Should get a discount or something
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Y'know that grocery stores could simply staff enough checkout registers and then all this self-checkout time-savings goes away, right? The stores - following the airline model - created a problem for the consumer (long checkout lines due to understaffing) and then effectively sold the customer the solution (you do your own labor, but grocery prices stay the same).
Back in the day, I shopped at the one grocery store in a bit of a food desert. They'd have all...I don't remember 10? 12?...checkout lines open all day, and you're still guaranteed to spend half an hour in line. If they could have replaced 2 checkout lines with 6 self-check kiosks, or 4 & 12, it would have helped a lot, but they hadn't been invented yet.
Now, I shop in a better neighborhood where they have 6 kiosks, one staffed checkout, and 8 lanes closed. Start with a technical solution to a real problem, and some MBA is going to come in and figure out how to turn it back into a problem.
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If you feel this way then you should never complain about the length of the lines or the speed with which you get through them.
Maybe if all the cashier lanes are staffed. But if I have a cart full of groceries, the grocery store is full, and there's only two cashiers working (also, gotta bag your own groceries) then I'm considering switching stores at that point.
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You people don't have self scanning? Pick a barcode scanner at the entrance, scan everything when you put it in your bags in the cart, and just pay at the exit and walk out (unless you get a semi-rare random check). One of the favorite features of the store I use is that I fill the shopping list at home in the app (that can be shared with other accounts) and then I see the list in my phone or the store scanner, sorted by the order of sections in the store, so eg. all fruit and vegetables will be next on the list when I get to that section. I also like that you see your total in real time and the scanner reminds you if there's a "3 for 2" or other offers.
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I don’t use self check out because every one is a horrid user experience.
I always like to ask the fervently anti-self-checkout crowd around here whether or not they pump their own gas, and then why self pumping is okay, but self checkout is not okay. (Note, my community is hopelessly car dependent so most everyone around here drives).
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I get that you are technically doing someone's job for free, but you can always collect your "pay" by giving yourself a "discount." Personally, I prefer to scan my avacados as potatoes so I can have my avocado toast every day and be able to save up for a house. I'm almost there, it's only gonna take 30 more years for a down payment!
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"Don't you hate it when you walk into a grocer and they expect you to pick out the items yourself? I don't work here, I just want to say "1 pound of ham and 2 loafs of bread" at the clerk, pay and pick them up. I've been to this new Piggley Wiggly, can't find anything, spent like an hour to find beans. Imagine if I was paid for that time, I would have made 15¢!"
OP in 1925, probably.
That sounds way better! Then they wouldn't keep rearranging the aisles so you shop for longer.
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I honestly don't hate the self checkout, I hate it when they do it poorly.
Oversensitive scales, improperly weighted products, stuff without barcodes, tiny little bagging areas that can only hold two bags. No belt for unloading groceries. Please remove the item from the bagging area, help is on the way. (Help is never on the way)
The grocery store where I used to live had a bunch of regular lanes, You threw your crap on the belt, Scan it over the sensors and send it down to the collection area where you could bag it. It was honestly pleasant.
I went to Target in the evening once, had an entire cart full of groceries. I push it up front there's no cashier's open only the self checkout. I look at the person manning the self-check out and say
Why aren't there are there any registers open?
Sorry just the self checkout.
This is going to be like 8 bags.
Yeah, sorry.
I shrug leave the cart there and start walking out the door.
No, wait: The cashier goes and opens the closest register to the self checkouts
I'm shocked the cashier cared enough to stop you!
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"Don't you hate it when you walk into a grocer and they expect you to pick out the items yourself? I don't work here, I just want to say "1 pound of ham and 2 loafs of bread" at the clerk, pay and pick them up. I've been to this new Piggley Wiggly, can't find anything, spent like an hour to find beans. Imagine if I was paid for that time, I would have made 15¢!"
OP in 1925, probably.
Silly take. The problem isn't having to move my own items around across a scanner. The problem is me doing more, the store doing less, and the prices just keep going up anyways. You'd rather just silently get less?
Oh, and also the ridiculous cameras they stick right in your face pre-accusing me of stealing in the checkout. And having to juggle a whole cart of groceries while the machine asks me to move the item off and on the bagging area.
Maybe if they had implemented the system better I wouldn't mind using it?
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I don’t use self check out because every one is a horrid user experience.
I always like to ask the fervently anti-self-checkout crowd around here whether or not they pump their own gas, and then why self pumping is okay, but self checkout is not okay. (Note, my community is hopelessly car dependent so most everyone around here drives).
I don't think anyone pumps their own gas. I think you put the tube in the hole and a pump does it for you, and a computer counts how much you got. I would hate getting gas if I had to pump it like an old timey water spout.
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Oh yeah, instead I'll get in the line behind Mildred who is paying by check and has to have a 20 minute conversation with the checker because her kids never call anymore. Then after that the employee can slowly scan my items and pack them with cold stuff across all bags and fragile stuff under heavy stuff.
Having worked cashier in a past life, I'll gladly let the employees do better work than dealing with having to scan my shit and do a bad job packing for me.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Then after that the employee can slowly scan my items and pack them with cold stuff across all bags and fragile stuff under heavy stuff.
