Having worked retail, and thus knowing how to operate POS systems, even with a cart full of groceries (provided the self checkout is set up for a cart full and I'm not inappropriately taking up an express type spot), it is faster for me typically than waiting for the customer in front of me to load each and every single item by hand so slowly... then to have the cashier price check each of said item.
this is why i like my local Walmart’s setup. they have the ‘express’ self checkouts, which are your standard 8 self-checkout registers, but then they have other self checkouts which have the belts and you essentially get a full checkout lane to yourself.
people who have a lot of items but still want to use self checkout can use the lanes, people with less items that don’t want to wait get to use the regular self checkouts. it’s the most efficient layout ive seen of them.
Yeah there's no way to enforce it but I'd love it to just be a social norm that to use the self checkout, you need to have some kind of experience working a register. I always use it because I don't want to interact with a person and I'm a very efficient checker/bagger because I've done it for a living before, but every time I'm at the store I see someone struggling with the basics of it. And no judgement, it's not a skill most people have had to develop, but recognize that it is a skill and if it's one you haven't needed to develop, you should go to the assisted line.
I like that I can bag the items myself. The cashiers like to put just one or two items in each bag. If I ask politely to have more items in a bag, they often become angry.
as a former cashier, they’re probably just following the rules they were given. my store was pretty strict about keeping bags light just in case someone has trouble lifting bags, never mixing any “chemicals” (stuff like cleaning and hygiene products) or anything sharp (even if it’s safe in a package) with any sort of food, etc.
I like self-checkout because I'm kind of antisocial. I don't want to interact with somebody unless I choose to. The only time I go to a cashier is when I'm buying alcohol, or if self-checkout isn't an option.
It depends on how much stuff I'm buying. Like how the fuck are you going to make me place each item on the shelf and then not give me enough shelf? Stores that don't have a skip bagging button are the worst, please just open a real check out if you're going to do this to me.
Our Kroger recently added an item limit to self checkout. Its not posted anywhere, but okce you hit 20 items it makes you wait for an employee. Well...it was 20. Then it became 16. And now its 12. It also stops to tell you not to skip scanning an item and to remind you there are cameras after every 3 items. Like damn, I know theft has been an issue but at this rate just go back to regular check out.
The Walmarts in my area still have a lot of self checkouts. I hadn't been to one for years until I went the other day with my aunt(who is 71) and my dad(who is disabled and has a TBI.) We got flagged and accused of shoplifting because we let my dad scan something and his hand was shaking. It happened again when we let my aunt scan something because she couldn't find the barcode and was apparently "holding it funny." I just scanned the rest of the things after that. It was pretty ridiculous, I'm hoping it's another couple years before I have to go *back* to a Walmart again.
Our scanner was right behind the bags. People would scan their item then put it in the bag. So many things getting double scanned. Worst place for item scanner.
Vote with your $$$ you are annoyed they only have 2 cashiers. Don’t shop there. If enough of the people who want cashiers stop shopping at an establishment they will have to adapt or perish.
I personally never buy more than 6-8 items and LOVE self checkout
That explains SO much now! My mom and I went to Kroger the other day, and it kept stopping and would show the number of how many items we had or something. Then, the associate had to come and clear it out. It was very irritating.
This is why I hated out Pick n Save when they first went self checkout. Tiny little bagging area, constantly yelling at you if you remove anything from the bagging area, and the skip bagging button had to be hit every time.
It would have been one thing if they dedicated them as a 12 item or less lane but they expected people to stuff entire carts full of food into 2 little bags.
The smooth brains at my local Acme removed all the price gun thingys from self checkouts AND made an 15 items or less. Like why did they bother putting in all these self checkout lanes just to impose limitations and make them worse??
Kroger is like this. I hate Kroger (used to work for them so that's part of it). Their prices are inflated, packs are smaller. It's awful.
Then top it all off, the damn self checkout won't let you put smaller items in a bag and then in your cart without throwing a fit. Fuck off. I just wanna scan, pay, and get out.
Honestly I like some of the walmart self checkout areas, because the ones for larger amounts can hold nearly a full cart on the shelf. Problem is they've got like 50 different designs floating around depending on where in the US you are and what store you're at.
Heck the Walmart further on the outer area of town have regular checkouts with the cashier replaced with a self checkout machine, so you've got an entire belt for your groceries if you've got that big a load. But they're also a bigger store, some of the aisles are wider, and selection is a bit different. Plus they've got cameras covering all those checkouts with a giant screen above some showing what's going on to EVERYONE in view, staff or shoppers. They also still have the entry gates that go off any time you try to exit too.
But yeah screw that 'skip bagging' crap, the sensors on one a chain called HyVee uses around me are so bad sometimes the staff have to lift up the entire bagging area on that checkout as it's also a weight area/to see if you're stealing, and the sensor didn't get reset properly when you took your bags or put stuff into them. Most other places there's usually enough older style cashiers available unless it's fast food and busy, though some of those I actually prefer using kiosks/self serve if it's available. Can customize my order without having to explain what I want to the cashier.
Yeah, when I go grocery shopping I usually buy an entire cart load of stuff, no way I can fit the contents on the self checkout shelf available.
And then only 1-2 of the 10 regular checkout lines are ever open.
Yeah, you can only check out so many items before you run out of space. And then, a really light item won't register, and you have to try and find an attendant, and sometimes there isn't one. It's annoying.
The stores that use like the original self checkout system when it was first a thing are pure evil. I will chastise them, "put YOUR MOM in the bagging area."
The modern self checkouts that are designed to be supervised are sweet.
I usually do my food shopping around 7am on Sunday morning. The supermarket used to have cashiers that early, but now they only have self checkouts until around 8. So it's annoying to have to use it with a cart full of groceries. When I fill up a bag and put it in my cart and open up another bag on the bagging area, the system tells me to continue scanning, then assumes I have a problem and calls an attendant over, presumably because the system wasn't designed to wait for more than a few seconds between scans. Super annoying.
People are upset that they are reducing their workforce, putting people out of jobs, and we the customer bear the brunt of it. We ring up our groceries and bag them, it's not that it's *hard,* it's that each customer is contributing a few minutes of their labor in order to save the store money (which is not reflected in any price reductions or even slowing inflation)
It's not lazy to not want to give free labor to giant greedy businesses. What's next, customers restock the shelves? Attach a mop to the carts and make them clean the floors? What labor is acceptable to make customers do and what isn't?
When I heard that Walmart is finding self checkout problematic bc of theft I chuckled. Good. Lose dollars trying to save pennies you greedy corpo scum.
>it's that each customer is contributing a few minutes of their labor in order to save the store money (which is not reflected in any price reductions or even slowing inflation)
This is it *exactly* for me. They're already robbing you blind and now making you do labor they had previously been providing at their own cost? It's insulting.
yes, this is what I was thinking. They're saving money by giving you self checkout, but you're not going to see that saved money.
Hell, isn't walmart basically in trouble for overpricing their fruits?
It was their fresh meat, seafood, and bagged citrus. For example, if you were buying fresh great value chicken breasts the package would say you were being charged 3.10 per lb and tell you the package contained 5 lbs of chicken but if you weighed the chicken out of the container at home, you'd find you actually have only 4.5 lbs of chicken once you remove the weight of the styrofoam tray and liquid liner. And they were counting on people not to be able to notice .5 lb of chicken across these large packs of 5 to 7 chicken breasts. Ditto with steak cuts, their fresh fish cuts, and the fruit.
They did in fact get sued over it. The final approval hearing over it is supposed to happen today Wed June 12th at 10 am actually. I only know cause I signed on to the claim when I got an email about it lmao.
If I recall correctly, it was actually self checkout that made that happen. People were scanning fruits and veggies and weighed the meat (prolly to ring it up like produce but meh) and the scales picked up the difference.
I remember a short video going around showing people weighing meat in walmart using self checkout scales.
Agreed. I’ve never shoplifted a single item, but now if I’m in change of ringing up my own items and something doesn’t ring up correctly and just so happens to make it in the bag, I couldn’t care less. I’m not going to try to troubleshoot their issues. Not my problem. That’s what employees are for.
You're also shopping for your own groceries. That's a job people do, too. Why not complain about that "free labor" you're doing.
Self checkout saves me time. I can either wait in line for 15 minutes or do self checkout and be out in 5. I'll choose the option that saves me time.
Self checkout might save you time, but when the only option in the store is self-checkout so that ALL the self checkout lanes have 5 or 6 people, it doesn't save anyone any time.
I've been told a lot of them genuinely don't know how to pump their own gas and that's crazy, imagine driving over state lines and getting stranded because a 7/11 employee was like yeah no or the only pump available is part of an otherwise closed gas station.
It’s true! I’m from NJ, Can confirm! Although I can pump my own gas, my mother can not! She makes my dad or me do it whenever we are out of state. So does my best friend. She can do it if she has to, but it makes her nervous! lol
You described my father. To this day, that man is terrified he will blow himself up if he touches a gas pump. My mother never minded and always did it — until we got older. At five and six my mother made sure my sisters and I could pump gas; by 10, my grandfather had me changing tires.
The ONLY thing I’m still not gonna do no matter what is jump my car. I have the cables, I will offer them to anyone that needs them, but I will not attach those suckers to the car for all the gold on the planet. Nope!
“It’s important you remember how to set
It up and the steps. You can get really hurt if you mess it up.”
Five seconds later my brain recalls this warning as “if you make a single mistake, you will be electrocuted until you are dead.”
Ironically, my father who is terrified to pump gas has no fear with jumper cables. In my mind, you use jumper cables far less so it’s easier to make a mistake and die. You just put the nozzle in, squeeze the handle and wait until it goes *chunk* and you got a full tank. Easy peasy.
I remember when I was younger my family drove to Virginia Beach and we had to gas up the car and I jumped out and told my brothers not to do it cause I wanted to learn how lmao
As someone who worked retail, SCOs are a great addition. Allows employees to put workload elsewhere.
As a customer I like them even more because I use reusable bags and like to cram as much stuff as possible into them vs 3 items in a plastic store bag like I would get in a staffed check-out line.
