The crazy reason ALDI checkouts are so stressful

We’ve all been there: you’re at the checkout in ALDI, prepping your bags for the inevitable stream of groceries that are about to come flying in your direction from the cashier.

And if you’re not quick enough to keep up with the pace, you’ll end up just flinging some of the items back into the trolley so you can bag them when you get out to your car.

While you might be willing the cashier to go slower in your head, it turns out that they aren’t just trying to peak your anxiety levels, but according to a Quora user, who claims to be an ALDI employee, they’re actually being timed.

The woman, who goes by the username ‘Wattpad Author’ on Quora, said she’s been at an American branch of the shop for the past two months and mostly works part-time on weekends.

This means that she’s ‘almost always the primary or backup cashier because so much foot traffic is going on in the store’.

“And let me tell you; everything you do at the register is timed,” she said.

According to ‘Wattpad Author’ ALDI only wants two seconds between transactions.

“They’ll let you get away with three seconds at the store I work for but if you hit four seconds, you are failing the standards,” she said.

They expect this because apparently there are multiple barcodes on items, meaning they can be scanned from any angle.

According to the Quora user, ALDI expect ‘the cashier be able to ring 1,200 items per hour.’

“If you can be faster, they’ll push you for it. For my part, being that I’m a part-timer, I’ve managed to ring only 1,000 items per hour,” she said.

“So if it seems like the employees are rushing, trust me, they are. But it’s literally not their fault.”

The Quora user isn’t the only employee to speak about the stressful checkout situation in ALDI.

One person took to Reddit to claim ‘every single thing’ cashiers do is timed.

“We are also timed on how many seconds it takes us to get you to pay whether it be cash or card,” the person, who goes by the name ‘kakp92′ said.

“We’re also timed on seconds between customers, which is how fast we start scanning the next person’s items.

“The reason this was so frustrating to me is because old people for some reason are allergic to coins.

“They have to pay exact or dig for the pennies so they don’t get any back and it counts against an Aldi cashiers tender time.”

Former ALDI employees have also taken to Glassdoor, where businesses are rated on management and overall working conditions.

“Stressful working conditions, hard on your body, ” one person said.

Interestingly, ALDI is also widely praised on all the above forums for paying their employees well.

ALDI Australia told Yahoo Lifestyle they encourage staff to review and adjust their scan speed based on how quickly or slowly each customer packs their shopping.

Got a story tip? Send it to lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com

Want more lifestyle and celebrity news? Follow Yahoo Lifestyle on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Or sign up to our daily newsletter here.