Self check out

[laddybug3]

So I was shopping today. I hate shopping. Yes, I know that I am a girl and hate shopping. Anyway, my brother told me the self check out would be faster. It wasn’t. No, it hated me. I am telling you that thing was out to get me.

Machine: Press for English for English, (what the machine should be speaking) whatever language you speak,because I am talking in English. So if your don’t speak English you are screwed.

Me: (press English, but wanted to press French or something else. Just to see what would happen.)

Machine: Please scan item here

Me: (slide water)

Machine: Please scan item here.

Me: I did and you told me scan item. I don’t understand you.

Machine: Please scan item here.

Me: (sliding water again through the scan thing.)

Brother: (laughing as I am sliding the water back and forth)

Machine: Please scan item

Me: (starting to raise my voice) What do you think I have been doing? I slid the water four or thousand times and you don’t scan it. What is up with you?

Brother: Let me scan it.

Machine: please scan item

Brother: (scans water)

Machine: please scan next item

Brother: (scans potato chips)

Machine: Please put item back in bag

Me: What are you talking about? The chips are in the bag.

Brother: (Moves items around)

Machine: please pick payment

Brother: (clicks credit card)

Machine: Please swipe credit card

Me: You better do it. I hate that thing (point to the self check out) It hates me

Brother:( types credit card information)

Brother, Me: (Leave the store and no self check out machine was harm, yet.)

Me:(Self check out will see me again. There will be rearranging of parts. I plan to take the thing scanner off and the voice thing out.)

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[Anonymous]

We talk back to those stupid machines all the time. But why are they so LOUD? THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT ZEHRS, please remove your bags and take your receipt. Please remove your bags and take your receipt. PLEASE REMOVE YOUR BAGS AND TAKE YOUR RECEIPT!!!!!

Who lets their children do the self-check-out? It’s not a toy and there are frustrated ADDers waiting in line. Are you training them early to be grocery cashiers? VENT 👿

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[billd]

Thanks for the chuckle from a real-life adventure.

Me, I actually prefer those things. The reason? My flavor of ADHD includes not liking to deal with PEOPLE. Give me a machine (or a kitty) any day.

There’s only one time I won’t deal with such an auto self-checkout – if the item has a questionable price, or I have cash and no card with me, or there could be any difficulty. In other words, if it’s simple, it’s not on sale, and there’s a clear barcode – I’ll do the auto checkout.

The reason I won’t if there’s a difficult item or an item with a price that might be in question? Then I have to call for help and deal with a person to sort out an issue…………… in those cases, I’ll whip through the normal checkout and be done with it.

I guess in short – I take the easiest path with the least amount of human contact.

BTW – I deal with computers and automation a lot – idiots design and/or program most of those things……………

Around here I get around the “place item in bag” crap by pushing the “I prefer to not use a bag” button. Or I smack my hand on the sensor where the bag sits as I put each item in it – sort of wakes the machine or gets its attention, I suppose.

no_dope – nothing worse than folks letting their kids do that sort of thing……….. oh, wait, I’m wrong, there really is something worse.

Getting to the post office, I’m all prepaired, I know the exact box size and weight, have already chosen the method to post, have a neat and tidy address label applied easy to read, the box is perfect and very well sealed – and I wait 20 minutes in line just to get close and the person right in front of me doesn’t have their box closed, they aren’t sure if the item will fit, they are unsure of the address or zip code, they have no label made out, the box it’s taped, they can’t decide how to ship it………. I want to smack ’em, shove ’em to the back and tell them to get the #@$% ready next time BEFORE they get in their car to make the trip to the post office.

Com’on, there’s no excuse when all this info is FREE AND EASY on http://www.usps.com, including the ability to pre-pay and print a bloody label!

But don’t take an empty box and your stack of stuff and prepare it on the counter while the rest of us wait behind you.

I ship stuff all over the world, from small envelopes to car parts weighing quite a lot and in big boxes, and no one waits more than a couple of minutes behind me.

