Anyone else notice that Self Check-Out registers haven't taken over?

[joeunderdog]

I thought that it would only be a matter of time before cashiers were all out of work. But (aside from Home Depot), I would say that not only didn't the automatic scanners take over, but the number of them has actually decreased in many businesses, particularly in supermarkets. Maybe people aren't finding them user-friendly or (people like me) aren't using them because they put Americans out of work. Could be that theft is an issue, too.

Anyone else have observations about this?

[RebelOne]

1. They are fine for just a few items, but if you have a basket full

of items, they are a big hassle.

[BOSSHOG]

2. I don't like the things at all

Heard an interesting story on Wait Wait don't tell me last weekend. Some guy in a Wal-Mart in Louisiana switched price tags on a pack of slim jims and a flat screen TV and went through the self-serve checkout. TV for about four bucks. However, his receipt was checked on the way out, busted on the spot.

I'd rather deal with a human. Same applies at airports which use the self-serve check in.

[soothsayer]

3. who needs carpal tunnel syndrome?

[candice]

4. They take a lot of time...when there aren't enough clerks at a checkout,

I mark the store off my list unless it is the only option and I REALLY need to buy something there. It's kind of like customer service that has been off-shored. It always takes forever, even if the person is trained. I had to spent half an hour trying to NOT get catalogs from Dell. The offshore rep really didn't understand the concept of a street number, and I had to spell everything repeatedly, things that any halfway educated local person would know. When a company sends "customer support" abroad, it is saying that my time isn't important. If there are options, I buy other products, or don't buy at all.

[marions ghost]

34. yep it relates to the off-shoring of customer service...

I'm avoiding Home Depot until they can wise up and get the checkers back. (They could just have one self-service lane for those who like them).

Lately had to call a doctor's office about a follow-up appt and got somebody in India trying to pretend not to be in India. Of course after a convoluted conversation she had to transfer the call to someone actually in the office. What a waste of time. It is like saying "our time" is more important than "your time..." After all we have more customers waiting...

In most cases I'd go elsewhere but when even basic services are being handled like this, you're stuck with it.

[kestrel91316]

5. I hate those damned things. I won't use them. I tried and found

the experience intolerable.

[Kingshakabobo]

21. Me too...

*beep* "unexpected weight"

*beep* "unauthorized removal of item"

*beep* "unexpected wight"

*beep* "please return item"

*beep* "please wait for assistance"


Me: Heeeelllllppp!!!!!!

[TahitiNut]

24. The LAST thing I need is to be nagged by a machine.

They're execrable! :grr: :puke:

Even worse, the 'supervisor' who oversees their use reminds me of a Jailer monitoring visits with inmates. The Big Brother experience is intolerable.

[Wickerman]

6. I enjoy going to Home Depot and having some nice young lad

have to help me figure out how to use the equipment. Happens every time. Guess they'll have to keep those non-checkers on to help people save Home Depot wages... :evilgrin:

[momster]

7. I Jinx Them

I have that same effect on a lot of electronics (my computers are all used to me, I guess, though I can still do damage to other people's.) So if I'm using a self-check-out, the 'help' light is bound to come on, slowing things up for everybody. It's not anything I *do*...but my merchandise is bound to have the one ill-printed sticker or the receipt jams or the printer runs out of ink...something every time. So I tend to let the professionals ring up my stuff. I have noticed that my local grocery had 'em for while and then went back to all-human. However, my dh loves the auto-cashiers because people tend to talk to him a lot which is fine, except when he's in a rush.

[blues90]

8. I see more and more of them

Especially im ralphs super markets and other stores . Home depot has more than the last time I was there and more people use them .

I think they are testing areas to see where they work . Look how ATM's began at a few banks and had deposite and cash withdrawl only as features now you can almost have sex right there on the spot . Now they are everywhere . Even the post office now offers stamps and shippingt via priority with a scale and everything right there even a drop box .

