Self-service checkouts. If there’s a queue, do you wait to be called forward by the staff?

[IntentionalError]

And, if so, why?

I have been in several busy supermarkets recently and people just stood blankly at the head of the queue waiting for a staff member to call them to use an available machine. If the staff member is busy, this can result in a queue of frustrated customers & unused machines, which is daft. I have taken to pointing out unused machines to people in front of me if they are not using them. Why do people do this?

There ended up nearly being a fight in our Asda Trolley scan just before Xmas, about 15 people waiting one bloke with a massive trolley on his phone slowly scanning every item and placing it unbagged on the side, then stopping to talk on his phone, finally paid whilst still on his phone. Then proceeded to open his bags and slowly start moving every item into his bags, was painful to watch until a man went up to him took his phone off him and pointed to the chaos he was causing (about 30 people waiting at this point) and threatened to launch him and his shopping he quickly packed his bags

@quicklybeendrivenmad Was there only one checkout?

I actually had the impression that if there are staff there you’re meant to wait for them to call you and not just go forward.

If not then why are they there at all looking like they’re doing crowd control.

In case people don't see an empty checkout, to speed things up, to call forward people who can use a card only machine, and to assist with checkout problems, alcohol id, tag removal and so on.

No there is about 8 but everybody had massive trolleys, the manned checkouts had queues down the first part of the isle down to the middle so was very slow I was in the basket scan and only saw it because I had to wait for age verification and heard the bloke kicking off at him then saw how much bigger the queue had got

No we just go to the checkout in turn

Why would you need to wait to be called forward? The tills don’t need a rest between customers

I usually do keep an eye out so that I notice when somebody has finished with one of the tills and then I go to that till.

But sometimes I just lose attention because im either daydreaming or focusing on something else and I don’t notice, or perhaps, I can’t see the other tills due to people standing in my direct line of sight.

I’m just saying they make it seem like that!

Feel free to just crack on without waiting.

this is what local staff have told me, too. I know the supermarket staff as school mums not just as Sainsbury's workers: they all say they haven't lost hours after SS machines were installed.

Customers also wait & wait to avoid the card-only machines where we are.

Other problem is sometimes the 'free SS till' is actually out of order machine.