How Not To Be A Jerk At Aldi

Aldi has everything: low prices, a surprisingly robust selection, free snakes, and cashiers trained to move the checkout line at breakneck speed. To maintain that breakneck speed, customers have to bag their own groceries at a separate station after checkout. But it seems that some customers don't like that system—which led to a recent "hack" on social media promoting a more leisurely checkout experience for shoppers.

Mashed reported on the hack, which started with an Australian shopper. The shopper reportedly created a Facebook post offering a solution to get Aldi cashiers to slow down. The solution? Dramatically spacing out her grocery items on the conveyer belt "just so we got time to pack."

The idea is that spacing out individual items on the conveyer belt will slow down cashiers ringing up the items, giving customers more time to bag their groceries during the checkout process. But there are a few problems with this hack, as explained by Julia Rowland, an Aldi employee, on TikTok. "Coming from someone who works at Aldi, please don't do this," she posted, adding, "I get it. Y'all trying to find a loophole. You don't want to bag your own groceries, but that's what Aldi is all about."

Rowland went on to explain that Aldi asks customers to bag their own groceries to keep overhead costs down. That helps maintain the chain's signature low prices. So the conveyer belt hack is not only inconvenient for other shoppers; it could also lead to negative repercussions for the Aldi cashiers, since they're "scored" on their checkout speed during each shift. "Our store is all about efficiency," Rowland added in the TikTok video. "We need to get the customer cashed out and out of the store as fast as possible, so we have less people having to be up at the register scanning items." Stop trying to hack the grocery store, people! Be normal!