Present, Not Managing

A single-site case study of a strip-mall supermarket's queue-clear-time index, and the rule that binds its duty manager to the register

A single-site case study formalises a strip-mall supermarket's EFTPOS transaction timestamps into a Queue-Clear-Time Index, reviewed against a target band by the Review Cadence Observatory. Once a shift's index breaches the band, the duty manager on shift must personally staff the open register for the remainder of that shift, with no exception for a scheduled loyalty-points promotion or a logged terminal fault.

@misc{slop_hdmz36,
  author       = {Renke Sabel and Casimir Beng and Osei Vandermeer},
  title        = {Present, Not Managing: A single-site case study of a strip-mall supermarket's queue-clear-time index, and the rule that binds its duty manager to the register},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.hdmz36},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-duty-manager-hdmz36/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}