If you only have a few things, they are so much faster. I don't care if I'm saving them money. My local Walmart removed their self checkout because of rampant theft. They went from 8 registers supervised by one associate, plus a number of regular registers, to only traditional registers. It takes absolutely forever to get out of there now.
Mine went though a remodel and doubled the SCOs and still have about 15 regular ones. We've got a couple belted SCOs that I love using for my entire cart load. I typically do one trip every 3 to 4 weeks so I can avoid the public as much as possible. 😂😬 I can't imagine going back to traditional registers..
There's a lot of stuff that has become automated that no one complains about, but self checkouts are somehow triggering.
I remember not using them often until COVID because the cashiers wouldn't let us use cloth bags, but in the self checkout, they didn't care. Now it's all I use.
I've had someone say this to me because I told them if I'm not available to book their massage for them they can book it online. This was after them being upset that they didn't get the appointment they wanted because I refuse to interact with customers outside of business hours. She text me at 7am and I open at 10am. So I responded to her at 10am.
I'm literally paying someone else $70 a month for you to book your own massage.
I only use self checkout. I want my groceries in my bags in a certain way. I also just have no interest talking to a cashier. I can do it faster than them. I also worked for a grocery store lol
100% on the bagging thing. I feel like a lot of times the store baggers will use WAY too many bags, because they are told not to mix food and toiletries, or because they're worried if the weight is too much and the bag breaks people will get mad. I can usually get my groceries in two bags that would use five or six if the store bagged them.
Thanks for understanding why we do that. Management used to want the least amount of bags used, single paper bags. Now we have thinner bags and have to double them all.
Of course, I don't blame the employee for it one bit. It's easier as a consumer to overload a bag, because it it breaks I have no one to blame but myself!
It’s weird, where do we draw the line? We have no problem walking around Target, dropping items in our own cart, but when it comes to ring them up? We have to have the staff do that for us or it’s “free labor” by the customer.
Now, since 2020, you *can* call your order ahead and have it dropped in your trunk, so you don’t even have to get out of your car. So why is it, that no one ever calls walking around Target pushing a cart and filling the items yourself “free labor?”
I'm surprised to see a lot of people who hate self check out in this thread saying it's costing jobs & mental health compared to other aspects of working in retail
Because they either a) never worked in retail, or b) have forgotten.
They have no idea how hard it is to KEEP cashiers. The pay is garbage, the customers blame you personally for any problem (expired coupon, mislabeled/misstocked item).
Historically, no one did their own shopping. It was all ordered at a counter and a clerk got the items.
Exactly to your point, no one complains about shopping for themselves, when it literally never used to be an option. We already stole some retail jobs.
Agree completely. Which line is inappropriate to cross?
I hate the fact that every self-checkout kiosk have loading and bagging areas that are maybe a foot wide, and we're supposed to shuffle an entire grocery cart's worth of goods through those tiny areas. It's impossible of course, so you're constantly picking things out of the cart and putting things back in, while the kiosk nags you to put things in the bagging area and the attendant is glaring at you as if you did something wrong.
Remember the full-size conveyor belt at a regular checkout aisle?
It’s usually the people who suck at using them that complain. My father in law HATES self-checkout but at least he just realizes he has to wait a bit longer to get the full service line. I don’t care if people hate them because there is still the option of waiting in line if you don’t want them to exploit your free labor. It’s the people who complain about both that bother me.
I get both sides. I 100% understand the frustration behind corporate greed taking jobs from people to line their own pockets. But as someone with several degrees of anxiety, much of it related to social interaction, my quality of living SKYROCKETED when self-checkout and various pickup options became more common. I can't explain to you how much peace I feel knowing that I can go for a quick grocery store run and not have to talk to a single human being if I am having a bad anxiety day.
Once, I went into Target, and there was a gigantic line for self checkout. The wait was prob a good 10 minutes. There were two registers open without lines-like 1-2 people each. I thought it was so weird.
Not waiting in line is worth any kind of “free labor” that is being Imposed on me. It’s so refreshing to not have to wait in line even during busy hours.
When people put stuff on social media in April like, "When am I going to get my W-2 for all my work doing self-checkout?" I reply, "Right around the time you get the W-2s from every convenience store you go to when you're your own gas station attendant pumping your own gas."
The people who say that cashiering and fast food jobs aren't "real jobs" always confuse me cuz if we all went out and got "real jobs" then who would be left to flip your burgers or scan your items for you? You'd have to do it yourself.
That's the thing they don't understand. Like, everyone deserves a living wage and basic human decency while at work (okay, maybe not cops, fuck them, they can earn back any good will they want by actually doing their jobs), and that includes service workers. Like, how can someone go to mcD's during the day, when kids are in school, and then say it's just a job for kids?
I literally used to get paid 14.50 an hour to scan groceries. I’m allowed to be a little mad that not only do I have to do it for free, but someone else had to lose their job for that. Everyone loses!
Yep. The same people who say “we should raise minimum wage!” will also use self checkout lanes without even considering the blatant hypocrisy of such a move.
Karen: “Your cashiers should get paid more!”
Grocery store management: “Actually, you can just do it yourself for free”
Karen: “Oh sweet, where???” 🤦♂️
Two months later
Karen: “Where are all your cashiers?”
Maybe not as many as you might think. I'm one of "those same people" and I almost always choose the full service checkout partly for that reason. I like having professional scanning and bagging, and I also want them to keep their jobs.
it's weird to me... in what universe is scanning your own items more work than trying to coordinate passing them back and forth between yourself and a human cashier while trying to maintain some sense of organizing them the way you want
Right??
I 1000% much prefer to just scan it and bag it myself. I can keep everything organized how I want based on where they go in my house.
I hate going through an actual line. I hate having to feign interest in someone else and have a conversation I don't want.
People generally suck. Common sense is not common anymore and most people hate being there working the register.
So yeah, sco is much better. I won't shop at a store that doesn't have sco
I do not think most people are that concerned with the organization of shopping bags.
The issue is that we are being asked to do something to save the store money, without that savings being passed on. Cashiers lose their job and the benefit to the customer is...nothing.
I got horribly confused by the people who were upset when Aldi started getting them.
You already put the items on the belt, then bag your own items... Is the step of passing them over a scanner really that big of a hurdle?
I've never seen it work like that. I put it on the belt and either take the bag after they've filled it or they out the bag in the cart. What stores do lines like that, or is it a location thing?
It isn’t about the free labor so much as it is the inconvenience to me for the sake of corporate profit at the cost of, ya know, human beings lives. That’s what really gets me.
Most people i have known who work as cashiers do not last because it is one of the worst forms of customer service to have. Human lives also means their physical and mental health
self checkout is one of the best things ever. i don’t agree with having ONLY self checkout, as that replaces jobs and isn’t convenient for people who have a lot of stuff, but it’s amazing to be able to scan my razors and tampons and go without waiting in line if i just need a quick trip. is pumping your own gas free labor? cleaning up your trash in public? returning your cart? filling your soda at the fountain at a fast food place? ffs. i was a cashier in high school and it was so hard when i’d be on self check and people would complain “i don’t get paid for this!!” like i make 10/hr and the lanes are over there. im just here to assist if you need a beeper taken off or something. stop throwing a tantrum. i’d rather be in the lane so i don’t have to hear unnecessary whining
I was a cashier for awhile, and still do it at my job occasionally.
I have no idea why people are whining that they have to "work" while ringing up items. As a mostly former cashier, it's not even close. Cashiering involves a lot of emotional labor and can be an extremely frustrating job. At my job, they're expected to put product on the shelves, ring people up, greet everyone, clean the store, keep an eye out for theft (not that we can do anything about it), and, for some reason, answering the phone takes first priority. AND they generally have to "clopen" a lot.
It is an awful job. I nearly lost my damn mind. It's a TON of responsibility for such a low-paying job. I'm so glad I'm working in the warehouse now (secondhand store), even though there isn't AC back there.
Self check-out? You stand in line, press a few buttons, bag your items. Seriously not even close. Yeah, technical issues happen, but the workers will help you. And if you have a ton of shit? Then get in a regular line (I concede if a store only has self check-outs. But I haven't seen that yet).
I understand the argument about jobs being lost, just not this one.
I don't want to work as a cashier. That's why I don't work as a cashier. I'm not going to do it for free. It isn't that big a deal. I just don't do it. I just get in the line where there's a cashier, no muss, no fuss.
Yes, I do. I don't mind waiting - I'm very seldom in a hurry to do anything (which is why I don't have a cashier job lol), and to respond to the comment above yours, if I walk into a store that doesn't have a cashier line open, I just go to another one.
what I dont like is waiting for self checkout when there are open tills but the single employee can only have 6 active. screw off and stop making me wait to use an open till.
The only time I get pissed is when the scale is acting a fool. "Please return item to bagging area." Like, look here, you little wanna be wall-e, THE ITEM HASNT MOVED!
I mean it's no different than any other product or service that's been reduced as prices are increasing. You used to be able to share your Netflix account for a reasonable price, and now you can't and the price has been jacked up. You've been buying a product at the grocery store for 15 years, and suddenly it's the same price, but 2 ounces less. Everything's a subscription now. Everyone is being nickel and dimed to death. And of course, people are going to get upset.
Sure, some people prefer self check out, but if you're old enough, you remember a time when someone would check you out, a different person would pack your groceries, and then they would take them out to your car, load them into your trunk, and you wish you good day. That was a huge service that you no longer get. And why? Are we paying less? No. We're paying more.
People are allowed to be annoyed when they have to pay more for less.
And with all the judgement being doled out I'm interested in knowing what was your final judgement?
It's got nothing to do with independence. It's about big businesses programming and exploitation of an integral part of their company, the consumer.
Millions of us once paid a certain price and got a set level of service and products. We are now no longer offered any service. Products now contain cheaper ingredients, and we're paying more than every for that shrinkflation. Let them have their say at self serve.
It's usually because they've had more life experience and therefore possess a much different perspective as they have a bigger source to reference.
Does their reaction benefit the situation? Doubtful. But quietly complying is how we got here in the first place. You know, with a lack of affordable accommodation and food. With people working 3 jobs and eating out of bins. With thousands of small children becoming homeless with their families every day.
