That is absolutely absurd no one shops at the grocery for a whole months worth of food. Most perishable items like meat and produce will barely survive a whole week. Everyone I know usually goes once or twice a week.
But, I am not sure I buy that this is the reason. I don't even know if the report is accurate. Are we really (on the whole) slower than the average Japanese market? I know we have a culture of 'friendliness' at the check out - lots of 'hi, how is your day going' nattering, and if you have a club card they peer at it, mangle your name, ask if they got it right, insist on you giving the correction, then say 'good day Mr Xybpppphhht.' All that slows things down a bit. But laser scanners are pretty fast, and a lot of cashiers really rip through very quickly.
It also might be regional. Thinking about it I think the grocery clerks where I grew up all went hell-bent, and things seem more laid back here in CA.
It's challenging to make pronouncements about an entire country as large and culturally diverse as the US.
Friendliness is definitely something that people come to expect from retailers. Could that be why Japanese lines are so fast. Maybe since they are only buying a few goods at a time the lines go quicker.
I really don't mean to come off as snobbish, but, what kind of beer is worth drinking that comes in 18 packs? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything but cans of alcoholic water in that configuration.
Pick a few things and maximise those. Presumably the guy buying the 18 pack of beer chose something else.
You're factually correct that it is like premature optimizing code, but it is a hobby for quite a few people to optimize their lives. Others collect money. Some friends do board games. Or sport. (Personally, I spend a lot of time learning about some odd interests.)
I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work - http://mroliveoil.com/page19.htm - how far do you go to get yours?
Lots of things are worth doing - often unavoidably so - but that doesn't mean you need to optimize each and every one of them until they're "right".
No, I don't "optimize" everything, but I do optimize a lot of stuff. If you like beer enough to consume 16 cans a week, then it sounds like something worth optimizing.
In general most things diet related are quite important to leave to chance. And if fun is involved too, then optimizing them can be fun too. You don't have to be OCD about it, just to try different brands and experiment.
>I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work how far do you go to get yours?
Hmm, that's a bad example, as we value olive oil very much in my country, so I even have my own olive trees and produce my oil in cooperation with the village mill. Well, my parents do at the moment, as I live abroad now.
Despite its (unavoidable?) snobbishness, it really was the bare question itself, "what kind of beer that comes in 18 packs is worth drinking?" A few responses actually answered that; "beer that I can, or choose to, afford" was the essence of many of those. Or "because I like it" were some others.
Interesting, and probably not surprising, that most responses addressed the snobbishness behind the question, and that was as valuable to me as the responses that addressed the question.
Cheers!
Plenty of good session beers are coming in 12 packs these days too.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, necessarily, but at least be honest with us (and yourself).
EDIT: What's wrong about it is classism, though. Not everybody can afford premium microbrews.
sometimes I wish I had the gif "stop liking what I don't like" on a hotkey.
But if you're talking about American beer overall, Budweiser is much more common and therefore a better indication of mass-market American culture.