I heart those self serve check out thingeys at a certain store that is super. What I hate is when people with huge orders go through them, or people who can’t even use a personal comptuter let a computer with a barcode reader and cash machine attached to it. Never fails I get there and there is someone there who has no idea what they are doing. In 95 percent of the cases when I was there, it would have been quicker for the person in front of me to wait in line and go through a cashier checkout where the person taking your order through knows what the hell they are doing.
The solution? I don’t know… max out the age of people who can use these devices at 40? Limit the number of items going through them?
At anyrate, here is a brief run down of how these things work:
1. The machines CAN tell that you put an item in the bag or not. If the item doenst fit in a standard grocery bag, go through the checkout because you’re jsut creating trouble resulting in the supervisor person havign to come and make adjustments…usually you just do the same stupid thing again.
2. It knows when you have items that are not rang through yet.
3. a wrinkled up, half torn bill won’t be read by the macine. There isnt little people under these machines running a hidden cash register, the macine actualy scans the bill. Most imperfections will result int he bill not being read, so dont bother.
I have never worked at this store nor in a capacity simmilar to it but the above is just common sense. Next time you’re there with two cart loads.. time yourself, and realize that you could get it done so much faster if you just went through the register and let trained people do it for you.
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2008.
First, the people who are having difficulty are probably using it for the first time.Second, wtf does age have to do with figuring out how to work the machines?You’re an ageist, plain and simple, and this bitch is stupid. Perhaps it’s time for you to meditate and lower that blood pressure, darlin’.
I avoid the self serve checkouts like the plague. The people at these checkouts always look slightly bewildered. Fuck that. It’s only a matter of time before cashiers are phased out anyway, and we all will have to ring through and pack our own groceries, no matter where you go. I’ll stick to the human cashier ringing my groceries through for now, thanks.
How do you avoid them like “the plague”? Do you run away screaming? Do you disinfect yourself when you get home? In fact, have you ever actually had to “avoid” the plague, which swept across Europe and Asia from the 14th to 18th century? I doubt it, so how exactly do you know how “avoiding like the plague” is actually accomplished. Lol I hate that saying, but I guess that is the topic of another bitch! haha
I couldn’t agree more with the OP. Those things are for guys like me, sent to the store by my wife with a list of about 8 things. If I’m getting 2 weeks worth of shit, I go to the cashier. I don’t think it has anything to do with age. And everyone has to have a first go at ’em and learn how to use them. But even if the line is shorter, you can’t scan and bag a cart full of groceries faster than the cashier. And produce is a pain in the ass with these things too.
I really love people that get on the Bitch and rag on and on about the stupidest things and have typos, bad spelling and bad grammar all over the place. If you’re going to be dissing other people, perhaps you should try not to look like a moron (my mini bitch). I agree with The Sick and the Dead and Plonk, you are an ageist, but wake up, some day you are going to be 40 and over and some asshole just like yourself is going to put a bitch on the Coast about you. Let us know how it feels. I agree with you that people with large orders should go to a cashier, but that’s life, you can’t tell people what to do. I use a computer evey damn day but the first time I used one of the self serve check outs I had to think about it as well, so don’t be so judgmental. Get used to it, life is about waiting in lines and tolerance. Next time go to the 1-10 items check out.
I really don’t know if that’s what life is about but agreed.
I didn’t say that was what life was “all” about, but as every day people living every day lives, we stand in line ups for everything we need to survive unless you grown your own veggies and keep a hobby farm in your back yard, etc., etc. So we do stand in line ups a lot and we must be tolerant because there are so many things you encounter on a daily basis that could drive you to go postal.
So you are saying that all you have in your life is standing in a line? Dear Lola, I cannot believe you have taken this view on life. There is A LOT more to live for. Go to the park and get some unlined fresh air!
That is hardly what I’m saying but you can make of it what you like. Maybe you should get off your computer and go get some of that unlined fresh air yourself TBG! Cheers
I think it’s funny how these comments begin by addressing an original bitch submitted and then end up just becoming bitch fests all in themselves. I’m not into bitch fests. Sayonara
The problem is that they do not designate these registers as 1-10, so there’s nothing saying you can’t go through with a cart full of groceries, and so people will, because they’re fun to play with sometimes. You can also keep a better eye on your purchase with self check-out. But they are bad with any sort of problem, if you have a marked down item, you have to go through the helper, thankfully they’ve made it easier to use your own shopping bags now, but if you do anything wrong, it takes a long time to fix.They really should make some of them for express, but until they do, there’s nothing you can do if you want to use them and there’s a bunch of people with lots of groceries.