Has anyone else noticed how deathly quiet and depressing . . .

[trythisforsize]

supermarkets become when they change over to self service tills?

My aldi used to be really lively and chatty but 2 weeks ago they installed 10 self service checkouts and only one normal checkout left. . Now it's like a morgue. I hate going there. I stopped going to a local sainsbury's due to this.
Shopping in silence makes me feel depressed, self conscious and generally crap.

I'm going to shop elsewhere where it's mainly proper checkouts.

The way shopping has gone is sad isn't it?

@User639762456

You do realise that it's possible to mullti task , have a chat and pack stuff away,
I assume@MYSTERIOUSGIRLONLINE is female,
So multi 🙄 tasking is easier for her,
You should try it,

I agree that I like usaul hustle and buslse of life, too, but sometimes I just prefer to go in and out doing my food shopping In a quieter environment.

I can't stand quite loud music blaring at times in Supermarkets and cafes,
I wish they would lower tone of music just have in background.

I like your username@MYSTERIOUSGIRLONLINE
Reminds me of that Film I saw called
The Girl on train .

Thank you for your lovely post! Yes I'm female and mum to 2 kids and a grandmother to a newborn grandson so multitasking comes naturally to me. I
I'd never dream of holding anybody up in a queue as one person commented on here though I've had so much support from others so thank you so much!
I'm new on here and my username is actually I loved Peter Andres song Mysterious Girl. I know cheesy lol. I just thought that'll do and added on the online to it. Thank you for your compliment! I've never heard of the film you mentioned, sounds good.
Have a lovely day and thanks again x

@Goodread1 I think you tagged me by mistake, it was probably another User username, I only moaned about lack of service and weighing veg in my posts, nothing about chatting and holding people up

Apologies! I just realised I'd sent my message to the wrong person! Thanks!

It's not silent when I use self service, she (the screen) tells me that there's something wrong with my bagging area regularly and I in turn tell her to f* off. If you don't like the silence, sing while you scan 😂

I much prefer self-service.

I've just been to my local supermarket, which was very busy. The line of people waiting for the self-service tills was very long, I had to ask people to move to get between them and the freezers. When I had finished I walked straight up to a manned till, had my groceries scanned and packed and walked out - all for no extra charge - and for the anti-social among us the only chatting was to ask if I wanted everything in one bag.

What annoys me about supermarkets are the staff who are stocking shelves while I am trying to shop, especially when they walk away and leave a large container with goods on it in front of the shelves, or carrying on working even though it should be obvious I am trying to get to the shelves! Ditto the people who stop for a chat and block the aisles with their trolleys. None of that is stopped by self-service tills.

yes I agree bloody hate self services tills too. always have issues with them not scanning something or if an item has a reduced sticker on got to wait ages for an assistant to come and help. the whole experience is stressful and takes about 4 times as long as it would at a regular check out. I get incredibly stressed and end up shouting at the machine aswell.
my parents who are pensioners refuse to use them as they are too scared of getting in a mess and find it all too stressful. it's the older generation I feel sorry for.

yes I agree actually human face to face interaction is becoming a thing of the past. Very very scary and worrying. I already see this lack of confidence with my teen dd. having communicated though typed message for so long she struggles with telephone calls or face to face interaction with strangers. she has no confidence to ask for things in shops etc. I'm mid 40s my generation had no choice and we grew up interacting way more with people and were much happier and more confident for it. They world is becoming as sad place of isolation.

Thank you for your messgae! Using a self-service till if I've one or two items and in a hurry I'll use them especially if queues everywhere but I do opt the old fashioned way of being served by a cashier. It's just how I am being old school in ways I guess and I do feel for people especially the elderly trying to work out these machines especially when having to keep calling assistance. Shopping can be stressful enough as it is.

For some people a conversation with a cashier may be the only human contact they have in a day/week.

@Perime but why? There are plenty of places available for conversation.
If a person can get to a supermarket they can get a place where other people are.

You are being obtuse.
Where we live it is easy for someone to step out to the village shop. To go anywhere that people gather involves using infrequent public transport.

Not everywhere has these kind of places as easily accessible as the local shop.

@RampantIvy a village shop is a very different environment to a large supermarket though and will have more of a community feel and is more normal for customers and staff to chat.
A mega Tesco Extra is different.

Oh give it a rest!! You have a very black and white view of how things work. Some of us deal with the elderly and KNOW that it is not as simple as you seem to think. If I were elderly I could get to the supermarket, it's just down the road from where I live, that doesn't mean I could easily get somewhere else. If I needed a taxi to get my shopping I would, that doesn't mean I have available funds to go gadding around town to social functions. People have to eat so of course they will go shopping, that doesn't mean they have the money, good health etc. to go to other things as well.

@magicthree I see if from a retail workers point of view (20 years experience here) - a lot of the time we simply hadn't got time to chat to customers (beyond the polite "isn't it sunny today" and "do you need a bag" conversation).
I seemed to always have half a dozen different things needed doing in one day. For example - unpacking a delivery and putting the stock out, reducing prices on stock to clear, changing a display of special offers, keeping the displays tidy, rotating stock with best before dates, sorting through faulty returns to check they are actually faulty....this all had to be done while simultaneously keeping an eye on the checkouts and serving on the till if needed and doing customer assistance on the sales floor.
Sorry....but I didn't have time to stop and chat to someone.

This. they are incredibly stressful to use even figuring out where the slot is to put cash. I hate them. I missed a tram recently as I couldn't use the ticket machine trying to figure out which zones I needed to select that i was going to be travelling in it was all incredibly complicated and stressful. was so much easier when could just pay the driver. bloody hate this automated world.

Yes if I add a time stress factor like oncoming bus train etc I completely freak out. If I take it slow I can just about manage a car park machine as long as there is no queue lol.

I went to Boost today fir tte first time in a while.
Yep we had the self service till. And yes it was VERY quiet!! I was surprised at the difference it made tbh.

Same with M&S. New self service thingy. The result was a poor woman running ragged because there was issues on every till - missing labels, people struggling …. Not sure it will help.

No proper till available either - unlike supermarkets.

The last two trips I made to Boots (different stores) the self service checkouts were useless. The single staff member knew and was basically serving 4 or 5 people at the same time, flitting from till to till overriding whatever error.
I understand that they need to prevent stealing, but when the bar is so low that normal behaviour isn't accounted for it just makes for a shitty customer experience.

My nearest B&Q has moved to self scan since I last visited.
I cannot see how service was improved.
They had 4 tills (3 SS and one manned). There was one member of staff responsible for all 4 so because all the SS tills were either broken or kept giving warnings, the manned till wasn't.

I had a go at the SS - it wasn't easy to hoist the bag of compost up to the scan window. Then it kept asking me if I wanted to continue. Then it said "colleague login needed" and that was it - dead. The member of staff suggested that I'd scanned something that needing age verification. Nope - I was buying plants and compost. She was obviously flustered and getting increasingly so as a queue developed.

I'm sure it will ease but it really wasn't a pleasant visit. It's just me and teen DS at home and having a little chat with a checkout person as they scan my plants on a lovely sunny day would have been nice.

how odd.

This.

@TheOrigRights last time I went to B&Q they had got R.D. of the self scanning till due to the high number if items ‘disappearing’
same with my local LIdl.

This was quite a while ago. I’m wondering if they will have another go now…

Ive often thought shops must be making a massive loss with these self service check outs and scan&go etc. I know a few (dodgy) people who openly admit to stealing, scan one, miss one etc! millions must be stolen each year.