We can't feasibly stop automation, nor should we. We SHOULD be taking the profits back from billionaires that they've stolen since time immemorial. Automation means less work overall. But we need to ensure the workers actually benefit from that.
Self checkout is not automation. It's making the customer do the work.
Automation would be: Stick an RFID-tag to all your items, make me check in with my phone at the entrance. Automatically "scan" all the items when my cart and my phone leave the store at the same time. Bill me.
As the customer you're already taking stuff out of your cart and putting it on the counter. Maybe automation isn't the right word, but it's certainly more efficient than having a human clerk. It removes a bottleneck.
But it’s not a bottleneck. It’s the opposite. An experienced human checker will tap in the code for oranges way before you find it in their stupid menu.
It is a bottleneck, because the experienced human checker is only entering orange codes for one person at a time. There could be ten people all checking themselves out simultaneously. Even if one or two get slowed down by a menu, it's still a net decrease in average time spent at checkout.
Those Amazon just walk out stores like you’re describing are extremely expensive to setup though. Even a spall space requires tons of cameras and sensors, all items to be placed on shelves a certain way, lots of networking backend, etc. Most business are unable to do so right now and I’d say most buildings can’t accommodate it. My work looked into putting one of those in one of our spaces as a test and the cost/work to make it happen in even a small area of our business wasn’t worth it
I think in terms is control, more people feel as though they can stop/protest automation more than they can take profits back. I think that was the luddite mentality? I speculate, it's been a while since i learned it in school.
The 'job killers' argument is kinda bullshit. I want to kill jobs - I want to eliminate all labor that can be automated, such that in the ideal perfect future, no human ever has to work; they can spend every moment doing things they enjoy without worry.
But self checkout is not automation. No human work has been eliminated. It is the same exact fucking checkout process, only now the customer does it instead, and the store doesn't pay the cashier. And no they don't pass that savings on to you because of course they don't, they just pocket the difference.
That's all true, but just to be a bit nitpicky I'd argue some human work has indeed been eliminated by self checkout.
Cashiers main job is to scan your stuff, but in order to do that they also have to stand around waiting for you and other customers for hours on end, and when you arrive they have to do emotional labor of acting cheerful and upbeat
Still I wish we didn't live in a society where increased efficiency leads to people being homeless with no jobs.
There's at the very least a lot of social and managerial pressure to act cheerful. Even if you didn't do it, many people would because it's effectively required of them. Something being technically a choice doesn't remove the social pressures that make many feel that it's not a choice. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if it's been used as rationale to fire people before, which means that for some, it isn't a choice (and most people are scared of losing their jobs, so won't try to find out).
In tipped roles, it would definitely result in less pay.
I can't think of the last time someone working a register was anything more than polite. 99.9% of the time, we don't speak in any meaningful way. Their work neither adds value to nor takes value from my day. Which, to be clear, makes me want their jobs to be much, much better. At least give them something to sit on, for goodness sake.
With normal checkout the customer is still the one putting groceries on the belt, and in most cases putting the bags back into the cart. Hell, at Aldi's you have to bag the shit yourself anyways.
I don't see how "scan and bag" is any more intensive than "place everything on belt(which is annoying tetris when you have lots of shit), stand around waiting for cashier to scan and bag".
Aldi backs up that tradeoff with commensurately lower prices, though.
"intensive" isn't the right term here, IMO. Pushing me to do the cashier work via self-checkout is more effort than what I do at Aldi. It doesn't need to be "carry this pallet across the Grand Canyon" to be objectionable.
And the cashier is probably going to screw up the bagging. Does the ice cream go in the insulated re-usable bag, or does it go in a regular bag next to the room temperature canned goods? Pretty good chance it goes into the uninsulated bag, the tomatoes end up in the insulated bag with the milk, etc.
I love your spirit, but that world doesn't exist. Capitalists and conservatives will never allow for a utopian society where people can enjoy their lives on the masses, no matter how advanced production or whatever elses automation becomes. It's always going to be millions suffering and a small majority having more wealth and power than they can even use in a lifetime.
We need to legislate the benefit of automation for society.
Trying to bury the technology never works if it is indeed an improvement. Technology is benign, people twist it for malice.
This is the same argument as still using oil based street lamps, just to maintain a the lamplighting jobs that don't need to be done anymore.
It's a Bizaare hill to die on to fight to maintain jobs a robot can do faster and better, rather than fighting to make society the beneficiary of such advances through taxation. Either way, you have to fight the billionaires and will probably lose, so why not fight for a better outcome than maintaining shitty, menial jobs?
This isn't automation though. The self checkout tech is the same tech that a cashier uses. It's not automated. A human still does the work, they just don't get paid for it.
I mean, technically the self-checkout package has automation in it, a scale and cameras to "automate" the process of ensuring what was scanned was what was bagged, a process by which the station determines when employee intervention is necessary, etc. Automation tech is in there, things a person used to do are being done by technology, but again it wasn't created to improve the way it was done before, merely to make the owner more money.
The registers with cashiers also have scales and cameras and systems that are built in to determine when a CSM is required for things like overrides. The tech is not appreciably different. It's not automation.
Our self checkouts completely abandoned the stupid scales except when needed for fruit and such. Enforcing the packing with scales makes for a fucking horrible experience.
I haven't seen any cameras though.
Personally I like that they are more space efficient and time efficient.
Here it is also common to carry around a hand scanner in the store and just pay by docking the scanner without having to pack up anything. It's way quicker.
Seriously, fuck the scales. The grocery store near me recently shut theirs off. I found the manager and thanked him. That thing annoyed the piss out of me.
Here it is also common to carry around a hand scanner in the store and just pay by docking the scanner without having to pack up anything. It's way quicker.
I don’t have that here but I do have a regional grocery chain that allows you to use your phone as the scanner as you shop, then you just go to a terminal at the end of your trip and scan a QR code to finalize. I love it.
Past advancements in medicine has destroyed a lot of jobs... in funeral business. Some jobs should be let go of, if it makes everyone's lives easier ultimately
Lamp lighters, cotton pickers, wooden teeth makers, wool socks knitters, muck rakers, medical leech farmers... the list of jobs and entire industries destroyed in the name of "progress" goes on and on. We're going to be totally out of jobs any day now!
Well, we are trying to find even more banal jobs to fill in the blanks. Who out there thought influencer would be a job some day?
With UBI, people would be more inclined to pursue their own interests. They would have more time to set up that little shop selling handcrafted items. There would be more variation and competition. Even more niche products could be created and sold, because there is no fear they will ever go bankrupt.
I remembered Mr Omar from Everybody Hates Chris trying to get the mayor that wouldn't care for safety elected so his funeral business gets more, well, dead people.
I would love a "robotax" where automation is encouraged, but with the caveat that it is also heavily taxed. Not so much that it's cheaper to have employees, but enough so that the people who's jobs have been replaced can still get an income. Be it through major subsidies or the ultimate subsidy: universal basic income
Your instinct to use a systemic solution is good. My concern would be the tax gives corporations the wrong incentive (Some percentage of jobs could be automated but would still be cheaper to hire people). As another approach I like worker cooperatives because if they automate some task the financial benefit goes to the employees. The problem is there aren't enough large scale worker co-ops, so I'd like to see them get tax advantages, preference on government contracts, grants, etc to drive their development.
I think the idea is the tax applies only to any money saved through automation. So if an employee costs $2500/mo and automation costs $500/mo, the company saves $2000/mo. Lets say the tax is 75%, the government takes $1500/mo from the company, but the company is still saving an extra $500/mo from automating, so they are still incentivized to do so.
Then that money from the tax could be used to pay for things like job retraining courses for people displaced by automation, or even maybe UBI.
Tbf, shouldn't we be doing both? Legislation is slow and in the meantime, people need to be paid. Honestly, to me, this doesn't feel that dissimilar to the argument around tipping. Yes, we absolutely SHOULD be paying waitstaff a living wage so tipping isn't needed but in the meantime, you should still tip your server.
Tbf the owners will get 100% of what they want because this country was bought decades ago. I was talking decent world. This will be inflicted on us, and used purely to further satiate the greed of the owners whether we protest for it not to be used and/or to be taxed.
I was just saying it would be stupid to put half our effort into both when one has a much better today outcome in a decent country. But in practical terms? The people are brainwashed, the owners hold all the cards, and this will be used to fuck us all, because the people gave up their voice in the 80s in exchange for the lie that giving the owners everything would benefit everyone. Now we're trapped in this workcamp of a country until collapse, likely long after everyone alive today is dead, because anyone who lives here paying attention knows the peasants are too chickenshit and/or brainwashed to revolt.
Heh. I know that idiot, at least one of them. Personally. At least for some of the major retailers that are making the switch who have very small bagging areas.
It's not his fault, it really isn't.
He got a list of requirements. Table is so big, scale is so big, computer is so big, and so many checkouts in so much area.
Every component has a minimum size requirement, and when the client isn't willing to bend on how many check outs must fit, the only other option is to shrink the one thing that can, and that's the bagging area.
Then they pile a bunch of shit in the bagging area, they have these giant caddies to hold thousands of bags, and they put three of them up there.
My understanding is that it's about loss prevention.
They think that self checkout is a high risk for shoplifting, so they want it to be a manageable amount. They need confidence in their security monitoring strategy before they go all in.
After a long trial here including employees monitoring and AI monitored video, the store near me now has maybe 30 self checkouts, with 10 having nice big bagging areas. I never have to wait in line anymore.
"job killer" automation in a reasonable society should mean less need for work and the same amount of resources available (if not more).
But we will never reach the point where we consider picnics, parties and painting more valuable than manipulative marketing, unnecessary polluting but profitable industry, and especially the all-important busywork. Do something profitable. Anything profitable. It doesn't even matter if it's a net negative to society, just do something.
Thankfully, Walmart stopped weighing items entirely. Not sure how it affects theft, but it sure makes the checkout process smoother. Don't need to wait after scanning each item. Don't need take reusable bags out of your cart. And they replaced almost all of their checkout lanes with self checkouts.
Too bad Walmart is evil, because their checkout is 👌 and Sam's scan-and-go is just 💦. Every other store is just bad UX.
These detect extra things you didn't scan. I had to have an employee come check my items because I was using a cardboard flat to hold the canned goods I was buying. It locked up as soon as I moved the cardboard to the bagging area.
If self checkout is optional, yes it's great for small order quick shops. However too many stores are moving to 100% self checkout with just a single lane or two for full service and that's when it becomes a problem.
Grandma's got a cart full of clothes, no computer experience, and all day to scan and fold each item one at a time...
Lol, you're right. I was thinking how the single lane is usually the service desk, where they are also dealing with returns, online orders, customer issues, etc, I hardly consider it a dedicated lane experience. It becomes clear the intention is 100% self checkout while that lane is for exceptions.
Plus there are some items that are genuinely easier to deal with with an actual human, like anything really light or anything with purchasing age restrictions. If you try and go through a self check with a birthday card and a box of cold medicine it's pretty much a guaranteed bad time.
