Idk why people complain about self checkout. I absolutely despise having to interact with someone at the store. The fact that I have to be around all these people is bad enough please don’t make me talk to them.
Nobody at the self checkout is holding me up because they are having a chat with the cashier. No one in the self checkout is holding me up because they want to talk about every item I purchased like it’s some rare lost artifact. No one in self checkout is causing me to be “in the slow line” because one line feeds to multiple kiosks. No self checkout ever struck up an unwanted conversation with me, or caused me to roll my eyes in irritation with their inability to figure out how to pay wirh some obscure format, or wait for 10 mins for some stupid price check or price compare with a website or another store or whatever.
I get my shit, and I leave unbothered. I’m not working for the company any more than I am by picking my own food off the shelf. I am, however, unburdening myself of other people. I actively avoid places with no self checkout.
Amen.
There are two stores at the end of the road into my neighborhood. The one on the other side has several self checkout stations so I exclusively go there now. I haven’t had to speak to anyone in months. It’s awesome
This is such a boomer take.
Nah fuck that, the machines are scabs, I want someone to earn a paycheck for work.
Nah fuck that ain’t having time to hang around the whole checkout lane bullshit just to luddite around.
It’s shit work that most people don’t want to do.
I have never met a machine that offered to weigh your bags before you start that didn’t immediately fuck everything up if you accepted that offer
Then you will pay higher prices.
I load garden shit at Lowe’s. Sometimes we get blown out and people bitch for faster service. OK. We can always hire more people, any given business’ top expense. Then we charge more. Then the customer bitches about prices and goes to Home Depot. Where they don’t have as much staff. Rinse and repeat.
Banks had no problem slapping a “Teller transaction” fee on withdrawals when ATMs became ubiquitous, to encourage people to use the ATM for free.
That fee is outside my experience. Was that a short-lived thing? Never heard of it, certainly never saw it or heard anyone complain. Weird.
ATMs are not cost free. They’re not merely a kiosk. You have to pay armed men to load/unload them. And not any dude with a pistol will do. I imagine the background check is damned exclusionary.
And then there’s the networking, video and storage, upkeep and updates, all that, it goes on. But of course that still tallies a lower cost than a human, or they wouldn’t do it!
I want
shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work lessto pay more to compensate actual human beings doing actual work and I’m not kidding.
Look, saying “I don’t work here” to avoid using self-checkout completely misses the point. Technology has always evolved by shifting little tasks onto the user in exchange for speed and convenience. It’s not about “working for free,” it’s just self-service - like when grocery stores first let people grab stuff off shelves instead of asking a clerk behind a counter. At the time, some people probably whined about it too, but now nobody thinks twice because it’s way faster and gives you more control. Same thing with ATMs - you used to have to stand in line and talk to a bank teller just to get cash, now you punch a few buttons yourself. Are you ‘working for the bank’ when you use an ATM? No, you’re just getting your money faster without the hassle. Self-checkout is the same idea: a tiny bit of effort, way more convenience. Complaining about it like it’s some moral stand is honestly missing the bigger picture.
That’d be a great point if self-checkout was anywhere near as convenient as an ATM. But it’s not, it’s literally the same machine a cashier uses, bolted onto a card reader. There’s no added convenience unless you’re buying literally only one item. It’s not innovation, it’s outsourcing labor to the customer so the company can cut jobs and boost profits. You’re doing 100% of the work they used to pay Someone for.
You are completely wrong about this. The cashier UI is less friendly and has lots of functions. Many are designed to be used with a keyboard or with small touch targets.
The user UI can basically do nothing but add items and pay. It is drastically simplified with few larger buttons and a greater degree of thought put into UI as you don’t get to train every user to use your UI.
To me, this has always been more of a boomer complaint.
The things boomers complain about aren’t always wrong. I ain’t their damn employee.
I always wonder if people complained about stores when we started to get the merchandise out of the warehouse ourselves.
Something like, “why isn’t there a clerk getting the groceries on my list for me, I don’t work here, I shouldn’t have to go into the back and get my own shit.”
I prefer bagging my own shit anyways when I go shopping. I don’t break shit and at least in my area it looks like they disabled the weight shit or set the tolerances higher so I’m not constantly told to bag something I already did or getting told I bagged something without scanning .
Now it’s pretty good actually.
I mean, sure, I’m not there employee either, but I’m also not going to be snarky with a similar response.
People working those jobs aren’t from a passion for registers or retail commerce. They don’t have many options or can only work part time to accept a low paying job with few responsibilities other than keeping accurate count when making change. I’ll prefer cashiers until we have better social support for people that need those jobs.
I agree 100%.
Those self checkout lanes are only there so they can cut jobs while charging more for groceries.
