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.
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I love self checkout. It allows me to scan avocados for my daily avocado toast as russet potatoes. Only 50 more years of that and I'll be able to afford a house!
I pictured the people overseeing self checkout calling you the potato guy amongst themselves
We 100% know and 95% of us don't care lol.
Also, if any readers want to try this, the people most likely to care are older workers, but they're also the least likely to notice.
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.
I absolutely agree with all those points and I'm glad self-check oot exists, however... When you stand in line for 10 minutes at the hardware store to get up to one of four kiosks, and something scans as an invalid UPC. Now you're waiting for one cashier that servicing four registers. Or you're at Target and there's only four self checkouts open. Zero regular lanes and you've got a cart full of groceries You've just spend an hour curating. Each one of those checkouts is able to handle about two bags.
You can pull the self checkout option out of my rigid, dead, introverted hands.
Most times the corpos have the employees watching you like a damn criminal during self-checkout, I find talking to the cashier much less awkward
I haven't had this experience, thankfully. I usually have the opposite problem where I need assistance, and I look around helplessly as I wait for someone to notice me.
Have you had that lovely experience where some giant camera overhead shows you it's recording your face on the screen as some kind of deterrent?
That deterred me alright. From shopping there.
Self-checkout is the best thing that happened to shops, I wish more had it. No waiting in long lines, no talking to people. Perfect.
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'm also not an employee of the vending machine company. I'm also not an employee of the gas station.
I don't really see what added value a cashier checking out my items for me has.
There was also a time when people would get pay to press an elevator button for you. But we don't do that anymore because those things are super easy and having someone doing it for you won't make the process faster.
On the other hand, the thing that pisses me off the most about the self-checkout is that people take forever to scan their stuff. When I was working as a cashier I would have an average of 50 clients/hour. There ain't no way those self checkout are more efficient considering the time people take.
From what I've seen, the slower average time is made up for by having more of the stations. Depending on arrangement, you can fit three self checkouts in the same area as one traditional checkout. In my experience, the self checkout line is always moving faster overall.
This is such a boomer take.
Nah fuck that, the machines are scabs, I want someone to earn a paycheck for work.
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.
Not to mention the constant paranoia and assumption that you're stealing from them whilst saving them an immense amount of labour costs. Cameras watching your every move and "UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA".
Makes for such an enjoyable shopping experience...
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.
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?
Look at these plebs pumping their own gas
My local grocery store self checkout after every single item:
Unexpected item in bagging area.
If they're going to treat me like I'm stealing the groceries I'm paying for, making the process slow and inefficient, then I'm just going to go to the regular checkout and not deal with it.
Haven't heard that in forever. It was hell for some time, but it seems a solved problem everywhere I've gone, for many years.
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.
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.
Self-check out makes it easier to steal from the mega corporation. 🤷🏻♂️
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)
I don't know how the self-checkout is constructed in Belgium, but in the US (at least, the stores I go to), the self-checkout is a small kiosk with a small weight-sensitive platform where you bag your groceries. You're supposed to scan each item and then place it in the bag so the scale can register it, and then scan and bag the next item, and so on. The problems are that:
- The technology is buggy and doesn't always recognize that you've bagged an item, so it locks up and won't let you scan your next item until an attendant comes to assist.
- Certain items like cooking wine or cough syrup or matches require proof that you're old enough to purchase it (again, an attendant has to get involved)
- If god forbid you take a second to rearrange items in one of your bags to make more room for your next item, the stupid machine nags you and then - yep you guessed it - locks up until an attendant comes.
- The machine-monitored security camera sometimes misinterprets what it sees you doing. For example, one time I was done scanning my items and realized I was still holding onto my shopping list, so I tucked it into my pocketbook as I was getting my credit card out. The camera must've thought I was stealing something, so it locked up until an attendant came to review the video footage.
- The bagging platform is too small for a full week's worth of groceries, so it's really only useful if you're picking up a handful of items, meaning you still need to go through an attended line if you're doing your weekly shop.
Honestly I prefer bagging my own groceries, and if the problems with self-checkout were fixed, I'd be happy to only do self-checkout. But the way it is now, it's annoying to use.
Cashier line: Empty
Me: "I don't come here to talk to people"
its funny at one regional market here, the cashiers are fed up with people being stupid and neet help or are even stealing. so sadly its disabled most of the time. at a different place, there keeps being a loooong line, but literaly noone uses the self checkout. it is so useful. if i forgot something or just gotta get coffee beans, i quickly swing by that place because i know no matter how busy it is, i dont have to wait in line xD
Well wait in line then...
But there's also a line for self checkout.
"I don't work here, and I refuse to be a class traitor." Fuck corporate greed that kills jobs for more profit.
My grocery store recently got rid of their self checkout machines, and I'm actually upset by it. It went from having 6 self checkout lines plus the cashiers to only the cashiers, and now it takes like three times longer to buy my shit.
Also I'm team self check out because I dont want to talk to people
I tend to buy so much booze that self check out is a hassle.
It's always a hassle for me. Items not scanning. The machine screaming about the item not weighing correctly. The machine screaming at you because you moved your item.
It's great for quick purchases. But I'm going to a cashier if I have more than 10 items.
Honestly with my social anxiety, self checkout works perfectly for me. I feel a hard to describe tension when being rung up by most folks that I don't feel when ringing myself up, and if I'm just popping in for a few things I'd rather not stress myself out more than I need to.
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