Items per minute

You know how people joke about the cashiers going super fast cause they need to beat a time or something? Yeah, that's not a joke, it's our job. My store wants us to have at least 27 items per minute. Sounds easy but it could be quite difficult actually. You see you have your you yapping customers, you need to remember the produce scales and make sure it weighs, and you need to have the best customer service without squishing items, all while going 100 mph. I will never truly understand that concept as to why we need to go so fast. Any little thing will slow us down, and a lot of the times it really isn't us. "wait I forgot something" or 'can you get me the coupon I didn't feel like getting?" Little things like that make  a huge difference and we end up in trouble. We aren't curong cancer or anything, so I don't see what the rush is but it needs to get done!