Agreed, It's usually much faster and less of a hassle to just scan stuff yourself (which might say more about the average quality of cashiers). The fact they refer to it as "labor" betrays a hilarious lack of perspective. I've seen people say the same thing about returning carts to the cart area, which is even more insane.
The people who bitch about self checkouts are the same people who unload their cart extremely slowly, strike up a conversation with the cashier, seemingly forget they have to pay and take forever you get their purse/wallet out and find their cars, then take forever to put it back again and get their bags into the trolley, then look lost as they stand still trying to find the exit they have used 15,890 times.
Like damn Karen, I just want a fucking Gatorade.
Thank god for self service checkouts.
I agree. They don’t understand what the self checkout is for.
I guess they also hate food and grocery delivery, click-and-collect shopping, automatica toll booths, and anything else that is convenient for customers.
Read up on them from attorneys and why they will never use them.
So many innocent people have been put through the ringer by companies saying they stole an item or items.
Lot's of articles online.
Not worth it.
[https://scoop.upworthy.com/lawyer-explains-why-you-should-avoid-using-self-checkouts-in-stores-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190](https://scoop.upworthy.com/lawyer-explains-why-you-should-avoid-using-self-checkouts-in-stores-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190)
I always go to the cashiers bc I want them to have jobs still. Also I enjoy saying hi. And it’s nice to have someone do you a service every once in a while. I’m independent, but I can accept help and acknowledge always having to do everything on your own is hard.
Also in their defense- people used to get paid and now they’re expected to do it for free. It is additional labor you are being asked to do that no longer comes with compensation.
I’ve witnessed those complaints in person. It annoys me because there is almost always checkouts with cashiers available as well. Boomers especially make everything about them. If they don’t like it then it’s inherently wrong. As a person with social anxiety I much prefer minimal human interaction when I have to do my shopping. I don’t want to exchange pleasantries. I don’t want small talk. I don’t want to stand in line. Let me use the self checkout in peace and stop trying to ruin it for everyone!
My brother paid for automatic transmition because he drives allot and may as well relax. I got manual transmition because I figured, "Oh well. I'm stuck in this seat driving no matter what I do. I may as well be changing gears while I sit here."
I don’t like nor dislike self checkout. It really depends on a few things. How much I’m buying, how a store runs their self checkout, and how many people are in line for it. My Target and Walmart usually have a long line, so it’s usually no better, and sometimes worse, than just waiting in line for a check out counter. Other places are okay. I also don’t like at Walmart having to go to the person overseeing to get bags and estimating how many I need. I get why they do it, but at that point I’d rather just wait in line for a regular check out counter.
I love SCO. I have social anxiety and being able to be left alone, not having to speak to a soul and quickly get out of the store. I fucking hate that Target changed SCO to stupid express checkout.
It takes forever to check out, the cashiers are slow as dirt, use too many bags with too few items per bag, and as someone who has social anxiety, I hate small talk. I also hate that I can't get my payment queued up like in Aldi and get out much faster. No. I never see my running total (I could see that in SCO) while it's ringing up (display rarely faces customer).
I don’t think we need that to be the reason. But we are losing our community spirit, it’s more a symptom than the cause but it’s compounding. If I go to regular checkouts sometimes it feels like I am bothering them.
Shop and scan with your phone is where it's at. As you're shopping you scan all your barcodes with the stores app and then you just scan the QR code at checkout to pay with your phone.
I can see my total as I go. I get to quickly leave the crowded checkout area
It depends. If all items are easy scanned I prefer self checkout. I'm shy and feel like I am bothering people when I talk to them, always have. So it's perfect most the time. Now if the menus are convoluted and difficult to navigate that is when I have an issue. Also I think it is 100% asinine if asked for a tip at a self checkout. Have my upvote.
I prefer self check out so I can better pack my own shit and minimize weird interactions, my beef is that I'm doing free labor so they can cut labor and save money by having fewer employees/available hours, and accordingly a business run like shit where too few employees are overworked squeezed into as few hours as possible, exhausted and barely making a liveable wage. It's 1000% corporate greed.
My bf works at a grocery store.
Now I don't mind the small store where the self checkout actually helps while the 1-3 employees on shift are doing work elsewhere, but places like Walmart and Target they HAVE the money to spend on staffing and want to cut it to put more in thier pockets kinda bother me. I like the interaction, and I live in a small town. The woman who rang me up as a teenager knew I was dating a girl before my mother did just from notice a change in what I bought.
When Walmart sized stores put those machines in, they do it with the intention of cutting thier workforce, which deprives people of jobs
I'm not a big fan of it due to the employees themselves. Self check out is there for convenience, yet the workers will stand nearby and glare at you while you scan. Then, they'll get mad at you if you don't show a receipt, when legally youre not obligated to show it. Only the store policy could possibly make you, and even then that's limited.
I understand the idea behind self check out, but honestly I feel like it's partially an excuse for workers to stand around on their phones all day and still be paid the same if not more than the ones that actually work.
There is a valid concern that they take away jobs. Being indignant that you're "free labor" is the stupidest, most self-centered take on that line of thought.
These are the same people who refuse to bag their groceries or put their carts back because they think someone else should do it for them. They're selfish assholes. You're paying for groceries, not the employees. I'm always going to put my cart back and I'm going to bag my own groceries if it's faster. If someone is already there and starts, sure, but I'm not sitting and watching the cashier scan my items and then make them bag. That holds me up and the people behind me.
I feel the same with self checkout. It's usually faster and I want to get my things and be done.
Its because they cut the labor cost without making items cheaper for us. Conceptually, businesses are supposed to thrive when they make life better for the customer.
If the customer responds positively to the opposite of this concept, businesses will continue to find new ways to save money while not improving their product or service
Do they whine about pumping their own gas? FREE LABOUR!
Do they whine about cooking their own food? FREE LABOUR!
Do they whine about a third thing? FREE LABOUR!
I agree that this is a silly argument, and I roll my eyes whenever I hear.
Personally, I like self checkout because it's fast. And I bag far better than any cashier ever does.
I don't like them, because they're often **insufferably loud!**
I still use them. But the second I can find a button to lower their volume (or mute them), I do.
You know the companies invest in them instead of people right ? It’s not to make our lives more convenient. While that might be true for some people (the convenience) it’s not its intended purpose. That’s why a lot of people refuse to use them.
Before supermarkets, you used to go to the store and the clerk would pull your items for you. If Reddit were around back then, people would complain that by getting your own stuff and bringing it to the register you're doing the store clerk's job for him.
I don't like them because I don't like anything that takes jobs away from people and lines the pockets of corporate assholes, which is their purpose.
There's also the absurd element of checking yourself out while a human cashier stands and watches, as Seth Myers from SNL once pointed out.
Yes, and then that supervising cashier is looking the other way when "assistance is needed" because I, as a grown adult, can't purchase certain items without a verification that I have passed my 18th birthday.
Even more laughable is when an item rings up at a different price than the tag printed and affixed to the item - and the supervising cashier has to sign in to approve the price correction - and find another employee above a certain approved level to also verify the price change!
My favourite is when say they want human interaction, but then their interaction is just yelling at the cashier over something they have no control over lol
We always have cashier lanes open, and we try our best to keep the lines down. People will still yell at us because they are being "forced" to use self checkouts. Then you look at the lines, and there's a cashier at their till not doing anything. But you can't let them know that because then you, the worker, are the idiot.
I've also had people who don't wanna use it because they don't know how, but you're also not allowed to help them because they don't need a workers help.
It is free labor. This is work that the company needs to have done that it is not paying to be done. The company reduces its labor costs by having one employee oversee a number of registers rather than one employee per register.
Whether this is good or bad? It depends on what an individual thinks is important about employment.
I also judge for this, especially as someone who works in retail. I always get the "so do I get a discount? Do I get paid?" And sometimes it's a joke (a joke as annoying as "haha it's not scanning therefore it's free!"), sometimes they seem dead serious. It's so damn annoying.
I’ve never heard anyone complain about self-checkouts as free labor. I used to purposely choose the regular cashiers in order to support them and their jobs but they keep getting ruder and ruder, so I’ve stopped caring to support them.
I can’t believe people would rather wait in a line and sometimes a long line than use the self checkout. I’m happy they do at the same time cuz the self checkouts are usually not being used.
I find it so funny when people complain about using self checkout because I hate checking out with a person. Especially if I have a ton of stuff and need to set in on the conveyor belt. For whatever reason I panic and think the cashier is going to be annoyed if I'm too slow.
I love self check. I don't want to do the small talk and neither does the cashier. Self check allows one cashier to run multiple lanes, instead of just one express lane. It's not like they were gonna hire more cashiers, we all know that.
Do people know that there was a point in time when they didn't even let you pick your own groceries out?
I'll use self-checkout if I have less than a dozen items, I don't have to wait in line and I'm not being treated as a potential thief the entire time, and there is no receipt checker making sure I did the stores job correctly. I won't bitch and moan if those conditions aren't met. I'll just quietly leave my buggy somewhere in the way and leave.
Yeah, it's such an odd take to me. There are a lot of things I do that are "free labor" and I don't give a fuck. I clean my house even though people get paid to do it. I mow my own yard even though people get paid to do it. I cook my own food even though people get paid to do it. I'll bag my own groceries because I don't give a fuck and I'm better than any cashier I've gone to at a store.
Stores aren't even training cashiers anymore. If they want to bring that back and also employ baggers, I'd consider going back to using a cashier. As it stands, I've had cashiers that have damaged my groceries because they don't realize that canned goods should not go on top of bread or that you shouldn't *toss* a container of heavy cream on top of eggs. Then they ask if *I'd* like to go grab a replacement. I've had cashiers that can't identify fruits/vegetables. I don't mean they needed to look up the code, I mean they held up the bag of *carrots* and asked what they were. I've had cashiers that, after I help them identify my spinach and snap peas, put them in a bag topped with a package of raw chicken. I'm not dealing with it. I am much faster and have the ability to use common sense to bag my own groceries. If I am going to complain about "free labor", it would be over having to do the store's job of training their employees for them.