Nah, self checkout is WAY faster when there's no line, but self checkout waiting behind a line of those goobers would be WAY slower. One time I scanned, bagged, paid, and loaded up an entire cart of groceries in the time it took the dude next to me to scan like a handful of items.
I think that a lot of people here are confusing "introversion" with having social anxiety.
Being an introvert doesn't mean that you're scared of socialization. It means you generally prefer quiet time over socializing.
From Merriam Webster:
A person whose personality is characterized by introversion : a typically reserved or quiet person who tends to be introspective and enjoys spending time alone.
You can be both, but they are definitely not the same thing.
I'm an introvert and I prefer self-checkout because I never have to pause my podcast. With regular check-out I have to pause it for a few minutes while they're scanning my stuff in case they have a question like "do you need bags? do you have a loyalty card?" Other people might enjoy those interactions, or might want to make small-talk with the cashier. I just want to keep listening to the podcast.
I'm willing to do a bit more work and spend a bit more time if I don't have to stand there being attentive to the cashier.
I'm with you man. I love just listening to music while I scan my items and going away. Entire shopping process without interacting with anyone at all. Amazing.
Exactly. Cashiers are perfectly nice people, but I don't really look forward to interacting with them. It doesn't improve my shopping experience in any way. OTOH I really enjoy my podcasts or music, let me stay in my bubble enjoying my thing and my shopping experience is better.
This is a reason I used to admire Japan, before the days of self-check out. Japan had amazing vending machines that would sell you a huge variety of things. Again, get what you want without having to interact with other people. Win!
Most of the cashiers I interacted with years ago weren't really nice. Not that I blame them, the job is boring, the hours are terrible and some people are horrible to serve. As someone who worked in retail and finished every single shift tired and cranky, I get why cashiers don't want to interact with you anymore than you do want to interact with them.
I would like self-checkout a lot more if those cost savings were passed on to the consumer instead of being hoarded by ownership.
It's the classic paradox. Technology and automation could be used to reduce the amount everyone needs to work and enrich everyone's lives as long as those gains are distributed properly. The distribution is the problem.
no one wants to be a checkout clerk at walmart for $6 an hour. This is a good thing. The problem is that the people displaced aren't taken care of. We should be pushing for ubi instead
If I try scanning something 5 times and it doesn't register, I'm moving onto the next item. It's a discount for not teaching me how to use the machine properly.
Grocery stores used to get your items off the shelf for you but now we do that. I think we're just used to a cashier scanning the items, so it will obviously take time for people to adjust.
I dunno about this one, like what kind of a discount would apply here? How big?
I think in a vacuum a self checkout saves a buck or two per purchase for the store. But that is in a vacuum, you still have a cashier assisting the checkout, maintenance for scanners, probably security watching the scanners etc. I don’t doubt it saves cash, but like probably cents per purchase.
Eh, you have one cashier watching like 7 checkouts. Security would be a thing regardless, because they'd otherwise be watching to make sure nobody walks out with an item or steals from the register.
I'm not really convinced they do a lot of maintenance on those things, for how well they function, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that's the machine at its best.
Wouldn't know how much they really cost per machine in order to account for that, either, but the Walmart near me only ever has one person watching the self-checkout, doesn't even always have anyone on an available lane, and they've had those things forever.
That one, at least, didn't buy more tech for covid. They just fired some people and redirected the customers. They're saving more than enough in wages.
The fact that, from experience, my average customers per hour divided by pay (and thus, the rightful customer discount for doing my job) still adds up to a matter of cents probably says more about how much I was being paid.
I wonder, what was your average customers/h assuming non-stop traffic? I don't remember how fast it went, I was doing shelves and warehouse, subbed in register only a few times when work was basically done in the evening.
Gotta say tho, can't imagine why someone would go cashier in a supper market, it is the most brutal place for sure. Working shelves and warehouse was pretty chill all things considered, at least we could go pee and have smoke breaks, as well as eat on our own schedule.
Exactly. With with self checkout, customer throughput is increased because if you have 2 cashiers and 20 customers, you're being limited by the 2 people doing all the work while everyone else waits. If you have 6 self checkout instead, average wait time is 1/3.
For a few items, sure. But even I, a rabid introvert, will seek out a cashier for my weekly shopping. To say hello and goodbye. You all forget to be human beings. Stop making being InTrOvErT yet another singular form of personal identity.
I'm so tired of people with social anxiety always trying to appropriate introversion. Introverts don't have that kind of phobia of personal interaction.
My wife likes to put it in random languages. Real good fun until there was some sort of error and we had no idea what was going on and it didn't allow us to change the language. Even the cashier was puzzled. I had a nice "I told you so" moment there.
As not just an introvert, but an introvert who had to deal with a language barrier for a long time, I don't love going through the normal checkout, but I actively dread the idea of having the support person come over because the balance can't read my tomatoes or whatever.
I'd say online ordering works around both, social anxiety-wise, but then you have to live in fear of when they inevitably call you to say that they don't have this particular type of banana and maybe you'd like some identical type of banana but we definitely need to have a conversation about it first.
Not that that saying never had the last four letters of DARVO written all over it to begin with, mind, but I'm so used to seeing it in the context of discrediting trauma that I had to stare at it for several minutes to realize it meant, "If the machine constantly fucks up, maybe you're just too stupid for touchscreens."
Not gonna lie, my time in customer service has notably damaged my impression of people. But really, my dude? The contribution is a more insulting version of "works fine for me?"
I don't have a problem with self checkout. It has its place. If you're just grabbing an item or two, and want to get out quick and not wait in line, or if you are buying something that you may find personally embarrassing, or any of a number of other reasons.
Cashiers also have their place, for when you have larger checkouts and what have you.
What pisses me off is they are firing cashiers, and replacing them with more self checkouts.. So you have to take your big monthly load of groceries through self checkout, cause theres no cashier, or worse.. one overworked cashier with a huge line.
And its all to have less jobs, less pay checks, and more profits for the C-Suits.
And lets not even get into the fact that its easy for a screw up to happen then some overzealous dickwad comes screaming calling you a thief, and gets you tresspasssed because either you accidentally mis-scanned something or because they THINK you mis-scanned something and thanks to their stupidity you can no longer shop at your local, convenient store.
I've always been fine with it. It doesn't feel like I'm forced to do someone else's job to me because they can be convenient if you have a small order, and it reduces lines. That said, I'd much rather see people employed and sometimes I like the personal interaction.
Same, self checkout is just 9 times out of 10 the most convenient option for people who don't buy a cart full of stuff.
It's not like stores are hiring people just to man the registers either.. They hire X amount of people and if they need to open another register that's someone who has to stop doing something else in the store, so self-checkout just lets them always have a bunch of registers open with only one employee overseeing them all and helping people out.
At least this is how it works in sweden, maybe in the US stores do it differently since they seem to have great difficulty making something as basic as scanning a barcode work.
In my experience with the US the strategy is to minimize cashiers, ideally have one person running a full service lane and managing the self checkouts between their customer line. Oh and they can handle returns and exchanges too. And online order pickup. Oh and also "frontline" customer complaints. $10 an hour should cover this.
The stocking crew is separate and it's a 50/50 chance if they're trained on registers.
Edit: this obviously depends on the store and staff size, but this seems to be the procedure for most big box retailers.
From what I’ve seen in stores and job applications, the checkout clerks do have a separate job position, but if needed other people will stop what they’re doing and help.
Most IT systems work as expected here, except sometimes it misses discounts even from their stupid apps (“digital coupons”) and mysteriously some stores like Walmart, who should be technologically flawless, end up charging more at the register than was listed in the aisles.
Self checkout for heavy items is usually even easier than normal checkout. With normal checkout, I'm expected to lift the stuff and put it on the belt. With self checkout, I can grab the scanner gun and pew pew them while still in my cart.
Many stores where I live don't offer a scanner gun to customers, only like a small amount of big stores offer it. In self-checkout, we have to move the barcodes over a scanner to get them scanned.
Are your arms made of toothpicks or something? That seems like the most negligible problem to have ever. If you said bags of chips then yeah, because those fuckers are always all crinkled up at the barcode and impossible to scan and I can't be bothered to try to unfold them and get it just right
Everywhere near me has the anti-theft devices turned up on self checkouts to the point that traditional checkouts are both faster and require less human interaction.
As a weekly shopper who only gets 20-30 items at a time, self checkout is better. The cashiers tend to have customers with 100+ items and I usually have to wait 5-10 minutes. At the self checkout, I'm done and out the door in 3.
My elderly parents don't do so well with self checkout, its definitely not for everyone. I will use them if I have a few items but they are really finnicky at least the ones my local grocery store has. I wish there was an option to mute them so I don't have to hear 'PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG, PLEASE SCAN ITEM, PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG' on loop. also an 'I know how to bag things please fuck off' button
I used to be against these, but when it became clear that jobs were not actually being cut to accommodate these things, I slowly caved that said there's a register open I'm going to use it instead of self service
Because as boomer as it sounds... "I don't work here."
My parents (who are 70 and 71) have their mindset too. I disagree with that "I don't work here" argument - who said scanning items HAS to be something that only a cashier does? Why is it considered work compared to something like choosing and weighing vegetables, which is something no one ever expects a worker to do for them nowadays?
For me, the merit of those self checkout stations is that you can do this easy thing (scanning items) yourself. I don't need someone to scan items for me. It was the only thing that I still wasn't allowed to do by myself, and I'm glad it eliminated having to interact with cashiers. All I need the place to do is stock up items and make sure the place is clean.
Self-checkout is the best thing to happen in recent history, imo.
It's super annoying to need to queue at the counter and talk to the staff. It's not that I have social anxiety and can't talk to them. I just don't want to. I rather use a machine and get my shopping done. I'm there to get stuff, not to talk to people.
I don't mind if the entire store converts to self-checkout save for 1 or 2 counters for those who are unable to use the machine for the time being. Eventually, it should all be converted to self-checkout.
Why? Do you also want to be paid for taking products off the shelves or choosing the good vegetables?
This is just how the place works and you are not entitled to anything just because it does things a certain way. You can keep going to the regular cashier lane if you don't like "doing work for the company".
Now that you mention it, yes. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
The self-service registers are new and we should consider how they are used now. I do go to the regular cashier lane. I'd be happy to ring myself out for the cost of doing so.
If you're actually in Tokyo - tbh this isn't anything new most other places, I've been using self-checkouts for like 15 years, and I don't really see much of a reason to have someone do a job that isn't really necessary and just makes me feel awkward, standing there while someone basically does a robot job. But honestly in Japan it makes a ton of sense to try to introduce self checkouts. Part-time staff are incredibly overworked, there's much fewer part-time workers available compared to demand, and most people who have worked a part-time job in Japan can attest that it's incredibly easy to find a job that doesn't pay very much and isn't very fulfilling. It's quite a different situation from full-time jobs, which are incredibly hard to find and still overwork you doing meaningless work.