[Alexander]

9. The ones I see in Phoenix are absolute garbage

They don't work properly at all and a manager always needs to assist the poor customers who use them.

I was worried they'd put cashiers out of work (I was one myself back in high school), but since they're so awful, I'm not worried.

[Katherine Brengle]

10. I absolutely despise these things.

For one, I don't really want to ring my own groceries - I'd rather be bagging them as the cashier rings them - it's faster.

But primarily, it just pisses me off that we keep trying to replace people with machines. WHY? To save a buck? But the costs of constantly decreasing available jobs to the community as a whole is just not worth it.

Communities should, by the laws of physics, be self-sustaining until they reach critical mass, yes? More people means more need means more jobs means everyone wins. But when you start replacing those workers with computers, the numbers of jobs decreases as the need and population grows. Why does anyone think this is a good idea???

[lpbk2713]

11. I have stood in lines with 3 or 4 people ahead of me ...

while those things were unused. I get the feeling I would be contributing to someone being out of a job (even if it may be a crappy one) if I were to use it.

[Katherine Brengle]

12. Same here. The manager always comes over and tells me there are open

self-checkout registers and then looks at me like I have 12 heads when I say I am glad to wait for the cashier.

[pepperbear]

13. Give it time. They haven't been perfected yet...

They have been working on a scanner that can scan ALL of the merchandise in your shopping cart at once. When this technology becomes the new template, things will change.

[GOTV]

18. Absolutely....

When these machines are much better than people, people will use them.

If they could scan the entire cart at once, I think that will be the end of the cashier

[Mythsaje]

14. I find them annoying and cumbersome...n/t

[pitohui]

15. they HAVE taken over down here (labor shortage)

in the greater new orleans area there is such a shortage of labor that i have been assimmilated and if i want to buy anything in the way of groceries i pretty much have to scan and bag my own every time

[seemunkee]

16. I don't work for the grocery store

I hate those damn things. When I complained to one store manager that he didn't have enough checkers he pointed out the self checkout stands so I told him I wasn't his employee.
They must have received a number of complaints because I've noticed they seem to have a good amount of checkers lately

[sandnsea]

17. Not in my retirement town

Where nearly 50% of the shoppers are over 60? I don't think it'll ever be used much here. Our groceries would rot waiting for all the old people to get out of the store. Our groceries are also bagged as they go through the checkout and we can still get help out with the cart. Only one store has a self check-out lane. It's usually got people in it who are checking out less than 5 items. Other than that, it's not very popular here.

[RebelOne]

22. Why do you think that people over the age of 60

would be slow in using the self-checkout. I am 68 and can use those scanners in half the time of someone half my age. And 60 is not considered an old person.

[emilyg]

38. Yes

I'm around your age and love self-check. Faster for me.

[hatrack]

19. I refuse to use the damned things

When a clerk reminds me that the self-checkout line is open, I ask him or her one question:

"Do you think that you make too much money?"

Occasionally , it takes a beat or two, but I usually end up getting a grin out of them.

[bbgrunt]

20. don't worry. Soon they will have RFID chips in everything

and will automatically deduct your bill from your bank account as you leave the store.

[kenny blankenship]

23. Lots of people can't deal with buying produce on self-checkout registers

I like them though.

[Lance_Boyle]

26. GREAT for produce!

When "quantity needed" automagically translates to "buy one, the rest are free."

[NewJeffCT]

28. where I am, they have some sort of weight sensor in the belt

so, if you say that you're buying one cantaloupe, and it's really four, it will pick up on it... unless of course, you don't unload the extra 3 from your cart. But, then I'd worry about video surveillance.

[NewJeffCT]

25. It's very easy to cheat them

Normally, you have to manually type in produce by finding it on a menu - is the computer or video camera going to be able to tell if you punch in "bunch broccoli" that is on sale for $0.99 a pound when you really are buying "broccoli crowns" that are supposed to be $1.99 a pound? Buy a few pounds of broccoli crowns, and do that a few other times, and it can add up quickly in losses for the store.