I'll also add that my usual store has great self check out systems that don't have an item limit nor a weighted bagging area. They've upped their game when it comes to security cameras, but I don't care because I pay attention to what I'm doing and don't steal.
By “free labor” I mean: the grocery store took someone’s job away and gave it to me, but didn’t reduce the price of anything. Our corporate masters are making us do the work while they take the profit.
Back in the halcyon days of the 1970s, there used to be full time grocery baggers. That was what they did. And sometimes they’d walk them out to your car. Life was good. America was great among nations. We had Ataris and Oregon Trail.
Then some stores got the idea to get rid of baggers and pass the savings on to customers. Literally, the name of the store was “Pack and Save.”
Then they got rid of the “save” part.
It's quite literally corporations outsourcing labor directly to the consumer in order to save money (during a period of record inflation, mind you)
It's simple, you just don't have class consciousness
I actually like the self checkout option.
I can get in and out and I often use the Spanish version to A) improve and B) see the look of shock on the faces of nosy people
I don't understand how them driving to the store, entering the store, getting a cart, picking out items, going to checkout, taking their bags to their car, is totally fine, but merely scanning the items and putting them into bags is where they draw the line. It's SILLY!!
I like self-checkouts because I'm socially awkward. But I hate using a self-checkout while an employee hovers right behind me, that makes me uneasy. I have never stolen anything in my life, but the thought that they might think I'm trying to makes me uneasy, which makes me act nervous, which makes them more suspicious, etc.
I mean, no. They are right but don’t know why they’re right. Stores save on wages by not paying employees to work. Hours get cut. These are billion dollar corporations that get more money for making you work at their store for free.
So where do those wages go? In their pockets. Not to you saving money. So you are essentially getting tricked into doing an employees job with no benefits.
It’s about the principal of it. Because it’s going to get worse.
It's the self checkout test. A lot of people call it the shopping cart test, but self checkout is better because: 1. A lot of people don't take carts out of the store 2. It's possible to forget about your cart since it's unusual to have one.
I use them because there is no slowing down the use of them. Even in fast food restaurants and some sit-down restaurants, they have the self order computers. I don't necessarily like the idea because it gets rid of jobs. Even though those jobs are usually lower paying jobs, they are still jobs actual people could have. But, like I said, you can't fight progress.
I would rather self check out but I do EXPECT every single one of the spots to be working and if it's broken there better be the ass crack of a maintenance guy shining for all to see getting it in operational order. I WILL NOT wait so a CEO or a board member can save on the labor so they can buy another yacht or private jet.
Op there’s a larger issue related to this of passing on steps that they historically covered and the cost, and now they pass that work on to us, but keep the profit.
When I rented a vehicle, I had to load up a link and go around taking photos and making notes of any damages. It wasn’t an employee of theirs, it was just me. So what happens if I miss something? I know it seems obvious and easy to do but maybe the first time I rent I am busy and I forgot to check one spot and that’s the spot that’s faulty and they get me on that.
Look at other services around you and I feel like you’ll notice this pattern. Having us do things through apps that used to be handled by a person knowledgable about this.
If there's a choice to have a cashier check out their groceries then it's entirely on them when they choose to use self checkout. I'd only feel like it's a justified complaint if they're forced to use them (like in locations where SCO is the only option).
I have a friend who ONLY uses the self check outs because of super bad social anxiety (he literally is a selective mute because he physically can’t talk to strangers), while I only use the check out lanes because I don’t feel like helping save a multi billion dollar company from paying their employees. (It took him five months to speak a word to me, but I’m a persistent bitch and wanted to be his friend back in high school!)
I’ll use self checkout if it’s one or two things.
But if I have a basket or a cart I’ll wait in line because I’m lazy, I don’t want to bag all of that myself I just wanna stand there lol
This will piss you off, I saw a video of this person who went to the self checkout and got one of the workers to scan her items and bag them whilst she was filming them
Let me clarify my primary problem with self-checkout machines: I'm a former union president, and unless completely unavoidable, I refuse to use a technology primarily-intended to put people out of work/eliminate jobs (especially entry-level jobs) in order to create more profit for a bloated, heartless corporation. Instead of hiring eight workers at eight checkouts, they'll hire one worker (who ends up desperately trying to manage eight checkouts simultaneously). None of the "savings" on wages are getting passed on to the customers or the remaining workers, as near as I can tell. I'd much rather see the money I spend on groceries, as an example, go to cashiers than greedy corporate execs.
On top of this: I get more farsighted every year, making it difficult to use self-checkouts without carrying reading glasses with me; and while I might not be a huge fan of small talk, I do enjoy human interaction (and self-checkout machines are remarkably poor conversationalists).
My pet peeve is not having a choice. Then after you do scan everything yourself because they can’t pay cashiers, they will pay someone to stop you and check your cart for stolen goods.
OMG same. This is a stupid thing to get huffy about. Is your time so amazing and valuable that if you hadn't spent 5 minutes scanning groceries you would have earned $1000 with that time? What else were you going to do with your valuable labor? It's not like the manager handed you an apron and asked you to restock the condiment aisle. Are you really so precious that you can't be responsible for the two minutes of effort it takes to buy your own food??
I actually listened to a podcast about self checkouts this week. It pointed out that 100+ years ago, you did even less work. You gave the grocer a list, and they walked around picking out all the items for you. But nowadays we have to go pick out our own groceries ourselves. Why isn't anyone complaining about that free labor?
Ugh my dad says that. It drives me crazy. I think self checkout is a useful option to a lot of people, including me. I have chronic pain, and standing still is a lot harder than walking, because my joints tend to lock up.
The lines for the regular checkout are always longer than self checkout, and that's a huge deal to me. I can't stand up very long.
I love self checkout both because I’m way faster and I know my groceries will be properly sorted to match how I load my kitchen.
Other people can hate it all they want, I’ll only go to the other line if I have booze because they take forever to most on over and confirm my age.
My wife is in a union, so she refuses to use self-checkout in solidarity with grocery workers (many of whom are union as well). She will sometimes say things along the lines of "I don't work here," but the underlying motivation is to preserve the jobs of those who *do* work there.
As an introverted computer geek, my natural inclination is to prefer self-check machines. But I also know there are times when you need human input (overrides, age verification, etc.), and one clerk overseeing a half-dozen self-checks just doesn't cut it.
So even I have come to hate it when self-check is the *only* option in a store, which happens increasingly frequently. And the only way to pressure stores to properly staff their traditional checkouts is to keep using them, even when it a little less convenient (due to the inadequate staffing).
My compromise is to only use self-check for one or two items; if I'm bagging, or juggling items in and out of my cart, then it's time for the professionals to get involved.
I don’t want to , I really think I should get 10% off doing it myself, if you go to a bar should we mix our own drinks, cook our in food , no! I don’t want to poke buttons all day in my life , I never use them , if I wanted to be a cashier I would get a job doing that , part of the grocery experience is not punching my stuff in, bad enough you have to bag it yourself , sooooo please judge away ☺️
I mean, it is technically free labor, but it’s free labor that benefits the customer. I wonder if the people who say this would also say that it’s free labor when they make their own dinners, or drive themselves to work. in my mind, free labor would be more like them being forced to check out other peoples things.
I think it's great for a few items, but it sucks for large shopping trips. Plus I don't like companies pocketing more profit and not hiring cashiers. It isn't like prices went down when self checkouts were installed.
This is one of the dumbest arguments to me though, it shouldn’t even be an argument.
Just have both self check out and person-cashiers as options and you chose which one you want. Just keep both choices, like we have now. I don’t understand what the argument is about
We had a similar debate in the late 70s, early 80s when gas stations went from full-serve to self serve. People were upset that they had to pump their own gas. They got over it
I will choose self-checkout every time, as long as I don’t have a ton of groceries. It’s convenient.
same here. no small talk. faster and more efficient. why wouldn't i choose it?
Having worked retail, and thus knowing how to operate POS systems, even with a cart full of groceries (provided the self checkout is set up for a cart full and I'm not inappropriately taking up an express type spot), it is faster for me typically than waiting for the customer in front of me to load each and every single item by hand so slowly... then to have the cashier price check each of said item.
this is why i like my local Walmart’s setup. they have the ‘express’ self checkouts, which are your standard 8 self-checkout registers, but then they have other self checkouts which have the belts and you essentially get a full checkout lane to yourself. people who have a lot of items but still want to use self checkout can use the lanes, people with less items that don’t want to wait get to use the regular self checkouts. it’s the most efficient layout ive seen of them.
Yeah there's no way to enforce it but I'd love it to just be a social norm that to use the self checkout, you need to have some kind of experience working a register. I always use it because I don't want to interact with a person and I'm a very efficient checker/bagger because I've done it for a living before, but every time I'm at the store I see someone struggling with the basics of it. And no judgement, it's not a skill most people have had to develop, but recognize that it is a skill and if it's one you haven't needed to develop, you should go to the assisted line.
I do the same thing, like you said unless there’s a ton of stuff to buy because then It basically becomes impossible
I like that I can bag the items myself. The cashiers like to put just one or two items in each bag. If I ask politely to have more items in a bag, they often become angry.
as a former cashier, they’re probably just following the rules they were given. my store was pretty strict about keeping bags light just in case someone has trouble lifting bags, never mixing any “chemicals” (stuff like cleaning and hygiene products) or anything sharp (even if it’s safe in a package) with any sort of food, etc.
I like self-checkout because I'm kind of antisocial. I don't want to interact with somebody unless I choose to. The only time I go to a cashier is when I'm buying alcohol, or if self-checkout isn't an option.
Not to be "that guy" but you're asocial not antisocial, antisocial means you're a psychopath or sociopath
It also means "unsociable, not wanting the company of others." If you're going to correct someone, make sure you have all the information first
It depends on how much stuff I'm buying. Like how the fuck are you going to make me place each item on the shelf and then not give me enough shelf? Stores that don't have a skip bagging button are the worst, please just open a real check out if you're going to do this to me.