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[Patte Rosebank]

I like Self-Checkout. I can whiz through the scanning process faster than a cashier in a regular checkout line. Sometimes, I even help a clueless person at a neighbouring Self-Checkout, without missing a beat.

I also like that there’s just one line-up for all of the machines. This is the efficient way of queueing, as banks and government offices discovered decades ago. Unfortunately, supermarkets (with the exception of Whole Paycheque, which most people can’t afford) haven’t figured this out yet. They also haven’t figured out that it really pisses people off when you have a dozen checkout lanes, but only a few of them are ever staffed.

What I *don’t* like is that so many people who use Self-Checkout have no clue what they’re doing, and take forever to do it. So, by whizzing through Self-Checkout, I’m actually showing them how it should be done, and perhaps making them aware of just how slow they’re being.

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[billd]

No kidding – often there are much smaller lines for those – if at all, and I can do it FAR faster than a clerk who is obviously bored, or just there for a paycheck and can’t wait to leave – or is a trainee who doesn’t get the register operation…..

For us, there is still the same old individual lines. I MUCH prefer the common queue – it’s far more fair, and actually faster in the end, but no one here uses them but the post office and the banks. No markets anywhere use them.

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[Anonymous]

At the Zehrs grocery where we shop, they have 8 self-checkout machines (4 and 4). And 2 painted lines for each set of 4. That means, in a busy period, with the extra crap they load up the ends of the aisles with, there are two lines blocking traffic. My husband plants himself firmly in the middle and anyone that complains gets an earful (and an eyeful of a mean stare). Stupid. Have ONE lineup per set of machines.

Bill, I ship a lot with my business. PayPal has a good interface for Canada Post, receive the payment and ship through PayPal (you print your own barcoded label). We used to take the prepaid packages to the local retail postal outlet (there are no more Canada Post outlets, just drug store counters), and we could skip the line by telling them it was prepaid and just dropping it off. But at Christmas time they don’t have room for our packages, so we figured out that we could take them straight to the distribution centre, we just back up to a loading dock, press a button for the doorbell, and someone comes with a big cart and takes them away. Plus, the distribution centre’s hours are better, open very early, and open later than the designated drop-off time at the retail outlets.

We used to go in mid-day, when there’s hardly anyone at the distribution centre, and my husband complained that they wouldn’t answer the bell. Well, surprise, one day there was a BIG RED BUTTON on the outside. When you press it, it never stops ringing, and the person actually has to come outside and turn it off. My husband really likes that!

I’m with you, I avoid traffic, lineups and crowds of people where possible. I’ll go out of my way to avoid them.

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[Anonymous]

I’ve been a cashier for a few of my jobs and know how to scan groceries and other items quite easily, but the self checkouts around here have serious issues that piss me off. For example they are very picky about how you scan and where you place the item after. It’s not faster when the machine keeps yelling at you to put the item in the bagging area and you already have. I have no problem doing the job for the cashier if the machines work and are user friendly. I was getting my own gas before self serve became popular.

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[Anonymous]

Hmm … maybe I should use the human cashier once in awhile. If we don’t, perhaps eventually all we’ll have are scanning machines. Maybe in the future, we’ll just walk around the store with a shopping cart and it will have the capability of reading brainwaves that will put stuff right in the cart for us – that might be useful if it followed a budget and only put stuff in that was good for us. But I suspect it might just want to load the cart up with junk food cheezies anyone?

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[billd]

If you get a good cashier, it’s fast and easy. However, around here, for whatever reasons or group of circumstances, only half are really very good. Some are just plain excellent at thier work – pleasant, effecient, and knowledgable. When we have that pleasure, my wife is sure to let them know how pleased she was and how good they were.

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[nellie]

I also prefer the self-checkout because the line-ups are shorter and like Larynxa I whip through it . However I’ll use the cashier ones when I’m too lazy to bag.

The grocery store machine I use is not loud but I totally hate the Walmart ones. They are so damn loud it’s really annoying. Maybe they have a lot of old hearing impaired people who go there? On one occasion where my debit card was overdrawn and I had to switch cards it practically shouted to the next county! YOU HAVE INSUFFICIENT FUNDS, DID YOU HEAAARRRR ME EVERYBODY IN STORE INSUFFICIENT FUNDS….. !!!!!!