Is it just that as a paying customer, you don't feel that you should any of your own effort to that service? Because if so, that's practically impossible, and maybe not even desirable. The best kind of working environment is one in which workers, customers, and employers all empathize with each other and do their best to make things easier. And as an example of something that customers are sometimes expected to do, there are a lot of cheap self-service restaurants in Japan like soba shops and such where you bring the tray to your table on your own and then clean up after yourself and bring it back to the tray return area. This isn't common in all parts of the world, and someone who isn't used to it might protest and say that they're paying the wages of the people who work there, so why should they have to serve themselves? But it's just part of the system there and it cuts down on the workload - you would be rude to not respect that.
If you think businesses are just pocketing the difference and it's leading to greater profits, the only real way to address that is to either encourage greater competition and for example break up monopolies, or implement price controls. But it doesn't make sense to employ people to do something when labour can be used more efficiently on something else.
The only place I've ever seen this in Canada is at some private liquor stores. They have a tip prompt. I guess in theory someone could help you to decide what you want and make recommendations, but in practice how much does that happen and how much is it really worth? I think it feels like just shaming your customers for not paying your own employees' wages, tbh.
Theoretically, the money the supermarket saves not having to hire cashiers will be passed on to the consumer through lower prices. In practice though...
As an introvert I'd rather not use self checkouts. The possibility that something will go wrong and I'll have to call someone over and explain it and have them fix it is much higher than letting someone qualified scan and bag my shit while I stand there silently waiting to pay as both the cashier and myself refuse to talk or make eye contact.
Plus I worked at a walmart for a year as right as they rolled out their mostly self checkout system. So many people lost jobs and the store lost so much money to shrinkage (theft). It's the dumbest fucking thing. Makes perfect sense to have a few for people with only a handful of items but the vast majority should be cashiers.
This meme was brought to us by big self checkout and makes no sense at all IMO.
agreed. Plus the arrangement surrounds you with people whereas each checkout has its nice little safty walls and people are only in front and behind you but not to the sides. That being said I will use self checkout if I have 3 or less easily scannable things.
Honestly it's among the main reasons I switched grocery stores from Dillons (Kroger owned) to Aldi. Over the last three years Dillons has added more self checkout lanes, routinely staffed the bare minimum human checkout lanes, and regularly has looooong lines to checkout at peak hour. Going to Aldi I tend to save both money and time; their cashiers scan shit so damn fast.
I love self-checkout. I'm introverted and the last thing I have energy for when doing grocery shopping after work is holding another conversation. Self checkout allows me to check out at my own speed and without having to talk to anyone. It's a blessing.
I do get why people dislike it, so I think we should have both ways of checking out.
Introvert, but I've purposely stopped using self-checkouts, even if it means longer wait times and having to actually interact with people. In addition to taking jobs away from people, there's no other benefit that's being given to me, the consumer, for using it. It's not like you get a special discount on your purchase for using the self-checkout, it's purely a cost-savings on the store's end. It's also insulting to see rows and rows of checkout lines only staffed by a single person, no matter the time of day. I'll just keep using the people-checkout lanes, just to drive up demand.
Different take, but as a former cashier I greatly enjoyed the self checkouts being a thing, because it frees me up to do other tasks and prevents situations where "YoU nEed tO AlWAyS Be at tHE rEgiStER, WhAT if a CuStOMer cOmEs??!"
Like, I will walk up to the register dale, I can see it from the aisles you make me also take care of and I don't want to stay late tonight
Grocery stores where I recently lived (Denver) don’t even stop people walking out with entire carts of groceries. It’s corporate policy not to because the risk of injury to employees or the shoplifter outweighs the cost of the lost merchandise.
I prefer the stores that let you scan your items on your smartphone and just pay via it or at least go through a fast lane where you just tally it up at the self checkout and go. Especially if they have convoluted coupons or bonuses that o can track as I go.
Thankfully it seems both cashiers and baggers are better trained than they used to be at least at the larger chains. I don't have either of these issues at supermarkets.
That doesn't mean they won't be lazy or lack hustle though.
Sometimes I catch incorrect prices or the cashier keying in the wrong vegetable at checkout, but you can also read your receipt later and ask for a refund. I’ve never had a grocery store quibble when I said I was mischarged or an item was bad.
Cashiers in Europe are well trained and probably love it. Because we don't offload those jobs to students trying to make a quick buck. Here it can be seen as a proper career which you can do your whole life if you want.
But that is maybe because we don't have as many arrogant fuckers who think service jobs are bottom tier and the people working them shouldn't even be seen as human.
wait employees bagging your items is a real thing in the US? why? what's this american obsession with having shittily paid people do everything for them?
I like it when I'm going for two or three items I forgot or when buying some lunch for work and don't have enough time, but for usual, big grocery shopping... Nope.
The ones at Costco seem pretty serious. They want to count the total items sold and how many you have. At Walmart all I’ve ever gotten is “uh… it’s fine” probably because it’s too much trouble.
One Napoleon Dynamite-looking cuntbag gave me trouble at Costco one time because he couldn’t fucking count… I had my items on my own dolly vs a cart, which seemed to make him think I was an indigent shoplifter (really I was walking to my house 2 blocks away). He counted … 11!! Receipt says 10!! Okay, so which item did the clerk miss? He counted again… 9!! Uh, okay, am I missing something? He counted again… 11!! Then he found an item he missed and said , oh, that explains it (? Isn’t that 12?) Just turned to someone else and went on like nothing happened.
I don't so much mind it at the membership stores because it's part of the membership.
But my local Walmart recently hired some new woman for it. Most others just glance at it an say "you're good" to every 10th person but this one takes your recipt and checks every item in every bag, and does this to every person and then freaks out if people walk past the line. It's bad enough there was a whole thing on the town facebook page with hundreds of people complaining about it.
The most recent time I tried to ignore her and keep walking but a traffic jam stopped me and this bitch walks up and grabs the cart and starts reaching for my recipt.
Lately Walmart self checkout gives you an option to just text you the receipt which I always choose because I don't need an extra piece of paper that I'm just going to lose in 2 seconds. I think it makes me look extra sus to the receipt checkers though because now they try to stop me every time. I really don't care though, Walmart's problem with shrinkage is not my problem, and I'm not going to take the time to stop, take my phone out of my pocket, and pull up the receipt just to satisfy them. Like Walmart, you gave me the option not to print a receipt, and you're confused that I don't have one?
Self Checkouts are not job killers. they still need people to run them. Most stores have 3 SCO clusters that need 3 attendants each per day. thats 9 jobs right there, add in weekend coverage, vacations, part timers, etc and most grocery stores will have a need for around 15 cashiers which is not easy for any store to fully staff.
source: ive worked grocery stores for around 10 years.
You can do this at Woodman's in Wisconsin. It's very weird every time I do it. In theory one of the workers is supposed to be "supervising", but I must just look old or they don't care because no one has ever even talked to me.
Honestly, the thing that drives me the most crazy about self checkouts is people using them with full carts. They're perfect if you're just grabbing a few things: Just as fast, if not faster, than the 'N items or fewer' checkouts, and no need to interact with anyone. But if you're showing up with 6 bags worth of groceries, and everything in your cart has a coupon or at-cash discount with it, then you need the cashier anyway, so just GTFO of the way. Having the nanny cashier who's looking after 8 self-checkouts come over every 10 seconds to deal with another one of your discounts, or to let you swap bags because you've already filled the item placement area, slows things down for everybody.
My local grocery store has twelve small self checkouts and three big ones for people with full carts. This does a good job of keeping the smaller ones for people with a few items.
I remember when self checkouts were originally introduced at my local grocery store it explicitly was designed to be an X items or fewer line. However, it seems like stores have gotten away from that over the years to the point where some stores are basically self checkout only.
Agreed. I really only use the self checkout if I have less than 15 items out of consideration for other people's time. More than that, and I just go to the checkout lane.
It'd be a different story if they just did away with 90% of the useless checkout lanes that stay closed year-round and quadrupled the number of self-check stations.
I don't mind at all. Pay the extra few bucks to avoid obnoxious lines, cramped aisles, loud people, wasting time searching for one item or another, carrying heavy and cumbersome bags, etc. I pay like 7 bucks once a week or 2 weeks for that in Denmark. 100% worth it for me.
I just hate them because stores have replaced half a dozen checklanes with an employed human being each (sometimes two if they had baggers) with one minimum wage paid person watching over 20 machines. It's so blatantly disgusting to me, personally.
Should we really be propping up jobs of dubious usefulness rather than going after a proper social safety net? We could pay people to dig random holes and others to fill them in if we just wanted to pointless jobs. Why not just hand out the money directly? Why the perverse requirement to make them jump through hoops for it? It feels... condescending to me to knowingly make someone do a task that could be automated just to give them a pay check.
So we should just maintain the status quo exactly as it is right now to make sure no one loses their job? Should we stop all automation to make sure that there's more jobs for people?
My introversion and social anxiety is so estreme, that self checkouts make me imagine what I would do if I mess up something, or take too long to finish, or imagine people observing me and the way I interact with the machine.
Damn, I got a bit of anxiety just by writing this. The feeling is similar to using a computer while there are people constantly looking at my screen.
I had the anti-self-checkout mentality for a bit, because I didn't want to see cashiers losing their jobs. One day at Target I was waiting in line at the human checkout, and the cashier started yelling at everyone in line that there were multiple self-checkout machines open. It sounded like she hated our guts.
Fine! I'll use the damn machines. Haven't bothered cashiers since then if I have other options.
edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming all cashiers for her attitude, I just want to do the right thing without being a pain in anyone's ass and I've learned that sometimes that means using self-checkout
It's annoying how a lot of stores ask you to join their club and get their credit card (as If I don't have enough already), before letting you into self-checkout.
Automation that replaces the need for work can be a good thing, but only if it is used to ease the overall burden instead of making a bunch of people unemployed so that the capitalists who own the company can increase their profits. The idea of machines doing all the work sounds great, but if that means that the handful of people who own the machines have a great quality of life and everyone else suffers then that is not a good trade-off.
This right here. Automation is fantastic. Get rid of those shit jobs so more people's quality of life can improve. Giving all that quality of life to a select few at the top is where the problem is.
Yeah. With power distributed the way it is now though (mostly concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy, connected people), every technological advance will be used against us. These technological advances could really make for a better life for everyone, but not when they're absolutely dominated by entities whose only real objective is taking as much from us as they possibly can.
I absolutely hate these. My local Aldi started doing this and the lines are longer than ever as a result. People who get paid to check out your groceries move faster than the customers themselves.
Scan and go from walmart that let's you use the app to scan items as you shop has me now shopping at walmart again just for this one feature. Requires walmart+ though.
It should be the '10 items or fewer' line. Not, a full cart. If you can't carry the items in a basket, you need to go in a regular line.
