The supermarket has a queue worth timing and a manager who keeps looking at me. What are the rules for standing there with a clipboard?
FieldworkAnswered487 views
Picked the big supermarket on the corner. The line is long enough to be worth something and it has two tills open most of the time.
Second visit the duty manager walked past me three times. I have a clipboard, a stopwatch and no explanation ready, which is my fault.
What is the actual rule here? Am I allowed to stand inside a shop and count people, and does it change if I am on the footpath outside?
Marked as the answer
Public footpath, you can stand anywhere you like. Inside a shop you are there at the manager's discretion, so ask once at the start and you will almost never be asked again. Say you are a student counting how long the line takes and that you are not recording anybody. That sentence has never failed.
Asked on Wednesday. She offered me a chair.
Worth adding that the chair is a trap. Sitting down you lose sight of the back of the line, and the back of the line is where arrivals happen.