The key to getting in and out quick is to have them scan it and you bag it. Even if they start bagging it for you, "I got the bags" places things in bags.
Also Aldi, Aldi gets you in and out and they know how to pack a cart so things don't get squished. I believe it's because they actually pay their people and train them to get the line moving.
Edit: Another time-save: you can pay for your groceries by card before they are finished ringing them up.
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I kind of get it. It's one cashier monitoring four checkout stations. Staffing isn't her fault. And if someone comes up to the checkout stations while she is checking me out and has a problem she's now doing another person's job worth of work. She's got to run double duty, and that sucks for her.
What I presented her with was a no win situation. If somebody doesn't check me out they're going to have to put away an entire cart full of groceries and probably waste a fair amount of perishables.
I was by no means happy with them at that point but my time is not worthless either and I had just spent the better part of an hour picking out a grocery order.
That's genius
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Silly take. The problem isn't having to move my own items around across a scanner. The problem is me doing more, the store doing less, and the prices just keep going up anyways. You'd rather just silently get less?
Oh, and also the ridiculous cameras they stick right in your face pre-accusing me of stealing in the checkout. And having to juggle a whole cart of groceries while the machine asks me to move the item off and on the bagging area.
Maybe if they had implemented the system better I wouldn't mind using it?
Try ordering ahead with curbside pickup if you haven't yet and it's an option for you.
If not ... Idk ... You'll be alright. I actually prefer self checkout and to bag my own stuff so do keep in mind people have the literal opposite feelings on this topic too.
Not to say anyone's right or wrong, but I do agree with the post you replied to, I bet so many people were mad they couldn't just make a list and hand it to the clerk. I wonder how many tried at first to give the cashiers or other employees a list to get for them and then were surprised when they said they had to go get it themselves.
Now we've gone full circle with the curbside pick up stuff! I really like it, but sometimes they do bag stuff nonsensically but no big deal.
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what has me upset is that they spent all that time getting rid of cashiers, for self check out… THEN THEY CLOSE 3/4 OF THEM! they will have 2 rows with a person there, for cigarettes and such, then have a single person watching 6 self checkouts. if trader joes/aldi had name brand snacks i would cut out wall-mart wholesale from my routine. the whole shopping experience is terrible, and for some reason wall mart is more expensive and worse quality
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That's genius
I wish it were intended. I was just tired, mad, and disappointed and was not looking forward to going to the grocery store doing it all over again to make a point.
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I hate how self-checkout treats me like a child and speaks and prompts me a zillion times for things I don't want. How many bags do you want to buy? None, because I have mine like 90% of people, geez. How about a donation? Unexpected item in bagging area. TAKE YOUR RECEIPT. Nooooo
And it even SPEAKS. LOUDLY. It burns through ALL my patience within seconds.
If it just let me scan my stuff having me tap on a touchscreen, and then just let me stay the payment machine in a single touch, and it were silent ... I might tolerate it. Otherwise, get back, demon.
I am a divine being, you are an object. You have no right to speak in my holy tongue.
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The time saved is my payment.
This point seems to get missed on all these "I don't work here" arguments. Yeah, I don't work here, so I'd like to be in and out quickly so I can spend my precious free time for things I actually like to do. If "time is money" anyway, then what's the difference? I'd rather scan my own things, skip the chitchat, and reclaim the personal time I would've spent waiting.
I'm split on this. On the one hand if they didn't have self checkout, they'd need more checkout people. On the other hand, before self checkout they didn't really give a fuck if you had to wait in line (especially Walmart holy shit that was one of the biggest reasons I never went there, the fucking checkout line).
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It's a bullshit job though. Do you refuse to use elevators because they no longer have attendants? Having worked on a checkout at one time, it was always depressing. Plus there were other tasks that could be done and most people you deal with are awful.
People making the same old quips also make the job that little bit more unbearable - "must be free", urgh. Seriously you are not gods gift to comedy with these jokes, workers hear them 100 times every day and it is like some kind of compounding psychological damage each time.
I wish there were more bullshit jobs because I have no job.
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You people don't have self scanning? Pick a barcode scanner at the entrance, scan everything when you put it in your bags in the cart, and just pay at the exit and walk out (unless you get a semi-rare random check). One of the favorite features of the store I use is that I fill the shopping list at home in the app (that can be shared with other accounts) and then I see the list in my phone or the store scanner, sorted by the order of sections in the store, so eg. all fruit and vegetables will be next on the list when I get to that section. I also like that you see your total in real time and the scanner reminds you if there's a "3 for 2" or other offers.
They used to have that at a few grocery stores by me but don't any more. That was fuckin awesome, just used an app on my phone.
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I get that you are technically doing someone's job for free, but you can always collect your "pay" by giving yourself a "discount." Personally, I prefer to scan my avacados as potatoes so I can have my avocado toast every day and be able to save up for a house. I'm almost there, it's only gonna take 30 more years for a down payment!
️wrote last edited by [email protected]If im too exhausted to steal competently, ill just wait in front of a checkout line.
It's also kind of a labor issue.