My local grocery store has like 9 self check outs, with 1 person sometimes staffed to fix them when they fail (not if, when) and they have 1 regular lane open. And everything ends up with a long line and it's infuriating. Oh and the manger standing in the back 'monitoring things' acting like they're doing anything, but isn't doing the right thing and opening up a new lane.
Also, far too many people are over leaving into 'im an introvert' and playing it up to poorly written teen sitcom levels.
I would love to use self checkouts more often, and need to interact with people less, but the frustration of trying to get those fucking grocery bags open is more traumatic than just going to a cashier.
As a previous cashier, best way to do it is to take your middle finger and swipe down across the center. Like a vertical slap on the bag's face. About the middle of the bag, pull your arm back towards you. It will usually separate the outside wall of the bag from the stack, and when you pull towards you, the bag will "stick" to your finger and then open at the top.
I hated moving slowly as a cashier, cause lines made me mad. So I had to find the quickest way to do everything, and that method works great (for me) until about the last 4 bags.
I completely forgot that there would still be some places with plastic bags at the register. I have a bin I bring and everything just drops in no problem.
i went to target the other day and they had it designed so the self checkout line emptied into 5 self checkouts and 1 normal register. i was in a bad mood and had headphones on and the lady kept trying to wave me over. was praying someone would finish up but no of course not
i happened to be buying a record so she said somewhat brashly 'you and your music huh'
In my local supermarket i can scan the stuff on my phone and then pay from my phone. I usually use the checkout, but when i just need 2 items and theres a lot of people in line.. i mean here the advabtage is absolutely no line at all.
I don't mind them. Where I do grocery shopping there aren't any, but even if there were, I'd still prefer going to a cashier in fear of messing up something. Even if I'm somewhat introverted, saying "Hi" and "Thanks, have a nice day" isn't particularly hindering. As for whether they're job killers I'm not sure; at that same place employees that are doing check out are doing everything else around the store as well.
As an introvert as well, nah gimme my cashiers back. Annoying ass self check-out machines, make one error and you gotta talk to someone anyway. Then gotta get your receipt checked, because how do we know you scanned everything? So now we're at 2 talkings. Just scan my stuff, cashier, please.
I prefer self checkout when I'm only buying a few items, which I usually am. The problem is when people try to bring full carts through the self checkout; that takes forever.
Maybe if the store is quiet. When there’s a bunch of people and you’re at the front of the line you better spot the free checkout the second it opens or people will start “helping” you.
And I hope you don’t mess anything up because everyone in line is judging you for not being able to swipe a gallon a milk or not being able to open a plastic bag and making them wait longer.
I NEED self checkout. I can't go shopping unless it's in a small local store or there's a self checkout. My anxiety goes through the roof if I can't use one, so the only problem is people using self checkout with a full cart
The only cashiers I know would rather not ever have to talk to customers either. But they are pretty sour people in general and I don't know if that's common and of course it's basically saying they wish they had a different job. So I'm with the automate whatever you can just pay more taxes crowd. There will always be a place for human customer service, but now we have choices.
*$7.25 an hour, and I was loudly and publicly threatened with the loss of my job because a customer thought I "wasn't smiling enough" over the Christmas rush and called the manager over.
I'd just had my brother cremated less than a week ago.
We generally aren't sour to each other when you're not looking. Can confirm years of watching customers literally stomp on shit directly in my line of sight so they can turn around and demand a discount because this item is inexplicably dirty or broken has made us very sour at everyone else.
One of them paid for a candy bar, ate the whole thing right there in line, and immediately demanded a full refund because "she didn't like it." Under the watchful direction of the same manager because "the customer is always right," I had to do that.
I wish people would come through my line and say nothing to me.
$16-20 here, but yeah, that's sort of my point I guess. I mean they're renting a studio on 25 hours a week and still hate everybody, so my thought was in their case less human interaction is the true solution. Of course they hate self check, too, for same reason as half this thread which is that when you do have to interact it's more awkward.
The solution is a society without a "work or die" mentality, like you have right now.
We have passed the need where everyone must have a job. We can't keep inventing new jobs like influencing just to give everyone one.
It is okay if there are some members of society that don't contribute much. We aren't cavemen anymore where every person needs to work so the group doesn't die. Hell we already have business owners and landlords, who offload all their work onto others and do nothing for society except own stuff.
Oh I hate those. Not because of the job taking, that was inevitable. I hate them because while when I deal with a cashier I can do some small talk, or just smile at someone and remind myself that I am still alive. I can also mask my underperforming brain with words. When I interact with a machine, it screams at me at super high volume to put my god damned item in a bag. Like OK, you don't have to warn the neighbors that I'm a bit slow. They already know!
Who on earth says this? Never have I heard someone complain about self-checkouts. It's faster than waiting in line for fifteen minutes when you just want to buy a slab of butter! And someone complaining they have to do the scanning sounds like a lazy, entitled jerk.
I am quite introvert, but I had more than enough bad experiences with self-checkouts, I won't touch them with a ten-foot-pole. Then people say: "But you are a computer guy, this should be your thing" - No, thanks. I recognize crap when I see it, especially in my line of business.
As an introvert i hate it. It's always loud and temperamental and really if anything i should get a discount for using it.
Once did a late night Walmart run for a bunch of random stuff. Only to come up to no cashiers. Luckily the sweet girl at the self check out saw my panic and used a bar code scanner to get me on my way
When it just scans tags as i push my cart through I'll consider self checkout. Otherwise it just feels like I'm working for free.
You probably leave no tip when you eat out, right? I say that because this phrase is the one most associated with being put on the tip line on a check. Anyway, I’m not trying to attack you. It is just frustrating to hear people think some jobs are less important than others in terms of a livelihood. In my opinion it is more appropriate to point out that replacing that job with a robot allows the person replaced to do something different within their field.
We can't feasibly stop automation, nor should we. We SHOULD be taking the profits back from billionaires that they've stolen since time immemorial. Automation means less work overall. But we need to ensure the workers actually benefit from that.
Self checkout is not automation. It's making the customer do the work.
Automation would be: Stick an RFID-tag to all your items, make me check in with my phone at the entrance. Automatically "scan" all the items when my cart and my phone leave the store at the same time. Bill me.
Yeah. That's like saying a buffet automates waiters.
As the customer you're already taking stuff out of your cart and putting it on the counter. Maybe automation isn't the right word, but it's certainly more efficient than having a human clerk. It removes a bottleneck.
But it’s not a bottleneck. It’s the opposite. An experienced human checker will tap in the code for oranges way before you find it in their stupid menu.
It is a bottleneck, because the experienced human checker is only entering orange codes for one person at a time. There could be ten people all checking themselves out simultaneously. Even if one or two get slowed down by a menu, it's still a net decrease in average time spent at checkout.
And introduces others: “unexpected item in bagging area”
True, but isn't that an implementation issue that can be fixed, rather than an inherent issue with the concept?
Or a fuckton of cameras: https://youtu.be/NrmMk1Myrxc?si=olYDaZnChc4LN47k
Those Amazon just walk out stores like you’re describing are extremely expensive to setup though. Even a spall space requires tons of cameras and sensors, all items to be placed on shelves a certain way, lots of networking backend, etc. Most business are unable to do so right now and I’d say most buildings can’t accommodate it. My work looked into putting one of those in one of our spaces as a test and the cost/work to make it happen in even a small area of our business wasn’t worth it
So it will take more time until the tech is cheaper. Or, hear me out, this one is crazy: We employ cashiers!
I went to a gas station that had this… it was kind of incredible. Put like 10 items on a sensor and it recognized all of them. Then put them in a bag.
I think in terms is control, more people feel as though they can stop/protest automation more than they can take profits back. I think that was the luddite mentality? I speculate, it's been a while since i learned it in school.
They tried the latter, and when that failed, they tried the former.
The 'job killers' argument is kinda bullshit. I want to kill jobs - I want to eliminate all labor that can be automated, such that in the ideal perfect future, no human ever has to work; they can spend every moment doing things they enjoy without worry.
But self checkout is not automation. No human work has been eliminated. It is the same exact fucking checkout process, only now the customer does it instead, and the store doesn't pay the cashier. And no they don't pass that savings on to you because of course they don't, they just pocket the difference.
That's all true, but just to be a bit nitpicky I'd argue some human work has indeed been eliminated by self checkout.
Cashiers main job is to scan your stuff, but in order to do that they also have to stand around waiting for you and other customers for hours on end, and when you arrive they have to do emotional labor of acting cheerful and upbeat
Still I wish we didn't live in a society where increased efficiency leads to people being homeless with no jobs.
There's at the very least a lot of social and managerial pressure to act cheerful. Even if you didn't do it, many people would because it's effectively required of them. Something being technically a choice doesn't remove the social pressures that make many feel that it's not a choice. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if it's been used as rationale to fire people before, which means that for some, it isn't a choice (and most people are scared of losing their jobs, so won't try to find out).
In tipped roles, it would definitely result in less pay.
I can't think of the last time someone working a register was anything more than polite. 99.9% of the time, we don't speak in any meaningful way. Their work neither adds value to nor takes value from my day. Which, to be clear, makes me want their jobs to be much, much better. At least give them something to sit on, for goodness sake.
It's a choice right up until you get fired or reprimanded for not meeting some arbitrary criteria
There will be a screenshot of this comment in a murder documentary someday.
With normal checkout the customer is still the one putting groceries on the belt, and in most cases putting the bags back into the cart. Hell, at Aldi's you have to bag the shit yourself anyways.
I don't see how "scan and bag" is any more intensive than "place everything on belt(which is annoying tetris when you have lots of shit), stand around waiting for cashier to scan and bag".
Aldi backs up that tradeoff with commensurately lower prices, though.
"intensive" isn't the right term here, IMO. Pushing me to do the cashier work via self-checkout is more effort than what I do at Aldi. It doesn't need to be "carry this pallet across the Grand Canyon" to be objectionable.
And the cashier is probably going to screw up the bagging. Does the ice cream go in the insulated re-usable bag, or does it go in a regular bag next to the room temperature canned goods? Pretty good chance it goes into the uninsulated bag, the tomatoes end up in the insulated bag with the milk, etc.
How about universal income, free education, free health care, and free housing?
No system exists before it is implemented.
We got to start someday.
I love your spirit, but that world doesn't exist. Capitalists and conservatives will never allow for a utopian society where people can enjoy their lives on the masses, no matter how advanced production or whatever elses automation becomes. It's always going to be millions suffering and a small majority having more wealth and power than they can even use in a lifetime.
I've encountered checkouts where you just put your hand basket in a container, and it scans everything inside at the same time.
It can and will be automated further.
This is a bad, regressive argument.
We need to legislate the benefit of automation for society.
Trying to bury the technology never works if it is indeed an improvement. Technology is benign, people twist it for malice.
This is the same argument as still using oil based street lamps, just to maintain a the lamplighting jobs that don't need to be done anymore.
