The only times when I've seen anyone complain about the length of lines were times when it was clear staffing was very much insufficient. Line all the way to the back of the supermarket and literally 2 cashiers total.

I hate how self-checkout treats me like a child and speaks and prompts me a zillion times for things I don't want. How many bags do you want to buy? None, because I have mine like 90% of people, geez. How about a donation? Unexpected item in bagging area. TAKE YOUR RECEIPT. Nooooo

And it even SPEAKS. LOUDLY. It burns through ALL my patience within seconds.

If it just let me scan my stuff having me tap on a touchscreen, and then just let me stay the payment machine in a single touch, and it were silent ... I might tolerate it. Otherwise, get back, demon.

I had one of those self checkout machines think we were shoplifting. We had to sit there while the employees went through the video feed to verify it was an error. It was embarrassing. We were treated like criminals.

My local Walmart does that. I just wait by the cigarette area until someone comes by. They ask what kind of cigarettes and I just say I don't smoke.

Also, I use cash for everything. The amount of times that these machines don't have change or accept cash is frequent.

The grocery stores that I go to seem to have an adversarial UI. I haven't been able to use them without them throwing a fit and then I have to wait for the one attendant who is there to oversee 6 stations (who has to help more than 50% of the people) AND do the customer service desk.

They used to have express lanes. Those actually moved fast.

Dollar store? Yeah those ones work well.

Main issue is they haven't lowered the cost to me the consumer. Which is the lie we were told.

Assert dominance and just use a different machine for the rest of the items. It's not like an employee is showing up for a while anyway.

I'm very willing to abandon a shopping cart full of food. This was a thing at the one store I would go to. They opened 1 register and the line was wrapped around the store.

I never stop for them. I'll say "no thanks" or "I'm good, thank you anyway."

Definitely helps to have headphones in.

ahh ok. in the US there are some private membership stores that do that. the public ones can try to stop you but you do not need to obey.

Hint, they're probably not. They perceive themselves as faster, but on average the employees are.

I die on this hill for a different reason: the store holds the customer responsible for scanning or incorrectly scanning your merchandise. There was an article of a store calling the cops to arrest someone who accidentally forgot to scan something on the bottom of their cart.

Self checkout is a way for companies not only to get rid of a job, but to shift shrink liability to the customer.

If you're going to make me scan my own merchandise, then the store should wave my liability if I get it wrong.

I used to bag groceries at a mom n pop store. I know the proper way to bag and it infuriates me to watch someone fuck up my stuff.

But they give such amazing discounts

My old grocery store implemented some new camera system to determine theft that falsely accused me of theft. That was cool.

Self checkout is a great place to sneak your 10 dollar parmesan in to the 2 dollar head of lettuce

This. If the attendant/clerk is telling me about the self checkout, I'm going to assume they don't want to deal with ringing me up, and I'll happily handle my own shit even if they are standing there on their phone not "working."

Now if a manager tells me to use the self checkout? Fuck that, absolutely, I don't work here. But I've got solidarity with the underpaid employees who'd rather not deal with me.

The time saved is my payment.

This point seems to get missed on all these "I don't work here" arguments. Yeah, I don't work here, so I'd like to be in and out quickly so I can spend my precious free time for things I actually like to do. If "time is money" anyway, then what's the difference? I'd rather scan my own things, skip the chitchat, and reclaim the personal time I would've spent waiting.

They have to do this because the average shopper has negative IQ. These machines need to be as simple to use as possible.

They done failed.

Policy depends on location, but for some places offering your receipt is 100% voluntary. I wouldn't deny showing my receipt at Costco (where it's been standard practice long before self-checkout came around and, though I don't have a copy of the agreement handy, I wouldn't be surprised if it were part of the agreement when you sign up for a club card.) But when I worked at a certain home improvement store, they hired outside security to check receipts. When one of the security guards was ignored by a customer and they asked him again, the customer complained. Subsequently, the security guard got fired. That's how I learned that the policy is "ask once, and let them go if they don't respond the first time." AKA security theater.

if i've learned anything from this thread it's that y'all have awful self-checkouts.