I’m surprised they don’t have a red light and a siren to go with it LOL!

As far as kids and checking out – I can’t stand it either but since I’m so impatient I decided to be one of those nice patient cheery moms for a change and not constantly yell at them to hurry up so I would let them help. They weren’t really that young at the time – early high school age and they scanned while I bagged so in essence it went quickly.. But I ended up yelling at them anyway if they stated to look for a bar code because they can be really slow at stuff. I was always worried that people behind me were as impatient as I am so I was always rushing them. They were only trying to be helpful so I probably I scarred them for life!

Actually, I never let them help shop either which might explain some of those ditzy cashiers you all are complaining about The older one has no clue about grocery stuff and got a job as a cashier. ( Go figure!) They gave her one day of training with another cashier and then expected her to work alone and memorize all those flippin’ codes on top of it. She was not particularly gifted shall we say in this skill so got fired pretty quickly. I suspect she has a lot of my add traits which is why she didn’t bother to go around the store and “study” as it were.

So the next time you see one of those patient annoying mothers in the grocery store letting her kids help it might be the making of an efficient future cashier They won’t have to ask the customer if the green thing they are buying is an avocado or a kiwi

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[laddybug3]

My brother friend told me that the self check out that I used has problems. I stated that I could fix the problem by disassembling the check machine. He then went on the fact it is against the law. I was joking about breaking the machine. Of course when I make a joke most people take me serially.

Also the water was on sale. Wow! The clerk next to use was whipping through the customers.

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[billd]

laddybug the joking I think is a coping mechanism for me – it seems to run in our family and drives “outsiders” nuts. Well, it actually drives my wife nuts as well as my oldest son. My brothers do it a LOT worse, luckily, so my wife sees she got the best of the litter…… but I have to be very careful with my joking at times- I have been known to toss out a one-liner in places where I could be either arrested, beat up, or put on the FBI’s list of folks to keep an eye on. YIKES!.

I know when the feds stopped at my house a few weeks ago, at first I was a bit defiant, then got more comfortable and tossed a couple of jokes – and their faces were poker faces, and I could tell I really needed to cut out ANY joking and not be anything less than totally serious and factual.

In truth, I probably COULD fix a lot of those self-checkout machines………. but I’ve already taken on too many things to do…….. and just did so again this past weekend. AARRGGHH! And my wife is SO fond of my abilities, that if one of her friends needs something, or asks where to get something or get something fixed, she proudly speaks up “Oh, Bill can do that, I’ll take it home and bring it back next weekend” Bless her heart.

Went to WalMart last weekend – place was a zoo, however, ran across a checkout lady who was GREAT! She was quick, efficient, polite, and it made the rat-race much more bearable. Amazing how one single person who is very good at their job and actually seems to enjoy it, even when it’s not high profile or high pay grade, can make your day that much better.

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[Anonymous]

I like the self-check out because I go nuts waiting in line and start focusing on the customers being checked-out and the gal who is doing the check out.

My mind is thinking about all the junk they are buying, how the gal is checking them out too slow, etc etc etc (which is usually not the case..just my ADHD getting frustrated at having to keep still for more than 5 seconds)

However…..the self check out is fun because I like playing with it…all the lights and sounds make me start thinking about all sorts of things. I have to be careful to just go and do my thing and not start playing with it…

hmm…wonder what would happen if I did THIS? How about scanning THIS? (my face or purse or something…)

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[Anonymous]

Billd beat me to the post. I prefer self checkout too, even if there is no line. Let me get my stuff bought and get out of there, although I hate the codes you have put it for stuff like fruit. You think an ADDer can remember a 4 digit number? That’s gotten better over the years though as some scanners themselves have the code built in.

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[kc5jck]

Random ADD musing: I have an app on my iPhone called ShopSavvy which reads barcodes and gives prices for comparison. It didn’t work on my old iPhone but does really well on my new one.

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[Author]

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