It's a Bizaare hill to die on to fight to maintain jobs a robot can do faster and better, rather than fighting to make society the beneficiary of such advances through taxation. Either way, you have to fight the billionaires and will probably lose, so why not fight for a better outcome than maintaining shitty, menial jobs?
This isn't automation though. The self checkout tech is the same tech that a cashier uses. It's not automated. A human still does the work, they just don't get paid for it.
I mean, technically the self-checkout package has automation in it, a scale and cameras to "automate" the process of ensuring what was scanned was what was bagged, a process by which the station determines when employee intervention is necessary, etc. Automation tech is in there, things a person used to do are being done by technology, but again it wasn't created to improve the way it was done before, merely to make the owner more money.
The registers with cashiers also have scales and cameras and systems that are built in to determine when a CSM is required for things like overrides. The tech is not appreciably different. It's not automation.
Our self checkouts completely abandoned the stupid scales except when needed for fruit and such. Enforcing the packing with scales makes for a fucking horrible experience.
I haven't seen any cameras though.
Personally I like that they are more space efficient and time efficient.
Here it is also common to carry around a hand scanner in the store and just pay by docking the scanner without having to pack up anything. It's way quicker.
Seriously, fuck the scales. The grocery store near me recently shut theirs off. I found the manager and thanked him. That thing annoyed the piss out of me.
I don’t have that here but I do have a regional grocery chain that allows you to use your phone as the scanner as you shop, then you just go to a terminal at the end of your trip and scan a QR code to finalize. I love it.
Past advancements in medicine has destroyed a lot of jobs... in funeral business. Some jobs should be let go of, if it makes everyone's lives easier ultimately
I disagree with your analogy. The death rate has held steady at 100% for quite some time now. The only difference is how wrinkly the corpses are.
Their business is certainly less frequent, though, surely
Who out there not dying?
Lamp lighters, cotton pickers, wooden teeth makers, wool socks knitters, muck rakers, medical leech farmers... the list of jobs and entire industries destroyed in the name of "progress" goes on and on. We're going to be totally out of jobs any day now!
I always go with buggy whip manufacturers and ice delivery people.
Well, we are trying to find even more banal jobs to fill in the blanks. Who out there thought influencer would be a job some day?
With UBI, people would be more inclined to pursue their own interests. They would have more time to set up that little shop selling handcrafted items. There would be more variation and competition. Even more niche products could be created and sold, because there is no fear they will ever go bankrupt.
I remembered Mr Omar from Everybody Hates Chris trying to get the mayor that wouldn't care for safety elected so his funeral business gets more, well, dead people.
Tragic!
I would love a "robotax" where automation is encouraged, but with the caveat that it is also heavily taxed. Not so much that it's cheaper to have employees, but enough so that the people who's jobs have been replaced can still get an income. Be it through major subsidies or the ultimate subsidy: universal basic income
Your instinct to use a systemic solution is good. My concern would be the tax gives corporations the wrong incentive (Some percentage of jobs could be automated but would still be cheaper to hire people). As another approach I like worker cooperatives because if they automate some task the financial benefit goes to the employees. The problem is there aren't enough large scale worker co-ops, so I'd like to see them get tax advantages, preference on government contracts, grants, etc to drive their development.
I think the idea is the tax applies only to any money saved through automation. So if an employee costs $2500/mo and automation costs $500/mo, the company saves $2000/mo. Lets say the tax is 75%, the government takes $1500/mo from the company, but the company is still saving an extra $500/mo from automating, so they are still incentivized to do so.
Then that money from the tax could be used to pay for things like job retraining courses for people displaced by automation, or even maybe UBI.
Tbf, shouldn't we be doing both? Legislation is slow and in the meantime, people need to be paid. Honestly, to me, this doesn't feel that dissimilar to the argument around tipping. Yes, we absolutely SHOULD be paying waitstaff a living wage so tipping isn't needed but in the meantime, you should still tip your server.
Tbf the owners will get 100% of what they want because this country was bought decades ago. I was talking decent world. This will be inflicted on us, and used purely to further satiate the greed of the owners whether we protest for it not to be used and/or to be taxed.
I was just saying it would be stupid to put half our effort into both when one has a much better today outcome in a decent country. But in practical terms? The people are brainwashed, the owners hold all the cards, and this will be used to fuck us all, because the people gave up their voice in the 80s in exchange for the lie that giving the owners everything would benefit everyone. Now we're trapped in this workcamp of a country until collapse, likely long after everyone alive today is dead, because anyone who lives here paying attention knows the peasants are too chickenshit and/or brainwashed to revolt.
Okay but fuck those stores where the self checkout “bagging area” is smaller than the size of a hand cart. Like what fucking idiot designed those.
Heh. I know that idiot, at least one of them. Personally. At least for some of the major retailers that are making the switch who have very small bagging areas.
It's not his fault, it really isn't.
He got a list of requirements. Table is so big, scale is so big, computer is so big, and so many checkouts in so much area.
Every component has a minimum size requirement, and when the client isn't willing to bend on how many check outs must fit, the only other option is to shrink the one thing that can, and that's the bagging area.
Then they pile a bunch of shit in the bagging area, they have these giant caddies to hold thousands of bags, and they put three of them up there.
My gripe is there's not enough room to put items from my bag to scan.
Need to put my bag on the bagging side, but it's full. Gotta take stuff out until scanned. No where to put the stuff, so I pile it on the floor.
Fuck me for bringing my own bag I guess
My understanding is that it's about loss prevention.
They think that self checkout is a high risk for shoplifting, so they want it to be a manageable amount. They need confidence in their security monitoring strategy before they go all in.
After a long trial here including employees monitoring and AI monitored video, the store near me now has maybe 30 self checkouts, with 10 having nice big bagging areas. I never have to wait in line anymore.
People who want you to suffer.
"job killer" automation in a reasonable society should mean less need for work and the same amount of resources available (if not more).
But we will never reach the point where we consider picnics, parties and painting more valuable than manipulative marketing, unnecessary polluting but profitable industry, and especially the all-important busywork. Do something profitable. Anything profitable. It doesn't even matter if it's a net negative to society, just do something.
I don't want to interact with a cashier either but fuck if I want to scan my own shit either.
It's also way more awkward when something goes wrong and now I have to initiate.
"Warning! Shopping bag content is 0.00003pg heavier than expected. Please call an assistant or remove the excess items."
Thankfully, Walmart stopped weighing items entirely. Not sure how it affects theft, but it sure makes the checkout process smoother. Don't need to wait after scanning each item. Don't need take reusable bags out of your cart. And they replaced almost all of their checkout lanes with self checkouts.
Too bad Walmart is evil, because their checkout is 👌 and Sam's scan-and-go is just 💦. Every other store is just bad UX.
Doesn't every store have cameras everywhere recording everything?
These detect extra things you didn't scan. I had to have an employee come check my items because I was using a cardboard flat to hold the canned goods I was buying. It locked up as soon as I moved the cardboard to the bagging area.
They always had that.
Self checkout is so much faster than waiting in like with all the other goobers
If self checkout is optional, yes it's great for small order quick shops. However too many stores are moving to 100% self checkout with just a single lane or two for full service and that's when it becomes a problem.
Grandma's got a cart full of clothes, no computer experience, and all day to scan and fold each item one at a time...
100% self checkout with just a single lane or two for full service
It's not 100% if there are other lanes.
Lol, you're right. I was thinking how the single lane is usually the service desk, where they are also dealing with returns, online orders, customer issues, etc, I hardly consider it a dedicated lane experience. It becomes clear the intention is 100% self checkout while that lane is for exceptions.
Plus there are some items that are genuinely easier to deal with with an actual human, like anything really light or anything with purchasing age restrictions. If you try and go through a self check with a birthday card and a box of cold medicine it's pretty much a guaranteed bad time.
Only if the goobers aren't also using the self checkout in front of you and fucking up every other item somehow requiring assistance.
Some machines will just randomly choke too.
Where I live there's usually a load of machines in the same space they'd have two conveyors, so even with slow people it ends up being a lot faster.
only if you're lucky enough to not have to wait in line for the self checkout
Nah, self checkout is WAY faster when there's no line, but self checkout waiting behind a line of those goobers would be WAY slower. One time I scanned, bagged, paid, and loaded up an entire cart of groceries in the time it took the dude next to me to scan like a handful of items.
I think that a lot of people here are confusing "introversion" with having social anxiety.
Being an introvert doesn't mean that you're scared of socialization. It means you generally prefer quiet time over socializing.
From Merriam Webster:
A person whose personality is characterized by introversion : a typically reserved or quiet person who tends to be introspective and enjoys spending time alone.
You can be both, but they are definitely not the same thing.
Yes! I'm quite an introvert but I prefer a cashier so I can remain in my mind until I need to pay.
I'm an introvert and I prefer self-checkout because I never have to pause my podcast. With regular check-out I have to pause it for a few minutes while they're scanning my stuff in case they have a question like "do you need bags? do you have a loyalty card?" Other people might enjoy those interactions, or might want to make small-talk with the cashier. I just want to keep listening to the podcast.
I'm willing to do a bit more work and spend a bit more time if I don't have to stand there being attentive to the cashier.
I'm with you man. I love just listening to music while I scan my items and going away. Entire shopping process without interacting with anyone at all. Amazing.
Exactly. Cashiers are perfectly nice people, but I don't really look forward to interacting with them. It doesn't improve my shopping experience in any way. OTOH I really enjoy my podcasts or music, let me stay in my bubble enjoying my thing and my shopping experience is better.
This is a reason I used to admire Japan, before the days of self-check out. Japan had amazing vending machines that would sell you a huge variety of things. Again, get what you want without having to interact with other people. Win!
Most of the cashiers I interacted with years ago weren't really nice. Not that I blame them, the job is boring, the hours are terrible and some people are horrible to serve. As someone who worked in retail and finished every single shift tired and cranky, I get why cashiers don't want to interact with you anymore than you do want to interact with them.
So hooray for neither side having to interact!
Also, i dont know any of the produce codes and i have no idea what they have scallions classified under in their search system.
Exactly. Generally, I have fun when talking to people, but social anxiety makes me prefer to stay at home and talk to less people.
I would like self-checkout a lot more if those cost savings were passed on to the consumer instead of being hoarded by ownership.
It's the classic paradox. Technology and automation could be used to reduce the amount everyone needs to work and enrich everyone's lives as long as those gains are distributed properly. The distribution is the problem.
no one wants to be a checkout clerk at walmart for $6 an hour. This is a good thing. The problem is that the people displaced aren't taken care of. We should be pushing for ubi instead
I prefer self checkout but I do feel you should be getting a discount for using it.
You can give yourself a discount, if you know what I mean
If I try scanning something 5 times and it doesn't register, I'm moving onto the next item. It's a discount for not teaching me how to use the machine properly.
Me ringing up my PS5: I think this is the right button
Scanner: Weigh your ONIONS... place your ONIONS in the bag
Now just gotta find a store that keeps consoles unattended on the shelves...
