and have a similar problem: I stand and wait for an idiot cashier to figure out how to work the cash register. Turnover seems to be so high, it seems everyone is on their first day. I sometimes drop by a nearby Kmart if I’m in the middle of a project and need something, and am disgusted at how long the routine purchase of one stupid thing can take...