Granted, if you buy things that have a UPC code on them, it's difficult to cheat that way - but, I assume produce is a big part of a lot of grocery stores.

Also - the rare times I do use them, I always seem to get stuck behind somebody that is using it for the first time, and inevitably does something wrong that will set off the trouble light and bring somebody from the store to help out.

[xultar]

27. Could it be due to the fact that they don't effin work? I hate them. For 1 to 3 items yes

more than 5 hell no I would never go to a self checkout.

They should be paying me everytime I use it.

[distantearlywarning]

29. I hate those things.

They never work right.

I've noticed that the employees don't like them either, and they spend just as much time helping the customers fix problems with their self-checkout as they would if they just checked them out by hand.

[BluePatriot]

30. Theft, probably.

Yeah, my hubby, has um...used those self checkouts to his advantage regarding produce. I try to discourage him from that.

[Catherine Vincent]

31. "PUT THE ITEM BACK INTO THE BAG!!"

Drives me nuts.

[mondo joe]

33. I love that - I have a game of getting the item into the bag faster than the automated

voice can say it and then I respond insultingly.

To tell the truth, I don't much do it any more because the grocery I now shop at has no self serve.

[tomreedtoon]

32. They don't work because people are STUPID.

I've used these a lot, especially when I have a few items to scan. I walk up to the register, ATM card in hand, pass the items over the scanner and am out of there in a minute.

Now, take the average person. She walks up to the register. She reads the screen. (Yeah, lady, the instructions have changed in the last day or so. Sheesh.) She waits until the machine's audio track TALKS to her ("Please start scanning your items or choose a language.")

To give her moronic child a Life Lesson in how to buy things, she lets the epsilon-minus spawn of her loins do the scanning of items. This takes longer. Not that she'd know how to do it any faster, of course.

Eventually, she finishes. She waits for the machine to say "If you have finished scanning your items, touch Total and Pay." Then she bends over to read the screen to find the big red "Total and Pay" button, like she's too vain to wear glasses and read things, or her reading skills are lousy to begin with.

THEN she roots through her purse for a minute to find her charge card or the money. Perhaps she was hoping the machine would buy her groceries for her. Then she goes through the agonizing process of payment, touching the buttons slowly as if she's afraid the machine would kill her. If I were engineering the machine, I would have put in something that at this point would at least give her a memorable electric shock to get her fat butt in motion.

At last, she grabs her kid who is trying to empty the contents of a trash can, and heads out of the store.

For God's sake, I'm no genius, but I know how to think a few steps in advance and get this job done fast. Most people can't. The inability to think ahead is endemic among Americans, and it's probably the real reason they voted for Bush - they couldn't think ahead to see what he was going to do.

[eggman67]

40. "epsilon-minus spawn of her loins "

:rofl:

Funniest thing I've seen all day! Thanks for that. :)


It's also nice to see I'm not the only on that feels this way. I pretty much only use self-checkout and I generally fly through with no problems at all.

[bluethruandthru]

35. I'll use them when they give me a discount for doing so.

I quit going to the no frills supermarket years ago because I was expected to bag my own groceries. But, at least for doing that I was getting lower prices. If I'm going to pay the prices of a "premium" supermarket...they better scan and bag my groceries!

I don't mind as much at Home Depot or Target.

[proud patriot]

36. I don't use them

I much perfer going to the cashier even if it's a longer wait.

[TXDemGal]

37. I make it a point never to use them

'cuz I'd rather deal with a living human that has a JOB, possibly one with at least some paltry benefits. I've stated my view to my husband, but he always seems to try to use the self-checkout. Thing is, half the time (or more) he reports that the thing is so wonky that he ends up having to get help from a human anyway. And this is a guy with a doctorate in computer science, so he's no dummy.

[Mike Daniels]

39. I'll pick the self service over waiting in line anytime

If I can be out of the store faster by doing it myself I'll check out my own groceries every time.