Weird how often my thumb lands atop the barcode...
They should also give me a discount for my travel to the store and taking the items off the shelf.
I feel like that's a bit different.
Grocery stores used to get your items off the shelf for you but now we do that. I think we're just used to a cashier scanning the items, so it will obviously take time for people to adjust.
At least the latter is a similar sort of change. Cashier/storekeep work is now something the customer does.
I dunno about this one, like what kind of a discount would apply here? How big?
I think in a vacuum a self checkout saves a buck or two per purchase for the store. But that is in a vacuum, you still have a cashier assisting the checkout, maintenance for scanners, probably security watching the scanners etc. I don’t doubt it saves cash, but like probably cents per purchase.
Eh, you have one cashier watching like 7 checkouts. Security would be a thing regardless, because they'd otherwise be watching to make sure nobody walks out with an item or steals from the register.
I'm not really convinced they do a lot of maintenance on those things, for how well they function, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that's the machine at its best.
Wouldn't know how much they really cost per machine in order to account for that, either, but the Walmart near me only ever has one person watching the self-checkout, doesn't even always have anyone on an available lane, and they've had those things forever.
That one, at least, didn't buy more tech for covid. They just fired some people and redirected the customers. They're saving more than enough in wages.
The fact that, from experience, my average customers per hour divided by pay (and thus, the rightful customer discount for doing my job) still adds up to a matter of cents probably says more about how much I was being paid.
I wonder, what was your average customers/h assuming non-stop traffic? I don't remember how fast it went, I was doing shelves and warehouse, subbed in register only a few times when work was basically done in the evening.
Gotta say tho, can't imagine why someone would go cashier in a supper market, it is the most brutal place for sure. Working shelves and warehouse was pretty chill all things considered, at least we could go pee and have smoke breaks, as well as eat on our own schedule.
Fuck me I love self checkout.
The real job killers are the employers
The irony
I use it because it's faster.
I'm not waiting in line for someone else to scan my 5 items.
Exactly. With with self checkout, customer throughput is increased because if you have 2 cashiers and 20 customers, you're being limited by the 2 people doing all the work while everyone else waits. If you have 6 self checkout instead, average wait time is 1/3.
It's definitely still faster, even more so if you didn't go to the store alone.
I use it even if it's slower because I don't have to pause my podcast to make smalltalk or answer questions like "do you need a bag?"
For a few items, sure. But even I, a rabid introvert, will seek out a cashier for my weekly shopping. To say hello and goodbye. You all forget to be human beings. Stop making being InTrOvErT yet another singular form of personal identity.
I'm so tired of people with social anxiety always trying to appropriate introversion. Introverts don't have that kind of phobia of personal interaction.
I only use self checkouts, it eliminates like the only major variable of shopping.
I don't mind using a self checkout except that they're all terrible. The rep has to come over so often, it's just a regular checkout with extra steps.
I had that experience when they were new, but barely ever need assistance for almost a decade.
I'm so good at them I'll change the language to Spanish and check out just for funsies.
My wife likes to put it in random languages. Real good fun until there was some sort of error and we had no idea what was going on and it didn't allow us to change the language. Even the cashier was puzzled. I had a nice "I told you so" moment there.
They HAVE gotten a lot better. I was thinking about adding a disclaimer for the present, looks like I should have.
As not just an introvert, but an introvert who had to deal with a language barrier for a long time, I don't love going through the normal checkout, but I actively dread the idea of having the support person come over because the balance can't read my tomatoes or whatever.
I'd say online ordering works around both, social anxiety-wise, but then you have to live in fear of when they inevitably call you to say that they don't have this particular type of banana and maybe you'd like some identical type of banana but we definitely need to have a conversation about it first.
If it smells like shit everywhere you go, check your shoe.
I rarely have problems and I don't have to bother taking out my headphones.
Not that that saying never had the last four letters of DARVO written all over it to begin with, mind, but I'm so used to seeing it in the context of discrediting trauma that I had to stare at it for several minutes to realize it meant, "If the machine constantly fucks up, maybe you're just too stupid for touchscreens."
Not gonna lie, my time in customer service has notably damaged my impression of people. But really, my dude? The contribution is a more insulting version of "works fine for me?"
I don't have a problem with self checkout. It has its place. If you're just grabbing an item or two, and want to get out quick and not wait in line, or if you are buying something that you may find personally embarrassing, or any of a number of other reasons.
Cashiers also have their place, for when you have larger checkouts and what have you.
What pisses me off is they are firing cashiers, and replacing them with more self checkouts.. So you have to take your big monthly load of groceries through self checkout, cause theres no cashier, or worse.. one overworked cashier with a huge line.
And its all to have less jobs, less pay checks, and more profits for the C-Suits.
And lets not even get into the fact that its easy for a screw up to happen then some overzealous dickwad comes screaming calling you a thief, and gets you tresspasssed because either you accidentally mis-scanned something or because they THINK you mis-scanned something and thanks to their stupidity you can no longer shop at your local, convenient store.
I've always been fine with it. It doesn't feel like I'm forced to do someone else's job to me because they can be convenient if you have a small order, and it reduces lines. That said, I'd much rather see people employed and sometimes I like the personal interaction.
Same, self checkout is just 9 times out of 10 the most convenient option for people who don't buy a cart full of stuff.
It's not like stores are hiring people just to man the registers either.. They hire X amount of people and if they need to open another register that's someone who has to stop doing something else in the store, so self-checkout just lets them always have a bunch of registers open with only one employee overseeing them all and helping people out.
At least this is how it works in sweden, maybe in the US stores do it differently since they seem to have great difficulty making something as basic as scanning a barcode work.
In my experience with the US the strategy is to minimize cashiers, ideally have one person running a full service lane and managing the self checkouts between their customer line. Oh and they can handle returns and exchanges too. And online order pickup. Oh and also "frontline" customer complaints. $10 an hour should cover this.
The stocking crew is separate and it's a 50/50 chance if they're trained on registers.
Edit: this obviously depends on the store and staff size, but this seems to be the procedure for most big box retailers.
From what I’ve seen in stores and job applications, the checkout clerks do have a separate job position, but if needed other people will stop what they’re doing and help.
Most IT systems work as expected here, except sometimes it misses discounts even from their stupid apps (“digital coupons”) and mysteriously some stores like Walmart, who should be technologically flawless, end up charging more at the register than was listed in the aisles.
I’m fairly allergic to human interaction, but there is now way I’m manually scanning 12 packs of the same soda 4 times.
Self checkout for heavy items is usually even easier than normal checkout. With normal checkout, I'm expected to lift the stuff and put it on the belt. With self checkout, I can grab the scanner gun and pew pew them while still in my cart.
Many stores where I live don't offer a scanner gun to customers, only like a small amount of big stores offer it. In self-checkout, we have to move the barcodes over a scanner to get them scanned.
Are your arms made of toothpicks or something? That seems like the most negligible problem to have ever. If you said bags of chips then yeah, because those fuckers are always all crinkled up at the barcode and impossible to scan and I can't be bothered to try to unfold them and get it just right
Everywhere near me has the anti-theft devices turned up on self checkouts to the point that traditional checkouts are both faster and require less human interaction.
WHAT? People love self check out, what is this tomfoolery?! lol
No these people are just confused. They think the laser beep machine is serious business. We know it to be an optional plaything.
As a weekly shopper who only gets 20-30 items at a time, self checkout is better. The cashiers tend to have customers with 100+ items and I usually have to wait 5-10 minutes. At the self checkout, I'm done and out the door in 3.
The people who deny self-checkout sometimes have quarrels with the cashiers.
My elderly parents don't do so well with self checkout, its definitely not for everyone. I will use them if I have a few items but they are really finnicky at least the ones my local grocery store has. I wish there was an option to mute them so I don't have to hear 'PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG, PLEASE SCAN ITEM, PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG' on loop. also an 'I know how to bag things please fuck off' button
I can relate to this so much :D Greatest invention of the 21st century :D
Everything less than 5 pounds is a banana. Mistakes happen when untrained people do the job for the company
What do you mean this iPhone isn't a fruit? I see an apple right there. I must have gotten confused.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Red Delicious version
I used to be against these, but when it became clear that jobs were not actually being cut to accommodate these things, I slowly caved that said there's a register open I'm going to use it instead of self service
Because as boomer as it sounds... "I don't work here."
My parents (who are 70 and 71) have their mindset too. I disagree with that "I don't work here" argument - who said scanning items HAS to be something that only a cashier does? Why is it considered work compared to something like choosing and weighing vegetables, which is something no one ever expects a worker to do for them nowadays?
For me, the merit of those self checkout stations is that you can do this easy thing (scanning items) yourself. I don't need someone to scan items for me. It was the only thing that I still wasn't allowed to do by myself, and I'm glad it eliminated having to interact with cashiers. All I need the place to do is stock up items and make sure the place is clean.
You can bet a lot of people who hate self-checkouts only hate it because they can't yell at and order the employee around to do their bidding.
Self-checkout is the best thing to happen in recent history, imo.
It's super annoying to need to queue at the counter and talk to the staff. It's not that I have social anxiety and can't talk to them. I just don't want to. I rather use a machine and get my shopping done. I'm there to get stuff, not to talk to people.
I don't mind if the entire store converts to self-checkout save for 1 or 2 counters for those who are unable to use the machine for the time being. Eventually, it should all be converted to self-checkout.
I do feel like I ought to be paid when a business offloads their work onto me. Not much, I suppose. But something.
You do get paid something, freedom from bullshit small talk and judgment of your purchases
I do not experience bullshit small talk or judgement of my purchases. Since I'm not getting that benefit, I'm happy to be paid. Thanks!
Why? Do you also want to be paid for taking products off the shelves or choosing the good vegetables?
This is just how the place works and you are not entitled to anything just because it does things a certain way. You can keep going to the regular cashier lane if you don't like "doing work for the company".
Now that you mention it, yes. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
The self-service registers are new and we should consider how they are used now. I do go to the regular cashier lane. I'd be happy to ring myself out for the cost of doing so.
If you're actually in Tokyo - tbh this isn't anything new most other places, I've been using self-checkouts for like 15 years, and I don't really see much of a reason to have someone do a job that isn't really necessary and just makes me feel awkward, standing there while someone basically does a robot job. But honestly in Japan it makes a ton of sense to try to introduce self checkouts. Part-time staff are incredibly overworked, there's much fewer part-time workers available compared to demand, and most people who have worked a part-time job in Japan can attest that it's incredibly easy to find a job that doesn't pay very much and isn't very fulfilling. It's quite a different situation from full-time jobs, which are incredibly hard to find and still overwork you doing meaningless work.
