Do you think computers have made the UK less efficient?

I looked the other day. I enquired about a simple legal process which just required the filling in of a one-page form. In the small print on the website it said allow 20 weeks for the application to process.  I'm sure there is some bullshit reason, but no real reason. It could be done in a microsecond.

They are a form of market manipulation. The bastards should make their products better if they want more sales. I tend to boycott firms who use these sales tactics.

There is a minority of the population that actually likes faffing about with their special cards, for rest of us it's just another layer of pointless tedium and delay. Compete on price and quality, not by trapping people in your own artificial currency

You have my sympathy. When my Dad had a heart attack, he had to wait over a year for a quadruple bypass op. In the intervening time he was in and out of hospital like a yo yo. But, he survived thank goodness.

Oh OK. I have never seen one being used at my local Aldi. Though they have installed some of those infernal self service machines.

No idea why but they seem to be used so much more sensibly by customers than at, for example, Tesco. People only use them if they have small amounts of shopping and know what they are doing. Anyone with a big load goes through a manned checkout and are much less deterred by queues than they would be at Tesco. And that seems to be because service is much quicker, with customers encouraged by the very set up - little room for shopping once scanned plus counter provided for shoppers to pack after they have paid, plus super fast scanning  =- encourages those who cant keep up to just bung it back in their trolleys and pack after they have paid. And it works. Also the ultra show customers who think both they and everyone queueing behind them have all the time in the world tend to avoid Aldi and Lidl on principle because they refuse to be rushed. Which actually suits these stores perfectly.

Because Aldi and Lidle have worked out that the faster you serve customers - the more cans of this or that you scan per hour - the more cost effective and cheaper are staffing costs. They have built their business model on this and because staff productivity is so much higher, they can afford both higher pay for staff to attract the best workers and lower prices for customers. So most of the slow ones who believe in taking their time on principle going to their competitors instead and thus slowing down the opposition even more, just makes it even harder for Tesco, etc to compete. Aldi have worked out that time is money and that increased staff productivity pays for both better wages and cheaper prices, so everything is geared for speed at their checkouts. So although they will never admit this and indeed would deny it, they dont actually want the slow ones who find it necessary for endless faffing about. It makes them even more competitive if these slow ones go elsewhere and thereby slow down and add to the costs of the competition.

And a little inside information. Checkout staff have their performance continually monitored, including idle time with no customers, throughput which measures how much is going through your till, waiting time which measures how long you are waiting for customers to pay, and scanning rate which measures how many items you scan per hour. This latter only counts the time from when you scan the first item until you press the total button. And to illustrate the speed differences, Tesco has a scanning rate target for staff of 1100 items per hour. Aldi's scanning rate target for staff is 1600 items per hour. If these targets are being met, Aldi staff are scanning 3 items for every 2 Tesco staff are scanning. And that does not even begin to include the time many customers spend faffing about at Tesco once they have finally packed.

So the Aldi and Lidl business model relies on encouraging customers to get their asses in gear as the price of faster service and cheaper prices, whilst those who cant or wont are deterred by the emphasis on speed, and slow down the competition instead. It is as brutal as that. It works for them. But it is not good for the elderly or infirm which is coming to us all at some point.