Cash Register Aerobics

"Sorry," said Zack. "I can't ring you up on this cash register. The club changed computer systems last week, and we're only allowed to use the cash register we're assigned to."

So even though the cash register Zach was standing next to was unoccupied, he couldn't use it.

Instead, he had to take my money, walk about 75 feet to the far end of the snack bar, ring up my order, walk back to the front of the snack area to  give me my change.

While the extra steps were probably good for Zach's health...adding at least 100 steps per transaction to the recommended goal of 10,000 steps a day, it added a good minute to my transaction.

Which wouldn't have been a bad thing, if there hadn't been five people in front of me in the line. So while Zach was piling on the steps and as the fifth person in line, this new policy meant it took an additional five minutes to get my non-fat medium cappuccino with a half shot of sugar free vanilla.

Since 95 percent of all customers placed their orders on my side of the snack bar, Zach was facing a lot of walking back and forth.

Zach was not a happy camper.

"So, why are you only allowed to use one specific cash register?" I asked.

Zach shrugged his shoulders, "They didn't tell us. It's just a new policy."

I wanted to know why the health club instituted the new computer/cash register policy, so I contacted the club manager. When I explained why I was calling, he very politely told me that he didn't care to discuss the new software, on or off the record.

For the next couple of days, I played the corporate version of Hot Potato. No one, but no one, wanted to talk about the new computer/cash register policy. Judging by their reaction you'd think I was trying to uncover a major corporate scandal. I just wanted to talk to them about their new software.

First, I tried to contact the home office of the health club, based in Denver. Denver said they knew nothing about the new computer system since it's not a corporate-wide change and referred me back to Minneapolis.

The local club spokesperson then assured me that the snack bar in my club is run by an outside organization; thus, the club really has nothing to do with the outside vendor's policies and procedures.

When I pointed out that the staff indicated that the new policy was club-wide, not just at the snack bar, the spokesperson suggested that I talk to the club's general manager. At that point I mentioned that he had already declined my offer to discuss the new computer system.

The Minneapolis spokesperson then offered to call the club manager and find out why he was being tight-lipped. Within 20 minutes she returned my call, saying the manager didn't want to talk to me because he was concerned I was going to make fun of the new policy.

"Well," I said. "He's right. I am laughing about it. Just go to the snack bar and you'll either laugh or cry at the insanity of making those people walk back and forth to ring up a sale."

With or without input from club officials, I can make some fairly safe assumptions about the one computer/cash register per employee policy. If they were having some problems with theft, or they were finding continuous mistakes, having an ability to track an employee's activities would be very helpful.

But, it's like kitchens. When I was growing up, my mom loved to visit new houses. While some people might judge a house by its entryway, windows or family room, my mother judges houses by kitchens. Very few received the Hanna Centor Seal of Approval.

Most of the time, she would leave the kitchen saying, "You can tell the architect was a man." That was code for, "The guy who designed the kitchen never spent much time cooking in the kitchen, or he would have known better."

So it goes with many new policies. If the people who designed the computer program actually spent some time seeing how it would be used, they might have observed there would be a "red flag" during snack bar implementation. They obviously didn't do that.

By the next week the cashiers had figured out a workaround. They were just sharing their employee IDs to use each other cash registers.