You should need a licence to use self checkouts

[Oysterbabe]

Hear me out.

Supermarket very busy this morning. Queued with my basket for the self checkout, as usual. I prefer them and enjoy the lack of social interaction required. 3 of them were out of order so only 2 working. There was a couple using one and I think it was their first day on the planet. They were just staring, puzzled at the screen. Occasionally scanning something. Eventually complete their transaction then realise they need to buy bags. 5 people completed their transactions on the other checkout while they were doing theirs.

Blowing my own trumpet, but I'm a self service ninja. I think you should have a certain competency level, like with driving, before being allowed to use one. You should be given a basket of items, including some loose fruit and veg and bakery items, and a set time to complete the transaction in order to earn a licence.

I personally hate self checkouts. I always have to call an assistant as something goes wrong. They enrage me.

OP when you're Queen can you also heavily fine shops who have multiple broken self service checkouts or who close half of them for no reason please?

Reminds me of the first time I tried to use a Pay and Display car park machine which only accepted cards. I royally pissed people off who were queuing up as I was so flummoxed by the whole process I kept putting the incorrect pin in the machine. To make things even more difficult, I had to root around in my handbag for my reading glasses as the instructions on the display were too small to decipher! The guy next to me was huffing and puffing, and told me that in future I should use coin operated pay stations!! We all had to learn at some stage.

Condescending people like you really get my goat.

@NumberTheory pretty sure they are to those that need that wage to pay their bills ?
Or have been made redundant , got less hrs due to these machines

The rise of self-service checkouts have been the incentive I’ve needed to make the effort to shop locally whilst we still have some.
Fruit and veg from the market
Meat from the butcher
Fish from the fishmonger at the market
Bread- invested £50 in bread maker and now takes 10 mins to throw the ingredients into it- no Chorleywood process rubbish
Most household goods- country store

Supermarket- only what I can’t buy elsewhere.

Has surprisingly saved me money as I’m not buying the ready meal/ processed crap.

And provides local people with jobs.

Our local Sainsbury's (a very big store) now only has 4 manned checkouts - all the rest are self serve. We do nearly all our grocery shopping online. It takes us a little time to work out how to use the self checkouts. We are not stupid!

Bit off-topic, OP, (and I have no trouble using supermarket automatic checkouts, btw). But some automated systems are just plain badly designed and many people struggle quite reasonably.

In a car park, I studied the pay machine and made several attempts to follow the instructions with now success. Being an old bag, and not giving a hoot at how stupid I seem, I asked another driver for help. He was a young, savvy guy but was also completely foxed by it. Then we saw the car park warden coming in to check cars, so asked him to help. He tried, but had to admit it was impossible. Advised us to put notes in our cars.

The machines aren't always right!

No more so than the jobs to develop, build and maintain the self checkouts.

I hate the self scan. I like to interact with staff, smile at them , make eye-contact, chat about the weather. As our local supermarket have reduced the number of tils open (number of staff employed) and increased the number of self-scan tills I sometimes have to use them.

What I notice is that 2 people shopping together causes problems. On an old-fashioned till, one person could be loading the belt, the staff member could be scanning, and the other person could be packing the shopping. Maximum efficiency. On the self scan, 2 people has a negative efficiency effect. Person one scans (having struggled to find the bar code), hands item to P2 my dh who dithers about which bag to put it into. P1 picks up next item, which will not scan (because item 1 is not yet in the bagging area). The machine automatically calls for assistant help... And on it goes.

Or P1 (me) scans item, places it in bagging area, P2 my dh then picks it up and moves it, triggering a 'item removed from bagging area' alert and calling an assistant for help.

Then of course there is the alcohol, which despite our abject confusion and obvious elderly status, still requires vereification that we are over 25. There must be a way of scanning our wrinkles and our ineptitude and allowing booze through automatically.

I understand the film reference, basically I don't think there will.be that moment, and if there was it wouldn't suddenly change how supermarkets use them.

@Thegreenballoon shh don’t tell people or it won’t be deserted anymore! I see people queuing for ages and I just go through scan and go and out the door. Shopping packed as I go.

Self service checkouts are the devils work. Never seem to work properly. Either think you've put something you shouldn't have on the bagging area, or thinks you should add something you've already added. I hate them.

