Asda not opening checkout tills

[Cramlington567]

About 8pm. Had a trolley full of stuff. There was a single checkout open when I entered. Went there to pay and it is closed with a sign saying in the evening there maybe be times when checkout is closed and you should use self scan. Two staff chatting ten meters away. I ask if they can open the till. They said 'sorry, no we don't have enough staff".

I go to self service. About 4 times the machine stopped and had to wait for the same staff to come over and unlock it. I was only a quarter of the way through my trolley. Justly left it there, walked out and said to the two staff, sorry I am leaving it, it's too much hassle.

Unreasonable? Plus, everyone saw this coming 10 years ago when it was 'we will always have at least one checkout open' then ' just ask and we will open one'.

Went to Aldi in the end but I can see them going the same way.

I am healthy by the way and middle aged. Would they have opened a till if I was elderly? Or obviously disabled but then not all disabilities are visible of course.

Staff do care. See the post from @DemBonesDemBones

If you leave it the fresh stuff is wasted because I can't put it all back and still hear if someone needs help. I HATE how much food is wasted.

@pootlin yes, he did. It's not an unusual occurrence though.

Not to mention ‘please place item in the packing area’ when I already have! 🤬Followed by ‘Someone will be coming to assist’.

This is my town centre smallish Sainsbury’s, where the wretched self checkouts never like my bag, either - heavy cotton, not flimsy plastic - it evidently thinks there’s some nicked item in it.

So now I don’t bag anything until after I’ve paid.
There is only rarely a single checkout open any more.

That is appalling. Not just the man, but the fact you are the only person doing that.

Because you can't do the job properly like that. It's just unreasonable. When I worked in retail there always had to be two of us because of security. Even when the shop was closed.

🐏

My sympathies are with the staff, they have complained sometimes of understaffing.

But I don't think abandoning a trolley of perishable goods that will just be binned (according to a supermarket worker upthread) is the right answer. It just drives up prices for everyone else and adds yet another chore for supermarket staff.

@StrawberrySquash hopefully someone will be along to say what lovely service they get after 10 because I am so happy to see another human I treat them like gold

I hope the dickhead dies in a ditch.

I used to work in a supermarket as a student. We used to all want to be put on returns!

I also hate waste. But it is up to supermarkets to sort that by providing check outs.

I mean no money can cover the assault but they should be paying you for what you work. Ultimately, they're taking the piss out of us all while they laugh to the bank. Put in a grievance that they're not looking after you. They have a duty of care.

I get it. Jobs can be hard to come by and life's hard. I don't know your situation or what's keeping you there. However, there are plenty of other jobs out there. I imagine hours are hard for you to match but loads of places need night staff. You deserve a good employer. I say this as someone who stayed somewhere too long because I was scared the grass wasn't greener and didn't believe in myself.

You're playing into the supermarket's hands. Do all the work and don't get paid!

@Marmunia106675 I really don't have time for supermarket tantrums! Sorry and all that!

Park up
Get trolley
Go round shopping
Have tantrum and leave your tens at checkout.....

Go to the next shop and repeat?

I'm sick of Asda and have chosen to shop elsewhere since Christmas now. In my local one - N E Lincs, they don't allow you to pick up the carrier bags anymore, you have to call them over to give you one. Presumably people have been stealing them but talk about OTT. The queues for the one checkout that is open are massive. There are countless homeless people and security on the doorstep. I'm always being hassled for change, people are fighting or have passed out yet security do nothing.
I'd rather pay slightly more for a calmer option where you're trusted with carriers!

Is that really any different from pushing and loading your own trolley

I have to laugh at the ,I'm out ten minutes before the people using a checkout,how do you know that if you're on your way home and you must be very important to need those ten minutes I'll wager only to get stuck in traffic somewhere along the line.

Definitely not unreasonable.
It's such a hassle to self scan a whole trolley full, especially when things have to be placed in the bagging area one by one.
In Sainsbury's, also get frustrated that I always need a staff member to verify my own empty bags in the packing area before I start to scan stuff. I'm not packing it twice! Tesco have a button that lets them know you will be using your own bags at the start of the shop.

The OP could have just finished work! We don't all have 9-5 jobs!

Yes, that was unfair of me.

I just know how stressed staff are and a trolley of go backs adds to the stress.

I refuse to use self checkout for full trolleys. If you do not have an open till without a large queue, I shop elsewhere.
And in my City both ALDI and LIDL have opened new stores.
I made the mistake of going into ASDA a few years ago about a week before Christmas. The queues in ASDA were horrendous, because they had hardly any proper tills open and people using self scan are much slower than a checkout with a cashier. I walked straight back out. And in our ASDA there are often queues at the scanner and shop checkout as well.

The service at M&S is always excellent. Even at our local M&S garage. They're so, so helpful. Same with the other M&S garage in the next town.

It's like they recruit their staff members from a different planet - they're exceptional.

@SpidersAreShitheads
^
Maybe the staff are treated better there?^

Or download the Scan & Go app and scan the goods as you shop for them.

I'm reluctant to download any more apps, but I do use smart scan in Sainsbury's with the hand-held scanner. However, you can't use these in Asda unless you enter a load of personal data directly (because they don't have a Nectar equivalent), which I find difficult on a tiny screen without a proper keyboard (my near vision is very poor). I've tried using the equivalent system at Tesco three times, and every time I had to have a rescan, so I'll no longer do it as it takes much longer than just using the self-scan. Like others, though, I usually have to scan everything, pay and then pack into bags because the self-scan checkouts can't cope with people using their own bags if they're not thin plastic ones. This also slows things down considerably.

At ASDA with the scan and go there is still often long queues at the scan and go checkout. I do not know why, I dont know what they have to do there.

dump the shopping on them and go elsewhere.

Self service tills are there because people use them and allow this to happen.
If nobody used them, they would have to change.

That is laughably untrue. I work in a supermarket and our self scans are a real pain. Always wanting stuff authorising or it doesn't recognize the weight all of which needs a person to sort out.
I'm with op keep some checkouts open. And leave the self scans to the antisocial folk.

Don't get me started on banks of closed self scan tills while there's a queue! Because the company are too cheap even to pay for another member of staff.

I forgot to say that Tesco also has a lot of items with bar codes that don't scan, so you have to type 20-digit numbers in manually.

I'm also sick of Tesco displaying some price/kg information in minuscule print so I have to kneel on the floor to read it. They seem to operate on an intention of making sure customers can't compare prices easily, so if there are three different brands of the same product, one will show price per 100 g, one will show price per kg and the third won't show anything unless you crawl on the floor to read it.