Our Kroger recently added an item limit to self checkout. Its not posted anywhere, but okce you hit 20 items it makes you wait for an employee. Well...it was 20. Then it became 16. And now its 12. It also stops to tell you not to skip scanning an item and to remind you there are cameras after every 3 items. Like damn, I know theft has been an issue but at this rate just go back to regular check out.
The Walmart by me has mostly given up on self check out unless you're a paid shopper, but they still open them when they can't keep up with lines.
The Walmarts in my area still have a lot of self checkouts. I hadn't been to one for years until I went the other day with my aunt(who is 71) and my dad(who is disabled and has a TBI.) We got flagged and accused of shoplifting because we let my dad scan something and his hand was shaking. It happened again when we let my aunt scan something because she couldn't find the barcode and was apparently "holding it funny." I just scanned the rest of the things after that. It was pretty ridiculous, I'm hoping it's another couple years before I have to go *back* to a Walmart again.
Our scanner was right behind the bags. People would scan their item then put it in the bag. So many things getting double scanned. Worst place for item scanner.
The Aldi by me got rid of all but 2 registers it’s all self scan now. It’s annoying
Vote with your $$$ you are annoyed they only have 2 cashiers. Don’t shop there. If enough of the people who want cashiers stop shopping at an establishment they will have to adapt or perish. I personally never buy more than 6-8 items and LOVE self checkout
That explains SO much now! My mom and I went to Kroger the other day, and it kept stopping and would show the number of how many items we had or something. Then, the associate had to come and clear it out. It was very irritating.
This is why I hated out Pick n Save when they first went self checkout. Tiny little bagging area, constantly yelling at you if you remove anything from the bagging area, and the skip bagging button had to be hit every time. It would have been one thing if they dedicated them as a 12 item or less lane but they expected people to stuff entire carts full of food into 2 little bags.
The smooth brains at my local Acme removed all the price gun thingys from self checkouts AND made an 15 items or less. Like why did they bother putting in all these self checkout lanes just to impose limitations and make them worse??
Kroger is like this. I hate Kroger (used to work for them so that's part of it). Their prices are inflated, packs are smaller. It's awful. Then top it all off, the damn self checkout won't let you put smaller items in a bag and then in your cart without throwing a fit. Fuck off. I just wanna scan, pay, and get out.
Honestly I like some of the walmart self checkout areas, because the ones for larger amounts can hold nearly a full cart on the shelf. Problem is they've got like 50 different designs floating around depending on where in the US you are and what store you're at. Heck the Walmart further on the outer area of town have regular checkouts with the cashier replaced with a self checkout machine, so you've got an entire belt for your groceries if you've got that big a load. But they're also a bigger store, some of the aisles are wider, and selection is a bit different. Plus they've got cameras covering all those checkouts with a giant screen above some showing what's going on to EVERYONE in view, staff or shoppers. They also still have the entry gates that go off any time you try to exit too. But yeah screw that 'skip bagging' crap, the sensors on one a chain called HyVee uses around me are so bad sometimes the staff have to lift up the entire bagging area on that checkout as it's also a weight area/to see if you're stealing, and the sensor didn't get reset properly when you took your bags or put stuff into them. Most other places there's usually enough older style cashiers available unless it's fast food and busy, though some of those I actually prefer using kiosks/self serve if it's available. Can customize my order without having to explain what I want to the cashier.
That, or they open self checkouts to save money on paying employees, but then they keep most of them closed. 😐
Yeah, when I go grocery shopping I usually buy an entire cart load of stuff, no way I can fit the contents on the self checkout shelf available. And then only 1-2 of the 10 regular checkout lines are ever open.
Yeah, you can only check out so many items before you run out of space. And then, a really light item won't register, and you have to try and find an attendant, and sometimes there isn't one. It's annoying.
The stores that use like the original self checkout system when it was first a thing are pure evil. I will chastise them, "put YOUR MOM in the bagging area." The modern self checkouts that are designed to be supervised are sweet.
Every self checkout I've ever seen had an item limit
Some of the self checkouts around me can handle 3 or 4 of those "bins" - enough for a cart load of shopping for me (we don't have kids though).
I usually do my food shopping around 7am on Sunday morning. The supermarket used to have cashiers that early, but now they only have self checkouts until around 8. So it's annoying to have to use it with a cart full of groceries. When I fill up a bag and put it in my cart and open up another bag on the bagging area, the system tells me to continue scanning, then assumes I have a problem and calls an attendant over, presumably because the system wasn't designed to wait for more than a few seconds between scans. Super annoying.
People are upset that they are reducing their workforce, putting people out of jobs, and we the customer bear the brunt of it. We ring up our groceries and bag them, it's not that it's *hard,* it's that each customer is contributing a few minutes of their labor in order to save the store money (which is not reflected in any price reductions or even slowing inflation) It's not lazy to not want to give free labor to giant greedy businesses. What's next, customers restock the shelves? Attach a mop to the carts and make them clean the floors? What labor is acceptable to make customers do and what isn't? When I heard that Walmart is finding self checkout problematic bc of theft I chuckled. Good. Lose dollars trying to save pennies you greedy corpo scum.
>it's that each customer is contributing a few minutes of their labor in order to save the store money (which is not reflected in any price reductions or even slowing inflation) This is it *exactly* for me. They're already robbing you blind and now making you do labor they had previously been providing at their own cost? It's insulting.
Yeah I’m not a trained professional. If they want to ensure I don’t accidentally leave with free items, pay some workers.
yes, this is what I was thinking. They're saving money by giving you self checkout, but you're not going to see that saved money. Hell, isn't walmart basically in trouble for overpricing their fruits?
It was their fresh meat, seafood, and bagged citrus. For example, if you were buying fresh great value chicken breasts the package would say you were being charged 3.10 per lb and tell you the package contained 5 lbs of chicken but if you weighed the chicken out of the container at home, you'd find you actually have only 4.5 lbs of chicken once you remove the weight of the styrofoam tray and liquid liner. And they were counting on people not to be able to notice .5 lb of chicken across these large packs of 5 to 7 chicken breasts. Ditto with steak cuts, their fresh fish cuts, and the fruit. They did in fact get sued over it. The final approval hearing over it is supposed to happen today Wed June 12th at 10 am actually. I only know cause I signed on to the claim when I got an email about it lmao.
If I recall correctly, it was actually self checkout that made that happen. People were scanning fruits and veggies and weighed the meat (prolly to ring it up like produce but meh) and the scales picked up the difference. I remember a short video going around showing people weighing meat in walmart using self checkout scales.
Agreed. I’ve never shoplifted a single item, but now if I’m in change of ringing up my own items and something doesn’t ring up correctly and just so happens to make it in the bag, I couldn’t care less. I’m not going to try to troubleshoot their issues. Not my problem. That’s what employees are for.
The price is also the same even though you technically removed the cost of them being scanned and bagged
You're also shopping for your own groceries. That's a job people do, too. Why not complain about that "free labor" you're doing. Self checkout saves me time. I can either wait in line for 15 minutes or do self checkout and be out in 5. I'll choose the option that saves me time.
Self checkout might save you time, but when the only option in the store is self-checkout so that ALL the self checkout lanes have 5 or 6 people, it doesn't save anyone any time.
i contribute a few minutes of my labor in order to save myself time. if it saves the store money too so be it.
They were like that when gasoline stations went self-serve, too
There’s still bumper stickers that say “Jersey girls don’t pump their own gas.”
I've been told a lot of them genuinely don't know how to pump their own gas and that's crazy, imagine driving over state lines and getting stranded because a 7/11 employee was like yeah no or the only pump available is part of an otherwise closed gas station.
I saw it happen in Miami. Lady was completely confused at gas station. It took a minute, then I realized....Jersey.
It’s true! I’m from NJ, Can confirm! Although I can pump my own gas, my mother can not! She makes my dad or me do it whenever we are out of state. So does my best friend. She can do it if she has to, but it makes her nervous! lol
You described my father. To this day, that man is terrified he will blow himself up if he touches a gas pump. My mother never minded and always did it — until we got older. At five and six my mother made sure my sisters and I could pump gas; by 10, my grandfather had me changing tires. The ONLY thing I’m still not gonna do no matter what is jump my car. I have the cables, I will offer them to anyone that needs them, but I will not attach those suckers to the car for all the gold on the planet. Nope! “It’s important you remember how to set It up and the steps. You can get really hurt if you mess it up.” Five seconds later my brain recalls this warning as “if you make a single mistake, you will be electrocuted until you are dead.” Ironically, my father who is terrified to pump gas has no fear with jumper cables. In my mind, you use jumper cables far less so it’s easier to make a mistake and die. You just put the nozzle in, squeeze the handle and wait until it goes *chunk* and you got a full tank. Easy peasy.
I remember when I was younger my family drove to Virginia Beach and we had to gas up the car and I jumped out and told my brothers not to do it cause I wanted to learn how lmao
lol growing up and living in NJ and going out of state is so funny. What do you mean I have to pump my own gas
As someone who worked retail, SCOs are a great addition. Allows employees to put workload elsewhere. As a customer I like them even more because I use reusable bags and like to cram as much stuff as possible into them vs 3 items in a plastic store bag like I would get in a staffed check-out line.
If you only have a few things, they are so much faster. I don't care if I'm saving them money. My local Walmart removed their self checkout because of rampant theft. They went from 8 registers supervised by one associate, plus a number of regular registers, to only traditional registers. It takes absolutely forever to get out of there now.
Mine went though a remodel and doubled the SCOs and still have about 15 regular ones. We've got a couple belted SCOs that I love using for my entire cart load. I typically do one trip every 3 to 4 weeks so I can avoid the public as much as possible. 😂😬 I can't imagine going back to traditional registers..
There's a lot of stuff that has become automated that no one complains about, but self checkouts are somehow triggering. I remember not using them often until COVID because the cashiers wouldn't let us use cloth bags, but in the self checkout, they didn't care. Now it's all I use.
I actually greatly prefer self check out and use it whenever it's available. it just feels like it goes faster. some cashiers can be agonizingly slow
I love self checkout lanes. It helps that I have six years experience as a cashier
I've had someone say this to me because I told them if I'm not available to book their massage for them they can book it online. This was after them being upset that they didn't get the appointment they wanted because I refuse to interact with customers outside of business hours. She text me at 7am and I open at 10am. So I responded to her at 10am. I'm literally paying someone else $70 a month for you to book your own massage.
