To Not Use Self Sevice Tills

[TitusOatesLivesNextDoor]

Because:

1. I'm not employed by the supermarket as a cashier and don't want to work for nothing

2. They will eventually put cashiers out of work.

On every other topic ppl are virtue signalling like mad, but put a few million workers out of a job? Who cares right?

Supermarkets will change to self-service whether you like it or not, though. At the end of the day, they're businesses that are out to make a profit - and people are always going to need food.

Your other point is right too. Im already PAYING the supermarket for groceries, I am NOT doing slave labour to take it home ffs!

Slave labour, really?

@Mrsjayy. There are many reasons people don’t want the social interaction when shopping. Maybe it is temporary such as they have a cold, or just in a big hurry, but maybe they just find it hard going that day and they want their face to face social interaction to be with a friend or family.

I find dealing with crowds is exhausting and if I have been at work in the city and been nose to nose with commuters, talked all day at work, chatted online, I might not want to talk to another person at all that day. Or .... I have had to repeatedly wait patiently while people with no awareness or care that they are blocking aisles or access to the products that I really don’t feel like talking to someone at the tills or even waiting for them to put through the 3 people ahead.

Is it a sign of the times? Maybe. Maybe it is also a symptom of increased population density of our spaces. Maybe it also a symptom of having access to more desired social interactions online on top of those in your physical world that people are filtering out forced interactions now.

I like them - it means you can pack items in your bags in the order you want to, and you don't have a cashier chucking things down the conveyor at lightening speed so you don't have a chance to pack properly.

insisting that someone leaves what they're doing to open a till for you is pretty entitled behaviour

no it isn't, when I've worked in customer service jobs you serve customers first and then go back to what you were doing. I know people argue on here that not all shop staff are trained to use the tills in which case they can say that to you, but usually they just ignore you in a calculated way.

I use the self-service tills because they are faster, but only if I don't have to queue. If I have to queue I go to a cashier. Self-serve is fine if it is convenient, but it's not convenient if I have to queue.

Agree that the Waitrose machines are great and the others are a pain with theiir unexpected item in bagging area, or not accepting vouchers or you find you have an age-restricted item.

But then Waitrose decide to put a 16 year old on the cigarette counter, so you go there with your bottle of wine to avoid hanging around for a supervisor - and then find you still have to hang around for a supervisor.

I do think the supermarkets could look at the shopper's experience a bit more, with a view to improving it. No staff under the age of 18 should be on counter selling age-restricted goods.

adaline

Slave labour? Sounds dramatic, I know. But normally they PAY someone to do the same job. So when doing it yourself, unpaid, that is the very definition of slave labour.

I love self service tills, and as a manager in an establishment where self service is in use, I can tell you they are not, and will not, put people out of work; those staff who were previously cashiers are distributed to other much needed areas within the store.

Where I am we actually uniquely need more staff because of them.

I refuse to internet bank as if we don’t use our high street branches we are going to lose them. Already most are doing away with check books and payin books.
I rarely use an atm either as I withdraw cash once a month via the counter at the same time I sort the rest of my monthly banking.

I work in retail so I see the job loses on a daily basis. Not a large supermarket chain but still a sizeable store. When I started there around 15 years ago they employed over 100 people now it is just over 50. The store looks like shit, the warehouse is no better and never more than a couple of tills open at one time.
The retailer I work for nearly went under last year and so now everything has been slashed to the bare minimum to keep the sore open.
In a few years We won’t have a high street. The banks will be gone, the shops will be gone and all you will have left is coffee shops, charity shops and brighthouse.

I don't use them as I'm an ethnic minority (Romany) and dyslexic.
The amount of trouble I have using them and the looks I get, like I'm trying to not put something through, isn't worth it.
I'm always the one that it goes wrong on too.

I do agree as well, why have a dog and bark yourself, it's not our job to serve ourselves. My dil works in Asda, not on tills, but has seen redundancies and machines come in.

Already most are doing away with check books and payin books

I'm 32 and I've never used a cheque or payin (sic?) book in my life!

I hate them - will use them if I only have one or two things because they do go wrong and you have to wait for an assistant who is dealing with other machines.

Ridiculous situation at our Tesco Metro recently - no one waiting at the manned normal checkouts and a queue at the self checkout.

