If you're a regular at Aldi, you'll probably have noticed the intense speed at which the cashiers scan your shopping.
And although it can be difficult to keep up and shove all the items into your trolley or bags in time, it turns out there's a very good reason why the employees do it so fast.
An ex-worker has revealed the purpose of the speedy scanning in a Reddit post, and has explained that jobs can be at risk if not enough items are put through.
The Mirror reports that the former employee explained how each individual store has its own "targets" to meet each day. For this one in particular, their target was a whopping one item scanned per second to safely sit above their store's expected 'transaction rate'.
Cashiers are also apparently timed from the second the first item is scanned, until the customer has paid for their shopping.
To help reduce queues, Aldi urges its customers to pack their shopping at designated points instead of trying to bag it all up at the tills, which creates even more pressure.
The ex-employee said in the Reddit post: "You actually have to hit a percentage of 83 per cent or higher on item per minute scanned.
"They would get upset if you didn't get 95 per cent or above. Some cashiers I worked with would hit 110 per cent."
Employees should also have less than five per cent on 'voids' and must press the 'suspend key' at least once to pause each transaction.
"[The suspend key rate] had to be 100 per cent, but I would get like 150 per cent because I would pause the transaction if the person was putting stuff too slow.
"You had to have less than three seconds when starting a new transaction. If you ever notice, they always put the item to be scanned by the scanner, then unsuspend it. You can get a 0 seconds between customers."
If targets are missed too often, the cashiers would be sent to training classes in order to improve - or in the worst cases, sacked if they didn't get any better.
They added: "That’s why they go so fast. They’re literally being timed.
"83 per cent is what Aldi wants. My store wanted 95 per cent. If you didn’t meet the 83 per cent, you went to a training class. After that they could fire you.
"The way I took it was: 60 seconds in a minute. If I scan 60 items in a minute, that should be 100 per cent.
"After every shift was a paper that had all the totals. And almost every time, 'You hit 91 per cent, but you should have hit 95 per cent'.
"Well sorry that the card machine wouldn’t work unless I un-suspend it so they can use it and then take three minutes putting their pin and whatever else."
In the post's comments, a lot of people were in disbelief at the harsh targets - but some were adamant that the scanning was just too difficult to keep up with.
One customer said: "People with disabilities, and pensioners with health and mobility issues exist.
"There must be some kind of consideration for those customers and dispensation for the staff serving them."
While another shopper added: "I'd rather Aldi added 1p to the cost of everything and allowed their cashiers to operate like human people instead of machines."
In response, another anonymous staff member said: "I've previously been an Aldi cashier, and I understand that I can scan items faster than some people can pack them/put them in their trolley, particularly older people.
"The barcodes are so big that I just need to push items past the scanner in any orientation and it will usually get it.
"By the way, the actual life pro tip for when we are too fast is to simply ask us to slow down. I got asked by some people to slow down, and I was happy to because of course customer service/experience takes precedence over efficiency."
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