Scan as you shop however is the dream! I love it! Do my shopping, pack it as I go along, know exactly how much I've spent - great when you're on a budget. Scan the barcode at the end and pay. Occasionally need a service check of a few items, or an age check, but otherwise hardly need to talk to anyone (being autistic I find the checkout stuff awkward)

I don't agree with them getting rid of so many tills though, I was shocked when I saw they'd got rid of most of them at my local big Tesco. Massive queues at the self checkout (not at scan as you shop though, I'm not sure why it's not as popular)

Reminds me of the time I was mid divorce and very low on resilience.
I saw a close friend in Tesco and he sort of jokingly suggested I didn't use the self check out as it would be the final straw and I'd have a complete break down.

I'm not sure how serious I am when I consider a sign saying "do not use if feeling emotionally fragile" should be displayed.

Artygirlghost · Today 12:32
Pretty much a scam when you think about it: the supermarket gets you to do all the work and you pay them...

@Artygirlghost I couldn’t agree with you more. I have been shopping and found no manned checkouts open so I am forced to use self service. I don’t struggle with knowing how to use self service but I don’t like the lack of space, the having to wait whenever the screen says wait for assistance because it is glitching etc. and I want to preserve jobs for people and I do feel scammed.

We pay more for our groceries and get less service. That’s just great isn’t it.

YABU. Self service check outs only benefit the supermarket as they don’t have to pay an employee to serve you and then they’re making profits by not employing someone.
I can categorically say that I’ve needed assistance on most of the times I’ve used them and they serve no purpose other than to make YOU do the work and not have to pay someone.

Pot, kettle

‘Self service check outs only benefit the supermarket as they don’t have to pay an employee to serve you and then they’re making profits by not employing someone’ ya think?

I don't think I've made any comments about disabled people before - certainly not any negative ones.

Some self scan machines are better than others - Sainsburys= great, Tesco & asda = ok, Morrisons=pile of temperamental overly sensitive crap.
Decathlon with the rfid tags and just chuck them in hole in the checkout is amazing.

Being old is not an excuse- these who are old now are also the same people that invented the technological items we take for granted these days. They are also the same people who had to program VCR's to tape something when they were out and configure their Alba stereo to copy an LP onto a tape. Old people are perfectly capable of mastering technology.

Self checkouts are not new, they've been around for something like 20 years now, maybe longer. We've all had plenty of opportunity to practice and those that are in their 60's now and too old to learn something new were in their 40's when they first came on the scene.
My 8yr old can use them no problem - it's really not that difficult. I think people go in with the mindset of 'i can't do this'/'this machine will never work properly' and then don't read what the machine is telling them to do and fullfill their own prophecy. I think people just don't observe how those ahead of them in the queue are using them without issue and do it in the same way (though you see the same thing in airport security queues where the twit who had spent the last 40 minutes watching hundreds of people ahead of him take coats off and put bags on the xray belt think he can just walts through the metal detector carrying his bags etc)

I'm not a people person so will use a self scan till in preference to creating smalltalk with someone- or ideally use the scan as you go and save the whole rigmarole of emptying and refilling a trolley. Especially as there is never a queue at these tills.

I think my highlight of observed self service till ineptitude was a man who clearly had no concept of barcodes and was just waving items randomly (particularly their name/label) at the scanner, he really must have had his ufo parked round the corner or it was the first time his wife had let him go to a shop on his own.

I only have to look at them and they go into a meltdown while screeching that's there's an unexpected item in the bagging area!

I was behind young people today who had problems using the self scanner. An employee came to help them and it turned out that they didn't speak the language and couldn't find something on it. Just normal young people who just simply come from elsewhere.

Very judgemental.
I refuse to use them, partly because the damn things shout at me, & partly as I'd rather the shops pay actual staff.

I won’t use them at all. I’m certainly not going to work for a supermarket for nothing.

I'm glad I don't have young children anymore.
Please don't touch where the shopping goes, sweetie.
Don't touch it.
Don....gaaaaaahhh

They should have an override button like they do if you accidentally pull the emergency call button in the loo.

"My toddler touched the shopping, please disregard"