For those who hate people and any form of interaction - you only have to suffer ' Do you need any bags? ' and then '£xx.xx, please' and 'Thank you', not a deep conversation.

I grew out of playing shops a long time ago.

Slave labour? Sounds dramatic, I know. But normally they PAY someone to do the same job. So when doing it yourself, unpaid, that is the very definition of slave labour.

No, it's not - how is having the choice to use a self checkout in any way comparable to slave labour?

I use the self service tills in preference because I can pack my bags the way I want them packed - in Australia, the till person packs for you.

I use them because they're quicker and there are rarely queues. And I'm pretty good now, don't often have an error to deal with.

However I find self-service/lack of actual teller staff REALLY frustrating in banks, where a lot of the time I DO actually need to speak to someone and can't use the machines.

I also find the self-service screens in MacDonalds to be a PITA, although no.1 son has taken well to them - but they invariable get our order wrong if we use them, despite double and triple checking, whereas telling an actual person as we order tends to sort it.

Apex my sons are a bit younger but neither have they. They didn’t even know it was an option to request one.
They pay for everything either via card or their phones. I don’t think they even ever have much cash on them as even a loaf of bread will get switched by them.

Personally I prefer self service when I can, I have social anxiety so to be able to avoid that idle chat is easier for me. Same reason I always use pay at the pump for petrol.

I would much rather use a self service till than use the whole “big shop” to a picker in the shop and do internet shopping though!

I prefer using them to using a cashier. Cashiers don’t really do much in Britain anyway. It’s not like they pack your bags for you, if you are lucky they’ll scan at a reasonable pace instead of hurling stuff at you. I’d much rather scan the stuff myself seeing as I’ll be packing my bags anyway.

Agree that it is increasingly hard to find tills with a cashier. The M&S branches at stations have really gone for self service in a big way. Yesterday the assistant pointed out to me that the side for the basket and the customer’s bag are the opposite way round to Sainsbury’s which muddles customers. Self service is increasingly card only too.

I love them:

• Efficient

• Quick

• Pretty much always work for me now (granted some teething issues in the first year but not since then)

We do the self scan and pay at the end. Being able to do that on an app in the future would be right up my street.

I agree with PP that it's similar to washing women being replaced by washing machines...the world moves on, other jobs become available that didn't exist before.

I like social interaction but really only in certain shopping environments - shopping local, where there is value to be added (e.g. styling advice). I'd rather transactional interactions be self-service / automated and then other non-transactional services be more invested in.

People who always get the ones that don't work, I find shouting at them helps. My friend who supervises them just lets me get on with it now!

This friend is in a wheelchair and recently damaged her shoulder, so can't work on the tills anymore. With no self checkouts she'd be out of a job.

Yesterday the assistant pointed out to me that the side for the basket and the customer’s bag are the opposite way round to Sainsbury’s which muddles customers

I am always getting it wrong at M&S and this explains why!

I was a self-service refusenik for years on the basis that they were destroying cashiers’ jobs, but eventually I got so sick of the amount of my life I was wasting standing in queues for the only remaining staffed checkout that I gave in.

They are a fact of modern life and we just have to get used to it.

l used to agree with you and there is a term for it Unreasonable transfer of effort and l used to hang around and wait for a cashier but as my son pointed out they don't pack your bags like they do from where l come from plus you can be waiting while they have a nice long chat with the person in front so now l do it myself.

Supermarkets don’t advertise for ‘cashiers’ specifically they advertise for ‘Supermarket Assistant’ meaning they do everything but can get called to tills if needed. It makes sense for people to be cross trained.

Something light and small: throw it down.

I hate them - i've actually walked out of shops when i've ran into issues - in boots recently and it said to wait for assistance and no staff around to help so i left all the stuff on the till and walked out.

Has happened in Asda as well - not enough staff to help with issues!!

BUT what can you do in some instances - there's a lidl 1minute from my house and not many other shops around - so I go there a lot - there is about 20 self serve tills and just 2 with an actual human working on them!

You'd be waiting all day if you only used the managed till.

I like them. The queue tends to move faster and I like not having to speak to someone (sometimes). It annoys me when people bring buggies or full trolleys through and block the space, but they pretty much encourage that now with the shopping apps so what can you do.