to be driven almost to the point of violence by self-serve machines in supermarkets?

[quesadilla]

They've been around long enough now that you'd think the manufacturers could have ironed out some of the teething problems. But they just seem to be so pedantic about stuff that really doesn't matter.
Why the frick does it matter if there's an unexpected item in the bagging area? Its not a security risk? Why can't I, once I've scanned the fecker, just put my newspaper and my croissant into my own bag without having to put it the sodding bagging area without the entire thing melting down? Why do I need authorization to buy a single can of lager when I'm old enough to be the grandmother of most of the employees in the shop?
These supermarkets bleat on about a) customer services and b) cutting operating costs. And yet these things make life infinitely more complicated and drive people like me to the point where I have to be restrained from taking a hammer to them.

They are intolerable. I particularly resent them because they just enable shops to cut down on staff. I'd much rather have a real person serve me - it's nice to have some human interaction, and after all, the money these companies make I'm inclined to feel they have a moral duty to employ as many people as reasonably possible. Not to mention the fact that they involve getting the customer to do thesame work for free while passing it off as some kind of convenience feature. Vile. At least give me a discount for using them. Not that that would persuade me anyway, but it's the principle.

I refuse to use them even if it means queuing much longer.

sparklingbrook In Tesco you can at least mute them
Really ????
I never realised that!
Am off in a minute to Tesco & will be checking this to be true.

I'm probably being dim but why do you have to use the bagging area? Once your shopping has been scanned into the computer it has a record of what and how much it is, so why can't you put it into your bag at your feet or somewhere else?

I thought to myself in Sainsbury's once " I've only got a few things, why not use the self service" . It was my Michael Douglas "falling down" moment. It's not safe for me to use them any more, I'm feeling stressy just thinking about it.

I have no idea, SDTG. They were in such a flap that I hadn't the heart to make their morning any worse.

Apparently my local Sainsbury's (student area) has the highest rate in the country of people defrauding the shop by claiming they are weighing something cheap like onions but actually it's steak or similar. The self-service area is always quite heavily staffed these days, and there is often less of a queue for the basket-only staffed tills, which are usually much quicker.

B&q wanted me to put the 120L bag on compost on the scales but advised me the tomato seeds were a "heavy item" and to leave in trolley.

Surely the programmers aren't that stoopid???

YANBU.

They drive me mad.

They are really badly designed and especially bad for certain groups of people (obviously including people with sight difficulties but also including dyslexics like me). Every single fucking time I say politely that no, I wouldn't rather use the self-serve, I would rather continue waiting in the queue for the normal till, I have to argue the case with someone who insists on saying 'but they're free' or 'they're really easy' or 'I'll talk you through it'.

I really hate the attitude some people have that you must use these - or you must use the pay-at-pump option at petrol stations. It makes people who struggle feel like idiots. I often feel like turning round and explaining no, I'm not holding up the line for the sake of it so please stop tutting at me - I'm holding up the line because some officious idiot has told me to use the self-serve and won't take no for an answer.

Whew, I feel better for saying that!

I'm with MadBusLady, they're really easy to use, they're faster than normal checkout and I prefer a recorded voice to an insincere shop assistant asking me how I am. Genuine question - is it the lack of human interaction that bothers people, or a mistrust of computers/machines?

To everyone who wants to know why you have to put the item in the bagging area - it's so you don't scan one and put two in your bag. It's to stop theft. Doesn't work obviously with the option to select vege items that go by weight, as exexpat pointed out.

I like them

Btw, I posted in anger (!), but I should say, I do know it's not the staff's fault. And especially, it's not their fault in my local co-op that, apparently, they are required to tell me they will help me with it even though they know perfectly well they can't, and will have instead to go away and sort out all the other things they're doing.

orbis - did you mean to sound quite so patronizing with your 'genuine question'?

No, it's neither of those things. It's the fact that, for some of us, they are not easy to use. Not everyone has quite the same abilities you take for granted.

I love them. I hate people and with them I don't have to endure inane chatter from a human.

I don't like using them because I feel they put people out of jobs. The more people they can convince to use them the less cashiers they have to pay. If we all as consumers refuse then the companies will have to hire more people. Plus they are really annoying. Also I pay the same amount of money for my items as someone who is being helped by a staff member but I am doing the work. Seems like a con to me.

I love 'em.

Good conversationalists, on a quiet day.

I would never force anyone to use them, but we are encouraged to ask people if they would like to use them, so I say would anyone like to use the self scans, some people say ok if you help me, so I do it for them if they ask me to but talk through what I'm doing.

I know they are not for everyone and if they would rather queue at the other tills that's fine too.

I've said it before and I will say it again. My local Tesco has lovely helpful staff. The lad I had last time packed beautifully, I was in a hurry and throw it out the trolley in a total pickle. It came out the end all neat and sorted. Four bags full in the time it takes me to get 4 items through a self service till.

Btw, I am angry at the moment because of this incident (which might make some people saying they're easy and that we don't 'have' to use them understand a little better where the rage comes from).

I was going through Heathrow last week, and I had a boarding pass with a barcode on, placed inside a holder which also had a barcode on the back of it. I have very little visual memory and I struggle to work out which symbols relate to what. The boarding gate required that you scan your barcode, and the screen flashed up a moving demonstrating of how to do this, which I couldn't process at all.

After struggling a few times, the woman working the gates called across 'you with the red bag, you need to do it properly'. I asked could she come and help me, or could someone scan it for me, and she said no. Despite the fact a sign said that if you didn't have a boarding pass with a barcode, you could ask to be checked through manually, so obviously the option existed.

Eventually she came over, and turned out I'd been scanning the wrong barcode, which I would not have worked out. Her response when I explained I genuinely found it very hard to cope with lots of visual symbols? 'Oh, it's just like the self-service in the supermarket, which everyone uses'.

I really could do without it being assumed that these things are easy for 'everyone'. They're not.

I've taught DS5 to use them

It's possible in fact extremely likely this makes the queue want to place me in the bagging area. But I cheerfully couldn't give a tiny rats wank

Big reusable bags. Fridge, frozen and general tat all neatly sorted and stacked with a cheerful smile.

Just to add I never take it out on staff. I realise its a hellish job, sorting them out every five minutes.

Yes yes to muting the things (no separate button just press volume button until big red cross appears) only been able to use them since this.

We hatesssssss them

LRD that's definitely crap service. But don't blame that on the machines. Blame it on the crap person providing the service and make a complaint about it.

femanistdragon sympathy, Why oh why can't people accept that different people find different things really difficult.

My bug bear is people giving you phone or reference numbers. please please slow down. if you give my bacteria sized short term memory more than 3-4 numbers at a time it will go wrong.