Great point! But I'm in the American South and cashiers are rarely talkative, at all.

I see that as a positive! They're happy at their job, who am I to complain?

Yep! First job was as a grocery boy. If you feed the cashier your goods in an organized manner, they do better.

My wife was an utter mess at Aldi, pushed her aside and handled scanning and bagging my way. Know what? She's great at it now! After watching a few times, she hands me our purchases in a logical order. Boxy stuff? That goes together. Cold goods? Goes together. Heavy shit? That goes in the empty bag. Soft stuff? Top off a bag.

What's great is that I didn't say much of anything. She figured it out after a few trips!

Anyway, I'm a grocery bagging expert. AMA.

Either amusingly or sadly, honestly, I still haven't decided which, I am my store's top earner and am considered a solid keyholder to the point I am regularly sent to go help out other stores of their messes.

Wasn't my experience in Shreveport.

I hate self check out. I'm a BYO bags person and the damn thing is always yelling at me, always talking mechanically at me, too loud. I would so much rather experience small talk.

Is it really? I've never seen such a sign in my corner of the US. Often there's only one human operated checkout.

The 'let the kid touch the hot stove' approach.

It worked on me, but I fear other people might nurse their burns and pray that next time things will be different.My experience is different. It's a dense urban grocer. Now that you mention it, I've been to Target in the suburbs where SCO was like thunder dome. A little more room for bagging, but not much. I feel so bad for the one team member dashing around checking IDs and explaining why coupons from a decade ago no longer work.

My location (different grocer ) may be privileged, because, even when it's slow, there are two full service registers. I remember how gross it felt watching a checker at Walmart in 02 also bag the groceries because baggers didn't exist any more.

As an aside, the rating thing at Walmart self check out is for the cashier, not the store. If the clerks get below a certain average rating they get penalized (or at least they don't get certain benefits or some shit, from my understanding). I don't know if they count purchases that don't rate at all, but I know some people rate 1 each time because fuck Walmart, but that ends up hurting the cashier, not the store.

Same. But I would also be fine with it taking longer just to not have human interaction, unless I'm in the mood for that or the cashier looks bored...

Exactly. Get in line behind me, I'll show you how it's done! I don't get visibly annoyed that other people exist and also need food. I'll be watching and immediately start scanning my items when a self-checkout opens up. I know to scan the produce barcodes, or how to quickly look up the code. I keep my cart close by, but out of everyone's way. If I have to get an age-verification or other cashier intervention, I let them know as soon as they're available. I put my reusable bag in the bagging area, and efficiently load it as I go. I don't stand in anyone's way... I may even leave you cashback from my debit card sticking out of the machine, because I'm a forgetful dumbass!

Well, that doesn't necessarily require a keen bedside manner.

You say sadly. Do you... like your job? I know it can't always be helped, but I do hope you find a way to move into something better, if there is such a thing. My service job was almost a decade of my life, and I was sooo glad to leave when I was finally given an exit.

Italy and Australia have them

As as introverted person, I gotta say self-checkout machines are my favourite invention in stores.

Then you havent visited many, its incredibly common in all parts of the world

Most stores in my city (in The Netherlands) just have a little terminal you can carry around the store with you. I scan my items with the terminal, it shows me the total price, discounts, points acquired (if I scan my customer card) and then i have the terminal scan the QR code on the self checkout and I just pay. Everything is already in my bag and they rarely check. It's great!

What a great idea, it would also preclude the cost-surprise I experience at the register.

Exactly, I only see benefits to doing this. And even if I then get chosen for the random check (the system chooses), I get to turn a wheel with prizes in the form of free products. I can choose a prize based on the category the wheel lands on. So sometimes I go home with an extra bar of chocolate or some fruit.

So getting chosen for the random check is no longer a hassle, its actually nice!

There are many aspects of my job that I do enjoy, but I think after over a decade in service jobs, I would either prefer a job or that isn't customer facing, or at least in phone support so I don't have to expend energy on face-to-face conversations.

Yeah, that makes sense. A decade is a long time to be doing something, especially if that thing wasn't quite the right fit to begin with.