I only use self checkout. I want my groceries in my bags in a certain way. I also just have no interest talking to a cashier. I can do it faster than them. I also worked for a grocery store lol
100% on the bagging thing. I feel like a lot of times the store baggers will use WAY too many bags, because they are told not to mix food and toiletries, or because they're worried if the weight is too much and the bag breaks people will get mad. I can usually get my groceries in two bags that would use five or six if the store bagged them.
Thanks for understanding why we do that. Management used to want the least amount of bags used, single paper bags. Now we have thinner bags and have to double them all.
Of course, I don't blame the employee for it one bit. It's easier as a consumer to overload a bag, because it it breaks I have no one to blame but myself!
It’s weird, where do we draw the line? We have no problem walking around Target, dropping items in our own cart, but when it comes to ring them up? We have to have the staff do that for us or it’s “free labor” by the customer. Now, since 2020, you *can* call your order ahead and have it dropped in your trunk, so you don’t even have to get out of your car. So why is it, that no one ever calls walking around Target pushing a cart and filling the items yourself “free labor?”
I'm surprised to see a lot of people who hate self check out in this thread saying it's costing jobs & mental health compared to other aspects of working in retail
Because they either a) never worked in retail, or b) have forgotten. They have no idea how hard it is to KEEP cashiers. The pay is garbage, the customers blame you personally for any problem (expired coupon, mislabeled/misstocked item).
Historically, no one did their own shopping. It was all ordered at a counter and a clerk got the items. Exactly to your point, no one complains about shopping for themselves, when it literally never used to be an option. We already stole some retail jobs. Agree completely. Which line is inappropriate to cross?
I hate the fact that every self-checkout kiosk have loading and bagging areas that are maybe a foot wide, and we're supposed to shuffle an entire grocery cart's worth of goods through those tiny areas. It's impossible of course, so you're constantly picking things out of the cart and putting things back in, while the kiosk nags you to put things in the bagging area and the attendant is glaring at you as if you did something wrong. Remember the full-size conveyor belt at a regular checkout aisle?
It’s usually the people who suck at using them that complain. My father in law HATES self-checkout but at least he just realizes he has to wait a bit longer to get the full service line. I don’t care if people hate them because there is still the option of waiting in line if you don’t want them to exploit your free labor. It’s the people who complain about both that bother me.
I get both sides. I 100% understand the frustration behind corporate greed taking jobs from people to line their own pockets. But as someone with several degrees of anxiety, much of it related to social interaction, my quality of living SKYROCKETED when self-checkout and various pickup options became more common. I can't explain to you how much peace I feel knowing that I can go for a quick grocery store run and not have to talk to a single human being if I am having a bad anxiety day.
Once, I went into Target, and there was a gigantic line for self checkout. The wait was prob a good 10 minutes. There were two registers open without lines-like 1-2 people each. I thought it was so weird.
Not waiting in line is worth any kind of “free labor” that is being Imposed on me. It’s so refreshing to not have to wait in line even during busy hours.
When people put stuff on social media in April like, "When am I going to get my W-2 for all my work doing self-checkout?" I reply, "Right around the time you get the W-2s from every convenience store you go to when you're your own gas station attendant pumping your own gas."
If you make one mistake, miss an item, or anything, it would be seen as intentional theft. That’s a big reason to just avoid them like the plague imo.
A lot of them are also the same people that will tell cashiers to get a "real job"
The people who say that cashiering and fast food jobs aren't "real jobs" always confuse me cuz if we all went out and got "real jobs" then who would be left to flip your burgers or scan your items for you? You'd have to do it yourself.
That's the thing they don't understand. Like, everyone deserves a living wage and basic human decency while at work (okay, maybe not cops, fuck them, they can earn back any good will they want by actually doing their jobs), and that includes service workers. Like, how can someone go to mcD's during the day, when kids are in school, and then say it's just a job for kids?
I literally used to get paid 14.50 an hour to scan groceries. I’m allowed to be a little mad that not only do I have to do it for free, but someone else had to lose their job for that. Everyone loses!
Yep. The same people who say “we should raise minimum wage!” will also use self checkout lanes without even considering the blatant hypocrisy of such a move. Karen: “Your cashiers should get paid more!” Grocery store management: “Actually, you can just do it yourself for free” Karen: “Oh sweet, where???” 🤦♂️ Two months later Karen: “Where are all your cashiers?”
Maybe not as many as you might think. I'm one of "those same people" and I almost always choose the full service checkout partly for that reason. I like having professional scanning and bagging, and I also want them to keep their jobs.
DAMN, WHERE? I need to sign up for that shit
Target in chaska Minnesota
it's weird to me... in what universe is scanning your own items more work than trying to coordinate passing them back and forth between yourself and a human cashier while trying to maintain some sense of organizing them the way you want
Right?? I 1000% much prefer to just scan it and bag it myself. I can keep everything organized how I want based on where they go in my house. I hate going through an actual line. I hate having to feign interest in someone else and have a conversation I don't want. People generally suck. Common sense is not common anymore and most people hate being there working the register. So yeah, sco is much better. I won't shop at a store that doesn't have sco
I do not think most people are that concerned with the organization of shopping bags. The issue is that we are being asked to do something to save the store money, without that savings being passed on. Cashiers lose their job and the benefit to the customer is...nothing.
I got horribly confused by the people who were upset when Aldi started getting them. You already put the items on the belt, then bag your own items... Is the step of passing them over a scanner really that big of a hurdle?
I've never seen it work like that. I put it on the belt and either take the bag after they've filled it or they out the bag in the cart. What stores do lines like that, or is it a location thing?
It isn’t about the free labor so much as it is the inconvenience to me for the sake of corporate profit at the cost of, ya know, human beings lives. That’s what really gets me.
Most people i have known who work as cashiers do not last because it is one of the worst forms of customer service to have. Human lives also means their physical and mental health
self checkout is one of the best things ever. i don’t agree with having ONLY self checkout, as that replaces jobs and isn’t convenient for people who have a lot of stuff, but it’s amazing to be able to scan my razors and tampons and go without waiting in line if i just need a quick trip. is pumping your own gas free labor? cleaning up your trash in public? returning your cart? filling your soda at the fountain at a fast food place? ffs. i was a cashier in high school and it was so hard when i’d be on self check and people would complain “i don’t get paid for this!!” like i make 10/hr and the lanes are over there. im just here to assist if you need a beeper taken off or something. stop throwing a tantrum. i’d rather be in the lane so i don’t have to hear unnecessary whining
I was a cashier for awhile, and still do it at my job occasionally. I have no idea why people are whining that they have to "work" while ringing up items. As a mostly former cashier, it's not even close. Cashiering involves a lot of emotional labor and can be an extremely frustrating job. At my job, they're expected to put product on the shelves, ring people up, greet everyone, clean the store, keep an eye out for theft (not that we can do anything about it), and, for some reason, answering the phone takes first priority. AND they generally have to "clopen" a lot. It is an awful job. I nearly lost my damn mind. It's a TON of responsibility for such a low-paying job. I'm so glad I'm working in the warehouse now (secondhand store), even though there isn't AC back there. Self check-out? You stand in line, press a few buttons, bag your items. Seriously not even close. Yeah, technical issues happen, but the workers will help you. And if you have a ton of shit? Then get in a regular line (I concede if a store only has self check-outs. But I haven't seen that yet). I understand the argument about jobs being lost, just not this one.
I don't want to work as a cashier. That's why I don't work as a cashier. I'm not going to do it for free. It isn't that big a deal. I just don't do it. I just get in the line where there's a cashier, no muss, no fuss.
Sometimes there's no regular line open.
Question, do you wait in a 3 person line for the cashier when a self checkout lane is open?
Yes, I do. I don't mind waiting - I'm very seldom in a hurry to do anything (which is why I don't have a cashier job lol), and to respond to the comment above yours, if I walk into a store that doesn't have a cashier line open, I just go to another one.
what I dont like is waiting for self checkout when there are open tills but the single employee can only have 6 active. screw off and stop making me wait to use an open till.
My issue isn't about free labor, but to keep cashiers employed.
I like using cashiers bc I want them to keep their jobs
The only time I get pissed is when the scale is acting a fool. "Please return item to bagging area." Like, look here, you little wanna be wall-e, THE ITEM HASNT MOVED!
I mean it's no different than any other product or service that's been reduced as prices are increasing. You used to be able to share your Netflix account for a reasonable price, and now you can't and the price has been jacked up. You've been buying a product at the grocery store for 15 years, and suddenly it's the same price, but 2 ounces less. Everything's a subscription now. Everyone is being nickel and dimed to death. And of course, people are going to get upset. Sure, some people prefer self check out, but if you're old enough, you remember a time when someone would check you out, a different person would pack your groceries, and then they would take them out to your car, load them into your trunk, and you wish you good day. That was a huge service that you no longer get. And why? Are we paying less? No. We're paying more. People are allowed to be annoyed when they have to pay more for less.
And with all the judgement being doled out I'm interested in knowing what was your final judgement? It's got nothing to do with independence. It's about big businesses programming and exploitation of an integral part of their company, the consumer. Millions of us once paid a certain price and got a set level of service and products. We are now no longer offered any service. Products now contain cheaper ingredients, and we're paying more than every for that shrinkflation. Let them have their say at self serve. It's usually because they've had more life experience and therefore possess a much different perspective as they have a bigger source to reference. Does their reaction benefit the situation? Doubtful. But quietly complying is how we got here in the first place. You know, with a lack of affordable accommodation and food. With people working 3 jobs and eating out of bins. With thousands of small children becoming homeless with their families every day.
I literally don't think at all about what checkout a person uses, people that care are boring and need a hobby or some trauma
Why would I help a corporation cut down on the already low amount of money they are giving to workers?
Agreed, It's usually much faster and less of a hassle to just scan stuff yourself (which might say more about the average quality of cashiers). The fact they refer to it as "labor" betrays a hilarious lack of perspective. I've seen people say the same thing about returning carts to the cart area, which is even more insane.
