To distinguish it from taut which is pronounced the exact same way. :)

I won’t end up single-bagging a bunch of stuff that could be bagged together (e.g. if they scanned some window cleaner, they bag it separate, not knowing that some dishwasher detergent is coming that it could be packed with).

Not that it is foolproof but unloading your cart in an organized manner helps with that. Though maybe you’re talking about helpless baggers, I’ve seen plenty of both clueless baggers and customers who toss things onto the belt willy-nilly.

use AI cameras that lock up after every third item and require an override each time

As a customer than once I’ve had those cameras trigger because I leaned in a bit too much to press a prompt on the touch screen and it flagged my head as some item I’m trying to fake scan. As an employee it is also fun to watch the cameras trigger on purses and children and grind things to a halt so it can warn me that someone’s kid hasn’t been scanned. Though my absolutely ‘favorite’ interaction with those cameras as an employee is having them trigger over me attempting to sign in using my name badge on the scanner. So it would interrupt my attempt to sign in to do something for the customer to make me sign in and reassure it I wasn’t trying to steal something and then I had to sign in again to actually help the customer.

Are cashiers in the United States of America really required to initiate meaningless conversations? I’ve also heard of the occupation of a door greater, which sounds even crazier.

The corporate ideal has their weird idea that everyone desperately wants to have conversations with employees. I think it comes from positive feedback often taking the form of, “Your employee was so warm and helpful and we had a delightful chat about X.” and never, “Your employee was polite and didn’t bother me with needless conversation.” One of the trainings my employer has even includes a scenario, which is presented as ideal service, where the employee ends up chatting with a complete stranger about his dead wife including sharing pictures from his wallet.

That said, while I’m sure corporate cares none of my in store managers cared when I was a cashier. Indeed, I had regulars who would seek me out because I specifically didn’t attempt to inject small talk into the interaction. I’d still get pulled into it by customers who initiated such but otherwise it was mostly, “Morning. Coupons? That’ll be $X.XX. Have a good one.”

3 inches is around 7.6 cm and a foot is around 30 cm.

It is a common phenomenon that many things apparently inhibit pathogens in culture but are ineffective or harmful in an intact organism.

It brings to mind this XKCD.

A number of places serve instant grits which are just horrendous. If that was one’s first experience I could see how it is a turn off. Sometimes it is from places you don’t expect. I remember ordering cheese grits as a side at one BBQ joint in North Carolina and they were instant grits with a pinch of shredded cheese dropped on top.

Pecan pie. Easily my favorite American dessert.

I love a well done pecan pie but I find myself avoiding it because you never know when some Karo jelly with a few pecans thrown on top horror is going to be what is served you.

I found Malort to be not all that bad. Not something I’d choose as my liquor of choice but not the concentrated hell I expected from descriptions and reactions.

I bought a small (20 g) jar at an international store on a whim. I followed the advice I’d seen of lots of butter and just a tiny bit of Vegemite and I have to say it was pretty tasty. I then had the intrusive to really slather it on (comparatively) and… yeah, if that had been my first experience I’d be convinced it was the most vile substance known to man.