Self checkout lanes were created to make shoppers look like idiots in front of grocery store employees. Its true, I have seen it with my own eyes, self checkout is only psychologically faster, because instead of waiting on a single file line for one cashier they make you wait for 4 different cashiers so you think it may be faster. But it never is, mostly because shoppers are idiots.
I rarely go to self checkout, mostly because any smart shopper knows that trying to figure out self checkout with loose veggies or pay per pound items is next to impossible and always requires the person with the key, the manager, the cool dude who can type really fast and magically figure out any problem with a simple code that forces the register open and gives you a couple of rings.
Then you have the people who want paper but self checkout rarely has paper and therefore you must wait. Then you have women who want to write checks, why don’t men ever write checks? Then you have people who scan the item 15 times b efore they realize the barcode is on the top, idiots, I want to scream.
At least in a normal lane you have someone to make you feel like the line will eventually move. In self checkout you have one person for 4 registers. Self checkout really only does one thing, it saves money for the store while not really letting anyone get through faster.
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The worst culprit for self-checkout is the old people because they can never get it. I usually end up helping people in front of me just so I can get to a register… Well, now, I don’t use any stores regularly that have it, but, when I lived in Texas, the Kmart near me had self check.
Why does anyone bother with Checks anymore when going to the store? A debit card works instantly, you can check your balance online (and if that’s not enough, you can still keep a balance book without holding up the line), and few stores don’t accept credit/debit cards (usually the places that take cash only anyhow).
Checks are only good for sending bar mitzvah cash to your nephew.
Hmm, well, I like self checkout, but in the UK, if you are still using a US bank account or credit card, you will have to try and find a place that uses cards without smart chips.. People do not get “swipe cards” in many of the places here with self check-out… Part of the reason I opened up a local account..
I suppose for some sort of community improvement project, my local ACME employs certified (or perhaps nearly certified) mentally challeneged individuals from the local gentile equivalent of Bais Ezra…so the regular and self-check out lanes both move at the same speeds — v’hameivin yavin.
I just hate when they do not let you proceed because you have to put all checked items in the area where it is weighed! Seriously why? THey dont even fit!
Or, chas v’shalom you set down your purse for a second, “unidentified item in bagging area”
SF2K1 Checks are only good for sending bar mitzvah cash to your nephew.
I must tell you that at my nephew’s bar mitzvah, they had his bank account set up and sent you the details so you could just add the money with online banking. No getting away with stiffing him for a $20 there.
I have not had a checquebook in years. I don’t even know if I have ever seen a check since I have been in Australia!!
When I lived for about 7 months in Tennessee, a store there (Food Lion???) had a self-check out line. My daughter and my friend wanted me to go through that line one night. Turns out they just wanted a good laugh.
I was literally cussing out that klafte with every scan. They had double bagged (for my pleasure) all the produce, knowing how much we Jewish mother’s love the ‘free’ plasitic bags. They knew that the stuff would not scan. My purse, as I finally set the 20# thing down, was as Michal says, an unidentified item. As was the leaning arm of my not-so-helpful prankster of a daughter.
A few days later, sans daughter and friend I was tempted to try it myself. Have you ever been at the cashier station and suddenly looked back to see 25 people standing behind you with their “10 items or less” staring at you like they wished they had stopped by the toy aisle and gotten baseball bats? Yea…
I never did it again. Sure, it looks so simple when the cashier is doing it. And is aggravating when they don’t know how to do it well. But they have training. And they have some secret code.
Indeed, these are set up to
1. Save the stores money and
2. Are being videoed and archived for a later showing of Funniest Grocery Store Minutes during a morale boosting staff meeting.
I think these lanes were invented in New Square by rabbanim who wanted to minimize the incidence of male shoppers interacting with female cashiers, chos vesholom.
Sorry Seth, it’s just stores being cheap, if people self check and there’s like one cashier for five lines…
It’s fine for people say 16 to 50 of average intelliegence or better. However, there’s so many people not in that category.
About half, right?
I refuse to use self-checkout. We have perfectly good live checkers who need the job more than some stupid computer.
Plus, the technology is far from successful and is rarely easy to use. What a joke!
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