Is it just that as a paying customer, you don't feel that you should any of your own effort to that service? Because if so, that's practically impossible, and maybe not even desirable. The best kind of working environment is one in which workers, customers, and employers all empathize with each other and do their best to make things easier. And as an example of something that customers are sometimes expected to do, there are a lot of cheap self-service restaurants in Japan like soba shops and such where you bring the tray to your table on your own and then clean up after yourself and bring it back to the tray return area. This isn't common in all parts of the world, and someone who isn't used to it might protest and say that they're paying the wages of the people who work there, so why should they have to serve themselves? But it's just part of the system there and it cuts down on the workload - you would be rude to not respect that.
If you think businesses are just pocketing the difference and it's leading to greater profits, the only real way to address that is to either encourage greater competition and for example break up monopolies, or implement price controls. But it doesn't make sense to employ people to do something when labour can be used more efficiently on something else.
At $15 per hour, how long does it take to ring up a half dozen items then swipe a card? It's like 30 cents worth of wage!
You get to tip a smaller amount to the self checkout kiosk
Wtf y'all tip cashiers???
The only place I've ever seen this in Canada is at some private liquor stores. They have a tip prompt. I guess in theory someone could help you to decide what you want and make recommendations, but in practice how much does that happen and how much is it really worth? I think it feels like just shaming your customers for not paying your own employees' wages, tbh.
No tipping where I live so I don't benefit from that. Happy to accept a lower charge for my groceries in lieu of pay, though.
That you tip cashiers is already bonkers.
But that you guys tip at a self-checkout really takes the cake.
"Thank you computer for doing the job you were programmed to do, here is a tip, don't spend it all at once!"
Theoretically, the money the supermarket saves not having to hire cashiers will be passed on to the consumer through lower prices. In practice though...
That's what I've been saying, since they started making me walk around the store and find stuff for myself, or actually leave my house to go get it.
As an introvert I'd rather not use self checkouts. The possibility that something will go wrong and I'll have to call someone over and explain it and have them fix it is much higher than letting someone qualified scan and bag my shit while I stand there silently waiting to pay as both the cashier and myself refuse to talk or make eye contact.
Plus I worked at a walmart for a year as right as they rolled out their mostly self checkout system. So many people lost jobs and the store lost so much money to shrinkage (theft). It's the dumbest fucking thing. Makes perfect sense to have a few for people with only a handful of items but the vast majority should be cashiers.
This meme was brought to us by big self checkout and makes no sense at all IMO.
agreed. Plus the arrangement surrounds you with people whereas each checkout has its nice little safty walls and people are only in front and behind you but not to the sides. That being said I will use self checkout if I have 3 or less easily scannable things.
Yep, no damn way I’m using self checkout when I’m buying, say, a cart full of groceries. And I’m as introverted as can be.
Honestly it's among the main reasons I switched grocery stores from Dillons (Kroger owned) to Aldi. Over the last three years Dillons has added more self checkout lanes, routinely staffed the bare minimum human checkout lanes, and regularly has looooong lines to checkout at peak hour. Going to Aldi I tend to save both money and time; their cashiers scan shit so damn fast.
I love self-checkout. I'm introverted and the last thing I have energy for when doing grocery shopping after work is holding another conversation. Self checkout allows me to check out at my own speed and without having to talk to anyone. It's a blessing.
I do get why people dislike it, so I think we should have both ways of checking out.
Since when are introverts not people?
I just saved hundreds on my groceries by switching to self checkout and fucking stealing.
Introvert, but I've purposely stopped using self-checkouts, even if it means longer wait times and having to actually interact with people. In addition to taking jobs away from people, there's no other benefit that's being given to me, the consumer, for using it. It's not like you get a special discount on your purchase for using the self-checkout, it's purely a cost-savings on the store's end. It's also insulting to see rows and rows of checkout lines only staffed by a single person, no matter the time of day. I'll just keep using the people-checkout lanes, just to drive up demand.
Different take, but as a former cashier I greatly enjoyed the self checkouts being a thing, because it frees me up to do other tasks and prevents situations where "YoU nEed tO AlWAyS Be at tHE rEgiStER, WhAT if a CuStOMer cOmEs??!"
Like, I will walk up to the register dale, I can see it from the aisles you make me also take care of and I don't want to stay late tonight
I've stopped using self checkout due to the number of news stories around stores accusing people of shoplifting for scanning something the wrong way.
Don't tell me to do your job if you're going to accuse me of doing it poorly and then have the police arrest me for it.
Grocery stores where I recently lived (Denver) don’t even stop people walking out with entire carts of groceries. It’s corporate policy not to because the risk of injury to employees or the shoplifter outweighs the cost of the lost merchandise.
I find self checkout significantly faster if I only have a couple items. For a big shop like weekly groceries I always go to a cashier
I don't think going through self-checkout with a shopping cart is even socially acceptable around here
I prefer the stores that let you scan your items on your smartphone and just pay via it or at least go through a fast lane where you just tally it up at the self checkout and go. Especially if they have convoluted coupons or bonuses that o can track as I go.
My laziness triumphs over my introversion. plus, fuck robots tikin er jerbs
They're not even doing good jobs.
Thankfully it seems both cashiers and baggers are better trained than they used to be at least at the larger chains. I don't have either of these issues at supermarkets.
That doesn't mean they won't be lazy or lack hustle though.
Sometimes I catch incorrect prices or the cashier keying in the wrong vegetable at checkout, but you can also read your receipt later and ask for a refund. I’ve never had a grocery store quibble when I said I was mischarged or an item was bad.
Why does this kind of thing only happen in the US?
I've never seen cashiers loving their jobs, but I've never seen them mishandling stuff either.
OTOH, I've never seen them filling the bags, so that may have something to do with it.
Cashiers in Europe are well trained and probably love it. Because we don't offload those jobs to students trying to make a quick buck. Here it can be seen as a proper career which you can do your whole life if you want.
But that is maybe because we don't have as many arrogant fuckers who think service jobs are bottom tier and the people working them shouldn't even be seen as human.
wait employees bagging your items is a real thing in the US? why? what's this american obsession with having shittily paid people do everything for them?
I love them. the only downside is people who are really fuckin' slow at scanning their groceries.
I like it when I'm going for two or three items I forgot or when buying some lunch for work and don't have enough time, but for usual, big grocery shopping... Nope.
What bothers me the most is the fucking Walmart recipt checkers.
Don't make me check out my own shit if you don't trust me.
The correct response to them is a wave and a "no, I'm good" as you walk past.
I don't even bother with the no thank you, I just ignore them. It's nothing but security theatre anyway.
The ones at Costco seem pretty serious. They want to count the total items sold and how many you have. At Walmart all I’ve ever gotten is “uh… it’s fine” probably because it’s too much trouble.
One Napoleon Dynamite-looking cuntbag gave me trouble at Costco one time because he couldn’t fucking count… I had my items on my own dolly vs a cart, which seemed to make him think I was an indigent shoplifter (really I was walking to my house 2 blocks away). He counted … 11!! Receipt says 10!! Okay, so which item did the clerk miss? He counted again… 9!! Uh, okay, am I missing something? He counted again… 11!! Then he found an item he missed and said , oh, that explains it (? Isn’t that 12?) Just turned to someone else and went on like nothing happened.
I don't so much mind it at the membership stores because it's part of the membership.
But my local Walmart recently hired some new woman for it. Most others just glance at it an say "you're good" to every 10th person but this one takes your recipt and checks every item in every bag, and does this to every person and then freaks out if people walk past the line. It's bad enough there was a whole thing on the town facebook page with hundreds of people complaining about it.
The most recent time I tried to ignore her and keep walking but a traffic jam stopped me and this bitch walks up and grabs the cart and starts reaching for my recipt.
Lately Walmart self checkout gives you an option to just text you the receipt which I always choose because I don't need an extra piece of paper that I'm just going to lose in 2 seconds. I think it makes me look extra sus to the receipt checkers though because now they try to stop me every time. I really don't care though, Walmart's problem with shrinkage is not my problem, and I'm not going to take the time to stop, take my phone out of my pocket, and pull up the receipt just to satisfy them. Like Walmart, you gave me the option not to print a receipt, and you're confused that I don't have one?
Lolol I loved them at first when they still employed all the cashier's so the slow people didn't get in my way
So then go to normal cashier checkout. They haven't been abolished at my grocery stores
Self Checkouts are not job killers. they still need people to run them. Most stores have 3 SCO clusters that need 3 attendants each per day. thats 9 jobs right there, add in weekend coverage, vacations, part timers, etc and most grocery stores will have a need for around 15 cashiers which is not easy for any store to fully staff.
source: ive worked grocery stores for around 10 years.
When I can buy beer at self checkout I will never use a standard checkout lane again.
You can do this at Woodman's in Wisconsin. It's very weird every time I do it. In theory one of the workers is supposed to be "supervising", but I must just look old or they don't care because no one has ever even talked to me.
I really hate making small talk, I'll use the scanner.
The grocery store by my house has their self checkout volume set to 11. I don't want to be yelled at by a machine.
Honestly, the thing that drives me the most crazy about self checkouts is people using them with full carts. They're perfect if you're just grabbing a few things: Just as fast, if not faster, than the 'N items or fewer' checkouts, and no need to interact with anyone. But if you're showing up with 6 bags worth of groceries, and everything in your cart has a coupon or at-cash discount with it, then you need the cashier anyway, so just GTFO of the way. Having the nanny cashier who's looking after 8 self-checkouts come over every 10 seconds to deal with another one of your discounts, or to let you swap bags because you've already filled the item placement area, slows things down for everybody.
My local grocery store has twelve small self checkouts and three big ones for people with full carts. This does a good job of keeping the smaller ones for people with a few items.
I remember when self checkouts were originally introduced at my local grocery store it explicitly was designed to be an X items or fewer line. However, it seems like stores have gotten away from that over the years to the point where some stores are basically self checkout only.
Agreed. I really only use the self checkout if I have less than 15 items out of consideration for other people's time. More than that, and I just go to the checkout lane.
It'd be a different story if they just did away with 90% of the useless checkout lanes that stay closed year-round and quadrupled the number of self-check stations.
I do not like them at all, especially when I have a lot of produce to weigh.
MFW I just order groceries
This, WFH, and no-contact delivery were some of the best things to come out of the pandemic.
gotta love spending money to spend money
I don't mind at all. Pay the extra few bucks to avoid obnoxious lines, cramped aisles, loud people, wasting time searching for one item or another, carrying heavy and cumbersome bags, etc. I pay like 7 bucks once a week or 2 weeks for that in Denmark. 100% worth it for me.
It typically doesn't cost anything extra to order groceries for pickup... Delivery is obviously another story.
I just hate them because stores have replaced half a dozen checklanes with an employed human being each (sometimes two if they had baggers) with one minimum wage paid person watching over 20 machines. It's so blatantly disgusting to me, personally.
Should we really be propping up jobs of dubious usefulness rather than going after a proper social safety net? We could pay people to dig random holes and others to fill them in if we just wanted to pointless jobs. Why not just hand out the money directly? Why the perverse requirement to make them jump through hoops for it? It feels... condescending to me to knowingly make someone do a task that could be automated just to give them a pay check.
