Self Service Checkouts

So what is it with a self service checkout? Am I the only person that hates them? Or am I just blowing smoke? Let us start at the beginning, as that is usually the best place. The ‘Supermarkets‘ decided it would be very helpful if they could provide a self service checkout, that allowed us to scan our own products and pay and leave. A perfect idea! I never want to engage with a bored checkout operator who cannot be bothered to smile in a customer facing role, and generally have the manners of cave men. Both men and women, young and old. So initially this all sounds perfect doesn’t it?

Firstly, if I am going to be doing my own shopping checkout, then as I am doing the work, I expect a discount on the shopping as the ‘Supermarkets’ have not had to pay for said zombie to serve me, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense. Do I get a discount? No I do not.

Secondly, if I have shopping, you can guarantee that as soon as I start, a problem occurs and I have to wait, with the little red light flashing, for some equally brain dead zombie to come over and look at me like I’m a piece of poop, and then scan the till with their magic card, like that is hard to do, for goodness sake, why can’t they just leave one of them damn cards hanging on the side, I’m happy to scan it myself and speed up this tedious process.

Then, I have a light item, place it in my bag, and the till says “place item in bagging area” well guess what, I have done that and it isn’t working, so lo and behold the red light comes on and I look in distress as zombie person comes over and scans the machine again with a magic card.

This doesn’t even begin to deal with adult items such as alcohol, and yes, I do understand that there is an age limit, so why not issue identification or use a credit card to make sure the person is over age, instead of making me wait for zombie person to come over, and look at me with disinterest and scan their bloody card again.

Have you ever tried having a bigger shop go through one of those self service checkouts? Well when one bag is full and you have no more room, then you remove it to use the next one, you will get that message “item removed from bagging area” so you have to put it back and balance all of the shopping in a precarious manner.

Then I want to check out, have I used my own bags, I don’t think so, because I just want to get out as soon as possible, but would you actually ever know if I didn’t and said I did anyway? At last I can pay by cash, and in goes a £20 note, will I get the minimum change needed? No I won’t! I’m going to get about nine million 1p and 2p pieces and no notes, just a tonne of change that sounds like I have won on the fruit machine whilst I pick it up. Sometimes I think there is so much change, it is going to say, please clear coins before it issues me with the remaining coinage.

This all came about because my office know how to wind me up, they pick a subject and watch me go as I get myself worked up into a stew. You may realise by now that in principle I applaud the idea of a self service checkout, but in practice I think the idea stinks. What do you think? Good or bad? Have you had a bad experience? I would love to hear your stories in the comments below and hopefully get the ‘Supermarkets’ listening to consumer critique for a change. It’s a little bit like “did we really want the channel tunnel or not”? Don’t get me started!