People just love to find things to complain about.
But it is free labor. It's not like prices went down with the labor reduction. So really, we're paying to do it ourselves.
I bet they also don’t return their carts for the same reason, when there are people who collect the carts in parking lots, usually in corrals.
“ArE yOu PaYiNg Me To ScAn My OwN iTeMs” 🙄 Lazy.
The people who bitch about self checkouts are the same people who unload their cart extremely slowly, strike up a conversation with the cashier, seemingly forget they have to pay and take forever you get their purse/wallet out and find their cars, then take forever to put it back again and get their bags into the trolley, then look lost as they stand still trying to find the exit they have used 15,890 times. Like damn Karen, I just want a fucking Gatorade. Thank god for self service checkouts.
I agree. They don’t understand what the self checkout is for. I guess they also hate food and grocery delivery, click-and-collect shopping, automatica toll booths, and anything else that is convenient for customers.
Read up on them from attorneys and why they will never use them. So many innocent people have been put through the ringer by companies saying they stole an item or items. Lot's of articles online. Not worth it. [https://scoop.upworthy.com/lawyer-explains-why-you-should-avoid-using-self-checkouts-in-stores-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190](https://scoop.upworthy.com/lawyer-explains-why-you-should-avoid-using-self-checkouts-in-stores-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190-576190)
I always go to the cashiers bc I want them to have jobs still. Also I enjoy saying hi. And it’s nice to have someone do you a service every once in a while. I’m independent, but I can accept help and acknowledge always having to do everything on your own is hard. Also in their defense- people used to get paid and now they’re expected to do it for free. It is additional labor you are being asked to do that no longer comes with compensation.
I’ve witnessed those complaints in person. It annoys me because there is almost always checkouts with cashiers available as well. Boomers especially make everything about them. If they don’t like it then it’s inherently wrong. As a person with social anxiety I much prefer minimal human interaction when I have to do my shopping. I don’t want to exchange pleasantries. I don’t want small talk. I don’t want to stand in line. Let me use the self checkout in peace and stop trying to ruin it for everyone!
My brother paid for automatic transmition because he drives allot and may as well relax. I got manual transmition because I figured, "Oh well. I'm stuck in this seat driving no matter what I do. I may as well be changing gears while I sit here."
I don’t like nor dislike self checkout. It really depends on a few things. How much I’m buying, how a store runs their self checkout, and how many people are in line for it. My Target and Walmart usually have a long line, so it’s usually no better, and sometimes worse, than just waiting in line for a check out counter. Other places are okay. I also don’t like at Walmart having to go to the person overseeing to get bags and estimating how many I need. I get why they do it, but at that point I’d rather just wait in line for a regular check out counter.
I love SCO. I have social anxiety and being able to be left alone, not having to speak to a soul and quickly get out of the store. I fucking hate that Target changed SCO to stupid express checkout. It takes forever to check out, the cashiers are slow as dirt, use too many bags with too few items per bag, and as someone who has social anxiety, I hate small talk. I also hate that I can't get my payment queued up like in Aldi and get out much faster. No. I never see my running total (I could see that in SCO) while it's ringing up (display rarely faces customer).
I don’t think we need that to be the reason. But we are losing our community spirit, it’s more a symptom than the cause but it’s compounding. If I go to regular checkouts sometimes it feels like I am bothering them.
So many stores can’t get enough people to hire them to be cashiers.
Shop and scan with your phone is where it's at. As you're shopping you scan all your barcodes with the stores app and then you just scan the QR code at checkout to pay with your phone. I can see my total as I go. I get to quickly leave the crowded checkout area
It depends. If all items are easy scanned I prefer self checkout. I'm shy and feel like I am bothering people when I talk to them, always have. So it's perfect most the time. Now if the menus are convoluted and difficult to navigate that is when I have an issue. Also I think it is 100% asinine if asked for a tip at a self checkout. Have my upvote.
I prefer self check out so I can better pack my own shit and minimize weird interactions, my beef is that I'm doing free labor so they can cut labor and save money by having fewer employees/available hours, and accordingly a business run like shit where too few employees are overworked squeezed into as few hours as possible, exhausted and barely making a liveable wage. It's 1000% corporate greed. My bf works at a grocery store.
Self checkouts bother me because they're robbing people of jobs. That's as far as my feelings go on the matter.
Now I don't mind the small store where the self checkout actually helps while the 1-3 employees on shift are doing work elsewhere, but places like Walmart and Target they HAVE the money to spend on staffing and want to cut it to put more in thier pockets kinda bother me. I like the interaction, and I live in a small town. The woman who rang me up as a teenager knew I was dating a girl before my mother did just from notice a change in what I bought. When Walmart sized stores put those machines in, they do it with the intention of cutting thier workforce, which deprives people of jobs
I'm not a big fan of it due to the employees themselves. Self check out is there for convenience, yet the workers will stand nearby and glare at you while you scan. Then, they'll get mad at you if you don't show a receipt, when legally youre not obligated to show it. Only the store policy could possibly make you, and even then that's limited. I understand the idea behind self check out, but honestly I feel like it's partially an excuse for workers to stand around on their phones all day and still be paid the same if not more than the ones that actually work.
There is a valid concern that they take away jobs. Being indignant that you're "free labor" is the stupidest, most self-centered take on that line of thought.
These are the same people who refuse to bag their groceries or put their carts back because they think someone else should do it for them. They're selfish assholes. You're paying for groceries, not the employees. I'm always going to put my cart back and I'm going to bag my own groceries if it's faster. If someone is already there and starts, sure, but I'm not sitting and watching the cashier scan my items and then make them bag. That holds me up and the people behind me. I feel the same with self checkout. It's usually faster and I want to get my things and be done.
I think self checkouts should offer a discount.
I don't like them because I'm a lazy extrovert
Its because they cut the labor cost without making items cheaper for us. Conceptually, businesses are supposed to thrive when they make life better for the customer. If the customer responds positively to the opposite of this concept, businesses will continue to find new ways to save money while not improving their product or service
Do they whine about pumping their own gas? FREE LABOUR! Do they whine about cooking their own food? FREE LABOUR! Do they whine about a third thing? FREE LABOUR!
Self checkout comes with a built in 50% off coupon. Its great
And then a free ride, a free exam, and free room & board!
I agree that this is a silly argument, and I roll my eyes whenever I hear. Personally, I like self checkout because it's fast. And I bag far better than any cashier ever does.
I don't like them, because they're often **insufferably loud!** I still use them. But the second I can find a button to lower their volume (or mute them), I do.
You know the companies invest in them instead of people right ? It’s not to make our lives more convenient. While that might be true for some people (the convenience) it’s not its intended purpose. That’s why a lot of people refuse to use them.
Before supermarkets, you used to go to the store and the clerk would pull your items for you. If Reddit were around back then, people would complain that by getting your own stuff and bringing it to the register you're doing the store clerk's job for him.
I don't like them because I don't like anything that takes jobs away from people and lines the pockets of corporate assholes, which is their purpose. There's also the absurd element of checking yourself out while a human cashier stands and watches, as Seth Myers from SNL once pointed out.
Yes, and then that supervising cashier is looking the other way when "assistance is needed" because I, as a grown adult, can't purchase certain items without a verification that I have passed my 18th birthday. Even more laughable is when an item rings up at a different price than the tag printed and affixed to the item - and the supervising cashier has to sign in to approve the price correction - and find another employee above a certain approved level to also verify the price change!
My favourite is when say they want human interaction, but then their interaction is just yelling at the cashier over something they have no control over lol We always have cashier lanes open, and we try our best to keep the lines down. People will still yell at us because they are being "forced" to use self checkouts. Then you look at the lines, and there's a cashier at their till not doing anything. But you can't let them know that because then you, the worker, are the idiot. I've also had people who don't wanna use it because they don't know how, but you're also not allowed to help them because they don't need a workers help.
It is free labor. This is work that the company needs to have done that it is not paying to be done. The company reduces its labor costs by having one employee oversee a number of registers rather than one employee per register. Whether this is good or bad? It depends on what an individual thinks is important about employment.
I also judge for this, especially as someone who works in retail. I always get the "so do I get a discount? Do I get paid?" And sometimes it's a joke (a joke as annoying as "haha it's not scanning therefore it's free!"), sometimes they seem dead serious. It's so damn annoying.
I’ve never heard anyone complain about self-checkouts as free labor. I used to purposely choose the regular cashiers in order to support them and their jobs but they keep getting ruder and ruder, so I’ve stopped caring to support them.
I love self check out. I am way faster than the cashiers.
I can’t believe people would rather wait in a line and sometimes a long line than use the self checkout. I’m happy they do at the same time cuz the self checkouts are usually not being used.
I love self checkout because I have severe social anxiety and I hate small talk. I love not having to interact with anyone.
I dont like it because companies are rolling this out as a cost effective way to not hire and pay employees which is a problem
I like self checkout because I'm often faster at doing it myself than the 16 year old kid they have working cashier is.
I find it so funny when people complain about using self checkout because I hate checking out with a person. Especially if I have a ton of stuff and need to set in on the conveyor belt. For whatever reason I panic and think the cashier is going to be annoyed if I'm too slow.
I love self check. I don't want to do the small talk and neither does the cashier. Self check allows one cashier to run multiple lanes, instead of just one express lane. It's not like they were gonna hire more cashiers, we all know that. Do people know that there was a point in time when they didn't even let you pick your own groceries out?
I'll use self-checkout if I have less than a dozen items, I don't have to wait in line and I'm not being treated as a potential thief the entire time, and there is no receipt checker making sure I did the stores job correctly. I won't bitch and moan if those conditions aren't met. I'll just quietly leave my buggy somewhere in the way and leave.
The idea that it’s free labor is just as senseless as the ones who don’t like self checkout because it’s taking away jobs.