Ever since the lamplighters lost their jobs its all gone downhill.
Bring back the gas station attendants, make everywhere New Jersey!
If cashier isn't a useful job, why are these mega-corporations trying to get me to do it for free?
Sorry, guess I was just living in reality and not a Pixar future where people get taken care of.
You're already wasting energy being angry about it. Might as well aim a little higher with the fantasy. We all deserve better.
So we should just maintain the status quo exactly as it is right now to make sure no one loses their job? Should we stop all automation to make sure that there's more jobs for people?
While raising prices, too.
On smaller packages! Ain't life grand?
(DON'T FORGET TO DONATE ON YOUR WAY OUT, THERE'S HUNGRY PEOPLE OUT THERE YOU KNOW)
My introversion and social anxiety is so estreme, that self checkouts make me imagine what I would do if I mess up something, or take too long to finish, or imagine people observing me and the way I interact with the machine.
Damn, I got a bit of anxiety just by writing this. The feeling is similar to using a computer while there are people constantly looking at my screen.
Yeah, some of them are continually recording video, which is annoying. Probably a bunch of facial recognition and emotion/behavior analysis too.
Don't forget the horrors of having to have someone's grandma sort though all your stuff since you look nervous.
Soon they will be contractors you have to pay from an app o.O
Don't forget to tip too
Or even better, a subscription based service. Because we need more of those!
"And he smiled his amiable smile."
I had the anti-self-checkout mentality for a bit, because I didn't want to see cashiers losing their jobs. One day at Target I was waiting in line at the human checkout, and the cashier started yelling at everyone in line that there were multiple self-checkout machines open. It sounded like she hated our guts.
Fine! I'll use the damn machines. Haven't bothered cashiers since then if I have other options.
edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming all cashiers for her attitude, I just want to do the right thing without being a pain in anyone's ass and I've learned that sometimes that means using self-checkout
Especially at Tesco with Scan&Shop. I don't even need to scan the items at checkout, just scan them as I shop.
It's annoying how a lot of stores ask you to join their club and get their credit card (as If I don't have enough already), before letting you into self-checkout.
agree so much :D
Cashier is one of the worst job you can. If machines can replace us for hard work, it's for the best.
Automation that replaces the need for work can be a good thing, but only if it is used to ease the overall burden instead of making a bunch of people unemployed so that the capitalists who own the company can increase their profits. The idea of machines doing all the work sounds great, but if that means that the handful of people who own the machines have a great quality of life and everyone else suffers then that is not a good trade-off.
This right here. Automation is fantastic. Get rid of those shit jobs so more people's quality of life can improve. Giving all that quality of life to a select few at the top is where the problem is.
Yeah. With power distributed the way it is now though (mostly concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy, connected people), every technological advance will be used against us. These technological advances could really make for a better life for everyone, but not when they're absolutely dominated by entities whose only real objective is taking as much from us as they possibly can.
I absolutely hate these. My local Aldi started doing this and the lines are longer than ever as a result. People who get paid to check out your groceries move faster than the customers themselves.
Wegmans just discontinued their app that let you scan your shit from your phone. I'm so pissed off that it got abused and they cancelled it.
We could have such nice things if people could just be cool.
Scan and go from walmart that let's you use the app to scan items as you shop has me now shopping at walmart again just for this one feature. Requires walmart+ though.
Why is everything + now lol that's such lazy naming
I hate self check out and what it's become.
It should be the '10 items or fewer' line. Not, a full cart. If you can't carry the items in a basket, you need to go in a regular line.
My local grocery store has like 9 self check outs, with 1 person sometimes staffed to fix them when they fail (not if, when) and they have 1 regular lane open. And everything ends up with a long line and it's infuriating. Oh and the manger standing in the back 'monitoring things' acting like they're doing anything, but isn't doing the right thing and opening up a new lane.
Also, far too many people are over leaving into 'im an introvert' and playing it up to poorly written teen sitcom levels.
"You could of saved $3.27 if your subscribed to BagBois™ last month"
Introvert here who loathes these fucking machines. Fuck them and their stupid errors. Yeah I put my fucking item in the bag.
Being an introvert means you get more comfortable with not chit chatting. You really don't have to.
It puts the lotion in the basket!
lol got a nice chuckle out of me!
I would love to use self checkouts more often, and need to interact with people less, but the frustration of trying to get those fucking grocery bags open is more traumatic than just going to a cashier.
As a previous cashier, best way to do it is to take your middle finger and swipe down across the center. Like a vertical slap on the bag's face. About the middle of the bag, pull your arm back towards you. It will usually separate the outside wall of the bag from the stack, and when you pull towards you, the bag will "stick" to your finger and then open at the top.
I hated moving slowly as a cashier, cause lines made me mad. So I had to find the quickest way to do everything, and that method works great (for me) until about the last 4 bags.
I completely forgot that there would still be some places with plastic bags at the register. I have a bin I bring and everything just drops in no problem.
i went to target the other day and they had it designed so the self checkout line emptied into 5 self checkouts and 1 normal register. i was in a bad mood and had headphones on and the lady kept trying to wave me over. was praying someone would finish up but no of course not
i happened to be buying a record so she said somewhat brashly 'you and your music huh'
look lady i don't even wanna be here
Just wave back, and keep waiting.
In my local supermarket i can scan the stuff on my phone and then pay from my phone. I usually use the checkout, but when i just need 2 items and theres a lot of people in line.. i mean here the advabtage is absolutely no line at all.
Whats the benefit of the self checkout?
I don't mind them. Where I do grocery shopping there aren't any, but even if there were, I'd still prefer going to a cashier in fear of messing up something. Even if I'm somewhat introverted, saying "Hi" and "Thanks, have a nice day" isn't particularly hindering. As for whether they're job killers I'm not sure; at that same place employees that are doing check out are doing everything else around the store as well.
As an introvert as well, nah gimme my cashiers back. Annoying ass self check-out machines, make one error and you gotta talk to someone anyway. Then gotta get your receipt checked, because how do we know you scanned everything? So now we're at 2 talkings. Just scan my stuff, cashier, please.
I prefer self checkout when I'm only buying a few items, which I usually am. The problem is when people try to bring full carts through the self checkout; that takes forever.
Maybe if the store is quiet. When there’s a bunch of people and you’re at the front of the line you better spot the free checkout the second it opens or people will start “helping” you.
And I hope you don’t mess anything up because everyone in line is judging you for not being able to swipe a gallon a milk or not being able to open a plastic bag and making them wait longer.
Instacart is the rich introvert’s choice.
I NEED self checkout. I can't go shopping unless it's in a small local store or there's a self checkout. My anxiety goes through the roof if I can't use one, so the only problem is people using self checkout with a full cart
The only cashiers I know would rather not ever have to talk to customers either. But they are pretty sour people in general and I don't know if that's common and of course it's basically saying they wish they had a different job. So I'm with the automate whatever you can just pay more taxes crowd. There will always be a place for human customer service, but now we have choices.
They make $9 an hour. How chipper do you want them to be?
*$7.25 an hour, and I was loudly and publicly threatened with the loss of my job because a customer thought I "wasn't smiling enough" over the Christmas rush and called the manager over.
I'd just had my brother cremated less than a week ago.
We generally aren't sour to each other when you're not looking. Can confirm years of watching customers literally stomp on shit directly in my line of sight so they can turn around and demand a discount because this item is inexplicably dirty or broken has made us very sour at everyone else.
One of them paid for a candy bar, ate the whole thing right there in line, and immediately demanded a full refund because "she didn't like it." Under the watchful direction of the same manager because "the customer is always right," I had to do that.
I wish people would come through my line and say nothing to me.
$16-20 here, but yeah, that's sort of my point I guess. I mean they're renting a studio on 25 hours a week and still hate everybody, so my thought was in their case less human interaction is the true solution. Of course they hate self check, too, for same reason as half this thread which is that when you do have to interact it's more awkward.
I'm an introvert who detests self-checkout. Why do extra work for free? It's not like you have to interact with the cashier in any meaningful way.
Faster and I can steal shit easier, duh
You wouldn't download a groceries.
Those fuckers that made that slogan are now out there downloading actors.
Good point!
What should they do instead, Mr. Astral Brain?
Perfectly sane response from a perfectly sane man.
So you have no suggestions. They just should die? They either work where you deem useful or have no income and perish?
The solution is a society without a "work or die" mentality, like you have right now.
We have passed the need where everyone must have a job. We can't keep inventing new jobs like influencing just to give everyone one.
It is okay if there are some members of society that don't contribute much. We aren't cavemen anymore where every person needs to work so the group doesn't die. Hell we already have business owners and landlords, who offload all their work onto others and do nothing for society except own stuff.
I identify as people.
50% agree!
Oh I hate those. Not because of the job taking, that was inevitable. I hate them because while when I deal with a cashier I can do some small talk, or just smile at someone and remind myself that I am still alive. I can also mask my underperforming brain with words. When I interact with a machine, it screams at me at super high volume to put my god damned item in a bag. Like OK, you don't have to warn the neighbors that I'm a bit slow. They already know!
Who on earth says this? Never have I heard someone complain about self-checkouts. It's faster than waiting in line for fifteen minutes when you just want to buy a slab of butter! And someone complaining they have to do the scanning sounds like a lazy, entitled jerk.
Burn the self checkouts to the ground
I am quite introvert, but I had more than enough bad experiences with self-checkouts, I won't touch them with a ten-foot-pole. Then people say: "But you are a computer guy, this should be your thing" - No, thanks. I recognize crap when I see it, especially in my line of business.
As an introvert i hate it. It's always loud and temperamental and really if anything i should get a discount for using it.
Once did a late night Walmart run for a bunch of random stuff. Only to come up to no cashiers. Luckily the sweet girl at the self check out saw my panic and used a bar code scanner to get me on my way
When it just scans tags as i push my cart through I'll consider self checkout. Otherwise it just feels like I'm working for free.
Yes, the convenience of the machine having an error and forcing me to wait while a supervisor wanders over to fix what I, or the machine screwed up.
I fucking hate these things. If they want me to ring up my own groceries they can fucking pay me.
Edit: and to those that think these are the greatest, you're all outstanding, grade A suckers.
Where I live they work just fine. Sounds like your problem is that your supermarket bought terribly made self checkout machines that keep failing.
Or it sounds like you shut-ins will do anything to not have to deal with people.
That's true but it isn't mutually exclusive.
Haha corporate profits are ok as long as i can be introverted xD
5 updoots for all my socialist friends out there
Here’s a tip: Get a better job.
You probably leave no tip when you eat out, right? I say that because this phrase is the one most associated with being put on the tip line on a check. Anyway, I’m not trying to attack you. It is just frustrating to hear people think some jobs are less important than others in terms of a livelihood. In my opinion it is more appropriate to point out that replacing that job with a robot allows the person replaced to do something different within their field.
That was just a rude comment to make.
I actually do tip, funny enough.