In what may be perceived as a continuation of my earlier post about health fanaticism in Sweden, I draw attention to the practice of correct checkout etiquette.
I won't say "Swedes" as I don't know if they all do it, but many Swedes arrange their food in a line. Before I understood why, this practice annoyed me, as in England it's custom to arrange your food tetris-style and take up as little space as possible so the person behind you can also use the checkout. (In fact, many of the things I find very alien here have under-crowding as a root cause - coming from an overcrowded place, I find people here just don't have the same level of consideration for others' time as I am accustomed to.)
Anyway, I digress.
The food is arranged in a line because a study reported that carpal tunnel and repetitive wrist strain injury in checkout workers can be greatly reduced if they don't have to rotate the items to scan them. Therefore kindly Swedes like to turn the food with the barcode already facing the scanner to reduce the workload of the person scanning.
So, while they may be temporarily screwing with the person(s) behind them, most Swedes are considering the long term health of the cashier. I think I can get used to the linear checkout custom knowing this, but I'll have a hard time importing it to London. "Oi mate, get a bloody move on! Why are you putting all them peas in a line?"
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