I’ll defer to @whotookkarl 's comment as they put it best. No one “wants” those jobs.
I don’t “want” my job either, but I do it to make a living. If local jobs disappear from the community so some rich guy can add another million dollars to his pile, that reduces the number of entry level jobs available locally to people getting into the job market with no safety net in place for them. Just so they can not pass the savings along to us.
I mean we can agree on some things, no? I literally want to stand there while someone checks out my stuff. I have to work to pay for stuff? Oh sweaty.
If I have to self checkout, I should get a discount since an employee was not needed.
Sure, I’m not saying it’s exclusively a boomer complaint, just that boomers tend to complain about it more from my perspective.
I’m all for getting out of there as fast as possible. If I’m in line at self checkout and a cashier says “I can get you here”, I’m over there.
But generally, I prefer self checkout.
OK Boomer.
Do you get the stuff off the shelf for yourself though, or give a list to the stock boy like when you were growing up?
Seriously, you want me to do the job of a cashier and a bagger, give me a 15% discount or go fuck yourself.
Self-checkout gang here. I like my groceries bagged a certain way and it’s mildly infuriating to sort stuff on the conveyor belt only for the cashier and/or bagger to mix them randomly in the bags.
Having somebody bag your items is such a USA thing.
Eh, I come from a 3rd world country and baggers are common. In fact, it makes more sense that jobs like those are more common in places with cheaper labor.
Cashiers everywhere around here stopped to put things in the bags for at least 10 years now. I still remember the good times when the bags were carefully and properly put by them with all the items magically fitting. Good old times. Nowadays there’s barely a difference between self checkout and using a human operated one. The main difference is that on self checkout I’m not rushed and can take my time to put the items how I want in the bags.
The self-checkout at Aldi is a godsend. Way too many times I’ve been on my lunch break trying to buy a sandwich and snack, only for some old git to be using the time at the till to have a chinwag with the cashier!
By all means, have a chat with the cashier, but not when there’s a massive queue of people waiting behind you! Also, you know those shelves near the window with the sign saying “Pack here”? That’s not a suggestion. Pack your shopping away from the tills so people can keep buying stuff.
Cashier line: Empty
Me: “I don’t come here to talk to people”
If I look at this topic the American skewedness is so obvious.
In Belgium the only thing you get by going the old fashioned way is they scan your shit and push it off at the end or you need to rush to put it in your cart. Same in The Netherlands. There are no baggers.
So yeah, let me just scan my items, put them in my bags like I want them, scan the thing at the self checkout, put scanner in tray, pay, walk out.
Every so often you get a bag check and if less people cheated on their scanning there would be less of that (is what they hope you think)
American here. Love going to Aldi. Cheap as hell and I can bag as I like it. (My first job was grocery bag boy, I know how I want it.)
I think Amazon tried that here and shut it down
This only works in a respectful society that isn’t exploited
Nope, I gotta price match. I will wait for the cashier.
If you don’t trust me to the point where you’re going to point 2 security cameras at me while I checkout, and this is your idea of “more efficient”, then I can grocery shop somewhere else.
Hate to tell you but there are cameras on the “regular” checkout lanes too and they think everyone is stealing all the time.
8 hous at $15 an hour is $120
Two security cameras. At most $2000
Assuming the register is basically the same price
Do you want to pay a person to stand and scan groceries for 2 weeks for $1200?
Or do you want to spend $1200 on cameras that will last years?
30k+ a year vs. $1200 once
People could steal 29k worth of stuff, and the company would still makes the same profit.
The cameras are basically security theater anyways. No one is ever going to watch the footage unless needed.
The efficiency is definitely there
Sure, what you’ve described is cost efficiency for the store. I think the person you’re replying to is more concerned with efficiency in their shopping experience, which won’t be improved by lower costs given that the savings will just be funneled to corporate execs and board members (depending where you’re shopping).
Would you rather have 2-3 lines with cashiers or 6+ self checkouts?
I would say I would get out of the store way faster doing self checkout. I call that efficient.
Places like Sam’s Club with their Scan and Go checkout. I can scan all my groceries with my phone as I put them into my cart. Then I just walk under an arch with cameras that scans what barcodes it can. Then I walk out the door. I don’t even have to wait in line or go to a self checkout.
Cashiers aren’t efficient
If the company had to pay cashiers, then the prices of goods are just going to go up. Corporate execs and board members want the money.
So, do you let the Corporate execs and board members save money and hope not to raise prices (maybe lower them), or make them pay a cashier so they are going to raise prices.
Even though I hate the “please place the item in the bag!” “Unscaned item in bagging area!”. Self checkouts are efficient, and the future.
I tend to buy so much booze that self check out is a hassle.
