to think Sainsbury's are really taking the piss?

[BuggerLumpsAnnoyed]

Basically, our local sainsbury's had taken loads of the normal tills out and replace them with a few more God forsaken self service machines. Now, personal feelings of hatred aside, they haven't increased the staff manning them, so, where there were four machines and one member of staff attending to them, there are now 8, and still one memeber of staff.

It really bloody takes the piss IMO. One poor sod, basically doing the job of 8 checkout assistants, as the things never fucking work, while everybody looks pissed off with their stupid light going off.

And if it wasn't bad enough, to get your car parking money back (one of those "you buy a ticket and its refunded in store" ones) you have to physically give it to said poor sod, who refunds you out of their bum bag, no option on the stupid till!

Right. Sorry for the rant. No, it doesn't get more interesting.

I like to interact with a human being when shopping. A smile and a little chat is nice if you're not stressed or in a hurry. Don't forget that old person in front of you who takes their time might not have spoken to another human being for days - one day it could be you. I always try to remember that if I'm caught behind Gramps.

I refuse to use self service tills as a matter of principle. The less they're used maybe the supermarkets will get the crazy idea to actually fucking employ humans to do the job and contribute to society a little.

I might add, I prefer not to have to interact with strangers so this is difficult for me. But I suck it up :D

(I love the self clicker shopping so I can bag things up as I shop, which saves me standing in line, unloading my cart onto a conveyor belt, and then reloading my cart while I pack bags.)

Runs away, runs away...

Leaving aside the question of self-service tills (which I hate, and try to avoid using) I do find Sainsbury quite good for customer service in general. If you ever have to ask where something is they are always polite and also offer to take you to it. I know they are only doing as they have been told, but still it's nice.

Whereas in Tesco and other places I have asked and the assistant has just pointed silently in the general direction. Now that's a bit rude.

I am not always asking, honestly!

the whole of human history has been about inventing things to save humans from doing unpleasant or boring tasks, economic systems adjust and adapt, humans find new ways to provision themselves, new roles, more interesting things to do

a bit a a utopian response I admit, but c'mon dont be with the luddites

I don't think big business is worried about saving assistants from doing boring or unpleasant tasks, it is all about increasing profits at the expense of both customers and low-paid customer facing workers, as pps said.

No wonder online shopping is getting more and more popular. And yet I heard that it is apparently very expensive for supermarkets to run an online shopping service, and they aren't actually making a profit on it. (Yet I am constantly bombarded with discount vouchers for an online shop)

Aren't they kind of shooting themselves in the foot?

I am a fan of M&S self service as any other till seems to have someone who forgot bread and blithely leaves their other shopping on the conveyor while they fetch it. Worst than that though is someone paying off their M&S card bill, one of the most laborious processes I have ever witnessed.

Another one who loves Self Service tills.

I don't get the hate.

I like self service tills when I am with ds because it makes it more difficult for him to mess with other peoples shopping.

It's the Asda's SS tills that really bug me. If you don't have an extremely light shopping bag with you, it's 'please wait while we verify your bags' and waiting for an assistant. And there's nearly always something else not scanning properly, or whatever it is, which means waiting again for an assistant.

I wouldn't mind SS if it didn't come with so many glitches.

Someone tell me how to strike through words? (missing point of thread)

I don't mind the self-service, it's not rocket science. However I often do a big shop late in the evening when they've assumed anyone still shopping is only buying wine or crisps, and shut all the service checkouts. I hover round the self-service ones with my massive trolley-full until someone decides to re-open a till for me.

I like self service tills. Quite a lot of the issues with them are caused by people being crap at using them rather than the machines themselves. I consider myself a self-service ninja.

I like the way Morrisons self service tills say 'surprising item in the bagging area.' I imagine the till thinking ' WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?'

The less they're used maybe the supermarkets will get the crazy idea to actually fucking employ humans to do the job and contribute to society a little.

Serious question - do people think we should brak up the tractors used on farms and go back to the ox and plough and many men toiling in the fields?

Should we go back ot hand mikling for cows? Would you like to pay the cost of a pint of milk that took one man 5 mins at £7.20/hour to milk + associated cow costs and transport?

Would you like to go back to having women in huge laundrys wash sheets by hand or are you ok with washing machines?

Progress generally leads to lower numbers of low skilled jobs, and this idea is as a society we transition to higher value higher skilled jobs. Look at the way industry in the UK has changed over the past 100 years - self service check outs are just one more bit of mechanized progress.

I always use the checkouts At our local sainsburys the staff there all work hard and always find me a till with no queue, as I usually have my two and a half year old daughter in tow I never use self service i prefer an actual human being to a machine that I just get my hair off with xx

To be honest, every time I've used one of those self-service machines, it takes bloody longer than if I went to one operated by a 'human'!!

madamdeathstare, my DS is in Alabama and they have them there :)

My son won't let me use the SS tills as they bring out the very, very worst in me.

They should also come with a sign telling you not to use them if you a feeling a bit emotionally unstable.

The parking thing sounds a nuisance but I like the self service tills. I hate the chat, I don't want to know that the checkout operator loves that brand of biscuits or that she is looking forward to her day off tomorrow.

I know that sounds grumpy but my husband is often hysterical with laughter when we go out as I have some strange effect on people who all seem to want to tell me the story of their life. If I have time it is fine but it does get annoying when you are trying to get things done in a hurry. I even had one young man, easily young enough to be my son but possibly my grandson, grab me in a well known store and proceed to waltz me round the shop. DH laughted and said, "It could only happen to you."

was just coming on to say what glass garden said!

If they don't work well use them and give feedback about how they are annoying you/can be improved.

We need to be moving more towards a society where people are not being exploited by having to do unskilled and boring work that can be done by technology. The government should be future proofing the economy to take account of this as the loss of jobs is inevitable whether or not people prefer staff service - is more profitable to have the functions performed by machines. Boycotting them won't save jobs. Put effort into arguing for harnessing of the capital created by mechanisation for the benefit of the people.

What Offred said 🙌

The problem is not that machines can now do things that humans used to do
This is a GOOD thing

Humanity is enriched by technology progress, the problem is that the fruits of technological progress are not evenly or fairly distributed.

The tools that humans currently use are the result of the combined efforts of generations of people

yes we can say that x person invented y technology but it wasn't created 'de novo' rather it was built on the existing platform using tools and concepts brought into being by the combined efforts of others

I like the self service till but only when they have members of staff quickly available to help should you need it, therefore I will happily use them in Marks & Spencer's but not our local Tesco.

I online shop as I find queueing in supermarkets makes my heart race with stress cos of the sheer inadequacy of the check out arrangements almost everywhere. Ditto why I can't bear the post office. I find standing in a long queue with one person serving while three more chat behind the counter does bad things to my blood pressure! I do see it as my problem not theirs, it works well enough, but I would like to send a big bunch of flowers to whoever invented collect plus!