My local grocery store limits self checkout to 10 items or less. My guess is that people have a hard time counting to 10 and just assume that their cart full of groceries is probably 10 items or less.

I've never been able to do that. It seems like it always gets me on weight. Any tips?

Are cashiers in the United States of America really required to initiate meaningless conversations? I’ve also heard of the occupation of a door greater, which sounds even crazier.

The corporate ideal has their weird idea that everyone desperately wants to have conversations with employees. I think it comes from positive feedback often taking the form of, "Your employee was so warm and helpful and we had a delightful chat about X." and never, "Your employee was polite and didn't bother me with needless conversation." One of the trainings my employer has even includes a scenario, which is presented as ideal service, where the employee ends up chatting with a complete stranger about his dead wife including sharing pictures from his wallet.

That said, while I'm sure corporate cares none of my in store managers cared when I was a cashier. Indeed, I had regulars who would seek me out because I specifically didn't attempt to inject small talk into the interaction. I'd still get pulled into it by customers who initiated such but otherwise it was mostly, "Morning. Coupons? That'll be $X.XX. Have a good one."

use AI cameras that lock up after every third item and require an override each time

As a customer than once I've had those cameras trigger because I leaned in a bit too much to press a prompt on the touch screen and it flagged my head as some item I'm trying to fake scan. As an employee it is also fun to watch the cameras trigger on purses and children and grind things to a halt so it can warn me that someone's kid hasn't been scanned. Though my absolutely 'favorite' interaction with those cameras as an employee is having them trigger over me attempting to sign in using my name badge on the scanner. So it would interrupt my attempt to sign in to do something for the customer to make me sign in and reassure it I wasn't trying to steal something and then I had to sign in again to actually help the customer.

Still ought to be discounted since it's eliminating jobs.

I won’t end up single-bagging a bunch of stuff that could be bagged together (e.g. if they scanned some window cleaner, they bag it separate, not knowing that some dishwasher detergent is coming that it could be packed with).

Not that it is foolproof but unloading your cart in an organized manner helps with that. Though maybe you're talking about helpless baggers, I've seen plenty of both clueless baggers and customers who toss things onto the belt willy-nilly.

I feel seen!

Automated teller machine machine

To be fair, that's a fairly universal problem. In the UK it's a basket Vs trolley split. They do have trolley self checkouts, but it's separate, and mainly intended for scan as you shop.

On a side note, what's with American supermarkets not having baskets at all. Did I just have really weird luck?

Might've just been bad timing where baskets were piled up at the end of the checkout counters and the staff hadn't had the chance to bring them back near the entrances.

OK Boomer.

Yeah, even in South Central area of LA where I am, the system is quite responsive at the Food 4 Less.

there's a five finger discount

idk why people say it's bad! even at fucking Walmart i don't have issues

if you wanna know my actual beliefs on the matter, people shouldn't have to do meaningless labor to live

maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never had that particular issue. the only time it's been slightly annoying is if I'm buying alcohol and the people watching self checkout are busy, and other than that, they're easy to use. I don't buy huge chunks of groceries at a time, though, ad I imagine large shops would be annoying

Kroger

I mean the level of pressure is lower elsewhere than in Germany, of course it's still easy to feel anxious anywhere

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!

Yeah, better pay cash n wear a mask tho. They are starting to bust people for that.

How self-checkout machines can tell if you're stealing

Arrests have been made on our Gulf Coast for stealing at self-checkout machines. Check out how they got busted

WBBH (www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com)