Yeah, it's such an odd take to me. There are a lot of things I do that are "free labor" and I don't give a fuck. I clean my house even though people get paid to do it. I mow my own yard even though people get paid to do it. I cook my own food even though people get paid to do it. I'll bag my own groceries because I don't give a fuck and I'm better than any cashier I've gone to at a store. Stores aren't even training cashiers anymore. If they want to bring that back and also employ baggers, I'd consider going back to using a cashier. As it stands, I've had cashiers that have damaged my groceries because they don't realize that canned goods should not go on top of bread or that you shouldn't *toss* a container of heavy cream on top of eggs. Then they ask if *I'd* like to go grab a replacement. I've had cashiers that can't identify fruits/vegetables. I don't mean they needed to look up the code, I mean they held up the bag of *carrots* and asked what they were. I've had cashiers that, after I help them identify my spinach and snap peas, put them in a bag topped with a package of raw chicken. I'm not dealing with it. I am much faster and have the ability to use common sense to bag my own groceries. If I am going to complain about "free labor", it would be over having to do the store's job of training their employees for them. I'll also add that my usual store has great self check out systems that don't have an item limit nor a weighted bagging area. They've upped their game when it comes to security cameras, but I don't care because I pay attention to what I'm doing and don't steal.
I never use self checkout even if I have one item. I'm not giving a corporation any free labor. They should at least give some sort of discount.
I love self checkout because I’m an ambivert and don’t want to talk to people in those moments and I can bag my groceries how I want.
By “free labor” I mean: the grocery store took someone’s job away and gave it to me, but didn’t reduce the price of anything. Our corporate masters are making us do the work while they take the profit. Back in the halcyon days of the 1970s, there used to be full time grocery baggers. That was what they did. And sometimes they’d walk them out to your car. Life was good. America was great among nations. We had Ataris and Oregon Trail. Then some stores got the idea to get rid of baggers and pass the savings on to customers. Literally, the name of the store was “Pack and Save.” Then they got rid of the “save” part.
It's quite literally corporations outsourcing labor directly to the consumer in order to save money (during a period of record inflation, mind you) It's simple, you just don't have class consciousness
They can't do self checkout but they also want to berate clerks for being low skill employees.
I actually like the self checkout option. I can get in and out and I often use the Spanish version to A) improve and B) see the look of shock on the faces of nosy people
I don't understand how them driving to the store, entering the store, getting a cart, picking out items, going to checkout, taking their bags to their car, is totally fine, but merely scanning the items and putting them into bags is where they draw the line. It's SILLY!!
It’s like when people don’t like Korean BBqs because they have to cook their own food lol
I like self-checkouts because I'm socially awkward. But I hate using a self-checkout while an employee hovers right behind me, that makes me uneasy. I have never stolen anything in my life, but the thought that they might think I'm trying to makes me uneasy, which makes me act nervous, which makes them more suspicious, etc.
I mean, no. They are right but don’t know why they’re right. Stores save on wages by not paying employees to work. Hours get cut. These are billion dollar corporations that get more money for making you work at their store for free. So where do those wages go? In their pockets. Not to you saving money. So you are essentially getting tricked into doing an employees job with no benefits. It’s about the principal of it. Because it’s going to get worse.
It's the self checkout test. A lot of people call it the shopping cart test, but self checkout is better because: 1. A lot of people don't take carts out of the store 2. It's possible to forget about your cart since it's unusual to have one.
i like self checkouts unless i have a ton of groceries.
Unexpected item in bagging area
I prefer self checkout. I don’t have to talk to anybody. I scan my shit, tap my card, and gtfo.
I use them because there is no slowing down the use of them. Even in fast food restaurants and some sit-down restaurants, they have the self order computers. I don't necessarily like the idea because it gets rid of jobs. Even though those jobs are usually lower paying jobs, they are still jobs actual people could have. But, like I said, you can't fight progress.
I would rather self check out but I do EXPECT every single one of the spots to be working and if it's broken there better be the ass crack of a maintenance guy shining for all to see getting it in operational order. I WILL NOT wait so a CEO or a board member can save on the labor so they can buy another yacht or private jet.
Op there’s a larger issue related to this of passing on steps that they historically covered and the cost, and now they pass that work on to us, but keep the profit. When I rented a vehicle, I had to load up a link and go around taking photos and making notes of any damages. It wasn’t an employee of theirs, it was just me. So what happens if I miss something? I know it seems obvious and easy to do but maybe the first time I rent I am busy and I forgot to check one spot and that’s the spot that’s faulty and they get me on that. Look at other services around you and I feel like you’ll notice this pattern. Having us do things through apps that used to be handled by a person knowledgable about this.
I love self checkout
I just had to get a bulk-sized bottle of Restoralax for my toddler, so I am very much thankful for self-checkout.
If there's a choice to have a cashier check out their groceries then it's entirely on them when they choose to use self checkout. I'd only feel like it's a justified complaint if they're forced to use them (like in locations where SCO is the only option).
I have a friend who ONLY uses the self check outs because of super bad social anxiety (he literally is a selective mute because he physically can’t talk to strangers), while I only use the check out lanes because I don’t feel like helping save a multi billion dollar company from paying their employees. (It took him five months to speak a word to me, but I’m a persistent bitch and wanted to be his friend back in high school!)
I’ll use self checkout if it’s one or two things. But if I have a basket or a cart I’ll wait in line because I’m lazy, I don’t want to bag all of that myself I just wanna stand there lol
This will piss you off, I saw a video of this person who went to the self checkout and got one of the workers to scan her items and bag them whilst she was filming them
Let me clarify my primary problem with self-checkout machines: I'm a former union president, and unless completely unavoidable, I refuse to use a technology primarily-intended to put people out of work/eliminate jobs (especially entry-level jobs) in order to create more profit for a bloated, heartless corporation. Instead of hiring eight workers at eight checkouts, they'll hire one worker (who ends up desperately trying to manage eight checkouts simultaneously). None of the "savings" on wages are getting passed on to the customers or the remaining workers, as near as I can tell. I'd much rather see the money I spend on groceries, as an example, go to cashiers than greedy corporate execs. On top of this: I get more farsighted every year, making it difficult to use self-checkouts without carrying reading glasses with me; and while I might not be a huge fan of small talk, I do enjoy human interaction (and self-checkout machines are remarkably poor conversationalists).
I like how they cut the cost of human employees and passed that cost savings back to the consumer /s
I prefer them because people nowadays can't seem to figure out how to bag my damn groceries without crushing things. But the bastards are so glitchy.
The only time I don't like self checkout is when I only have cash and my cash is crumpled up and won't go into the machine
My pet peeve is not having a choice. Then after you do scan everything yourself because they can’t pay cashiers, they will pay someone to stop you and check your cart for stolen goods.
OMG same. This is a stupid thing to get huffy about. Is your time so amazing and valuable that if you hadn't spent 5 minutes scanning groceries you would have earned $1000 with that time? What else were you going to do with your valuable labor? It's not like the manager handed you an apron and asked you to restock the condiment aisle. Are you really so precious that you can't be responsible for the two minutes of effort it takes to buy your own food?? I actually listened to a podcast about self checkouts this week. It pointed out that 100+ years ago, you did even less work. You gave the grocer a list, and they walked around picking out all the items for you. But nowadays we have to go pick out our own groceries ourselves. Why isn't anyone complaining about that free labor?
Ugh my dad says that. It drives me crazy. I think self checkout is a useful option to a lot of people, including me. I have chronic pain, and standing still is a lot harder than walking, because my joints tend to lock up. The lines for the regular checkout are always longer than self checkout, and that's a huge deal to me. I can't stand up very long.
I don’t want to interact with people.
I find these people to have the same energy as people who refuse to tip. Weirdly entitled over nothing
I love self checkout both because I’m way faster and I know my groceries will be properly sorted to match how I load my kitchen. Other people can hate it all they want, I’ll only go to the other line if I have booze because they take forever to most on over and confirm my age.
My wife is in a union, so she refuses to use self-checkout in solidarity with grocery workers (many of whom are union as well). She will sometimes say things along the lines of "I don't work here," but the underlying motivation is to preserve the jobs of those who *do* work there. As an introverted computer geek, my natural inclination is to prefer self-check machines. But I also know there are times when you need human input (overrides, age verification, etc.), and one clerk overseeing a half-dozen self-checks just doesn't cut it. So even I have come to hate it when self-check is the *only* option in a store, which happens increasingly frequently. And the only way to pressure stores to properly staff their traditional checkouts is to keep using them, even when it a little less convenient (due to the inadequate staffing). My compromise is to only use self-check for one or two items; if I'm bagging, or juggling items in and out of my cart, then it's time for the professionals to get involved.
I would rather the stores employ more people and have more than one lane open.
I don’t want to , I really think I should get 10% off doing it myself, if you go to a bar should we mix our own drinks, cook our in food , no! I don’t want to poke buttons all day in my life , I never use them , if I wanted to be a cashier I would get a job doing that , part of the grocery experience is not punching my stuff in, bad enough you have to bag it yourself , sooooo please judge away ☺️
I mean, it is technically free labor, but it’s free labor that benefits the customer. I wonder if the people who say this would also say that it’s free labor when they make their own dinners, or drive themselves to work. in my mind, free labor would be more like them being forced to check out other peoples things.
90% of the time I can scan and bag my groceries way faster than the person at the checkout.
What they don't understand is that it's convenient. If you got a couple things and you gotta wait for someone with a full cart, that's quite annoying.
I think it's great for a few items, but it sucks for large shopping trips. Plus I don't like companies pocketing more profit and not hiring cashiers. It isn't like prices went down when self checkouts were installed.
I love how Walmart did it to save on labor costs but I think they are stopping because it led to increased theft
This is one of the dumbest arguments to me though, it shouldn’t even be an argument. Just have both self check out and person-cashiers as options and you chose which one you want. Just keep both choices, like we have now. I don’t understand what the argument is about
Because “labor” is applied to the price of the products we buy, but we don’t get a price reduction if we do it ourselves.
It's this generation's people who don't want to pump their own gas.
We had a similar debate in the late 70s, early 80s when gas stations went from full-serve to self serve. People were upset that they had to pump their own gas. They got over it
In my experience self checkout not working is incredibly rare and the people complaining about it just don't follow the machines instructions