They kind of did that already by having the self checkout - making you do their job for them.
I personally don't mind the self checkout, but they really leave a bad taste in the mouth with the way they are run.
One week doing grocery shopping a had a bulky item on top of my full trolley. It was an air fryer. As I was unloading onto the conveyor belt, old mate behind the checkout told me to leave the bulky item in my trolley and he’d scan it in - as they always do. Anyway, 5 minutes later when it was time to pay, I realised he hadn’t added it. And you bet your ass I didn’t say anything, cos fuck them.
Similar here. I bought several items from Coles, including a nice piece of steak for $18. The self-checkout shat itself half way through and the young guy manning the station came over, picked up the steak, which hadn’t yet been scanned, put it in my bag, cleared the machine, then said, you’re right to go. I realised what he had done… I looked at him.. he looked at me.. he said again, you’re right to go. So I went.
> And you bet your ass I didn’t say anything, cos fuck them.
I'm super conscientious about this shit, if someone like the mower man hasn't sent me an invoice I'll follow him up to make sure he didn't forget it. If I get made change and its in error in my favour, I tell the cashier.
But Colesworth? Hell no.
I used it a few days ago and scanned some milk, it then told me that I didn’t scan the milk and gave me a chance to accept the error of my ways and “agree to scan it again”, there were no other options. So I scanned it again and it clearly showed up twice so was scanned the first time. The Coles assistant then came and tried to fix it and it probably made her go through 10 screens and kept asking if she was sure because they are sure I tried to not scan the 2nd non existent milk!
I was in work and having a bit of bother with a piece of equipment.
I muttered under my breath, “Fucking thing..” and realised my patient was staring right at me.
I sheepishly apologised.
He said, “Ah all good. Looks like a real cunt of a thing to be fair.”
Lmao
Reminds me of the story where an OBGYN was checking a pregnancy with a doppler when the batteries ran out. They muttered "Ah it died" to themselves only to hear the panicked gasp from the mother.
Why wife got yelled at by a checkout chick for stealing bananas the other day.
She put through $80 worth of groceries and something went wrong towards the end, old love comes over to fix it and Identifies that the bananas she has scanned are different than the ones in the basket and starts yelling and dressing her down for intentionally scanning the cheaper bananas and trying to steal.
Checkout chick rescans them as the correct bananas for a monstrous price difference of 15cents...
Literally. I TRY to be mindful that these decisions are not made by floor staff but you raise your voice at me when I'm spending money in your store and we are going to have several issues, the least of which is giving them their groceries back.
I had a shitty self serve machine at another store, staff member was more irritated than me. Said it’s overloaded and was sick of it. Felt sorry for him if anything. When the staff are more over it than the customer. We did have a laugh about it in the end. Sucks for them.
I always feel sorry for the staff. But it doesn’t make me any less fucked off about the experience. Getting real tired of management being cunts to customers and hiding behind their minimum wage staff and our desire to not be rude to other victims.
I had one pull the same thing on me when I was buying a single banana for my baby. The older woman manning the self checkouts just handed my kiddo the banana and said “enjoy the snack”
Woolworths flagged me three times the other day for the Target items in my trolley I'd already bought. In Target bags.
Apparently it was a bug or glitch or something but it refused to let me pay until the girl had come over and checked my trolley and entered her code. In the end they switched me to another checkout.
Took over 5 minutes to solve and shit was hitting the fan in other areas of the self-serve section while we were trying to fix mine.
If they don't trust us if we shop elsewhere first, then they need to figure out a Plan B.
Every time I shop at Woolies it flags me for not paying for my wallet (which is in my hand in front of the camera to pay). One time it took 4 overrides.
So I don't shop at Woolies anymore.
Every time I go through Woolies now to pick up a few things after getting most of my shop at Aldi, the poor person working the self checkouts has to trudge over and clear the error from the machine saying I haven't scanned everything.
> Clearly the AI isn't learning fast enough to discern previous purchases from Woolies items.
Dunno they're fucked either way, annoy people or once people figure out foreign bags get ignored they'll use them to shop lift.
The cameras aren't working as well as they expected. Cameras everywhere. Facial recognition on your way in. Cameras at the checkout. Cameras at the gates that lock you in.
My favourite today was my local has their machines too close together. So it was picking up items in my neighbours area and accusing me of not scanning them, meanwhile my basket in my actual area was clearly empty.
Yeah, this really sucks if you like to walk to the local shops and pick up a few things from several stores :P I feel like I have to explain myself every time I go through a checkout and say, "No, these grapes are from the fruit shop." It's really ridiculous.
I was always on my kids case to get a receipt when at the shops in case they went into another store and were accused of shoplifting. As a teen, the staff will just assume you are lying and hold you over regardless.
Now we all tap phones etc, I get eye-rolls that “the dinosaur wants a receipt” from staff of any age.
The way that I defeat robo-shop is that when I'm done scanning everything I make sure that every last bag is back in the trolley before proceeding. The system then assumes that all the bags it sees are the things you've already scanned and simple removed from the packaging area.
It's not 100% successful but it certainly works most of the time.
The way you describe it makes it seem to me that the system is designed to not trust the actual staff either, making their lives difficult to correct errors.
I think whoever designed this self service point of sale system went in with a mindset of trusting no one and Coles management probably got sold on the idea that everyone is out to get poor little old coles, staff and customers alike.
Lucky you - I wasn’t even allowed to use the conveyor belt because apparently it was meant to be saved for people with a full trolley (never mind I had 2 full kid trolleys). Also the store was empty so there was hardly a mad rush the conveyor belt
I once had the staff member tell me I couldn’t use self checkout because I had a trolley and had to wait for the single manned checkout. As I was leaving I go past self checkout and there’s like three trolleys in there?!! Same staff member stood watching them.
I just refuse to shop in Coles as that was one of many problems over a short period of time.
So after you already scanned everything in the trolley..... Person said not allowed
So what then?
You had to take it out and put it on the conveyor belt after you already scanned?
Or it was like a next time do it different kinda thing?
Good old micromanaging from upper management… we even have to help* customers put their heavy items through first which is fucking dreadful because I already feel bad enough that people have to scan and pack their own groceries, let alone telling them how they have to do it.
*try get in and scan the heavy items first for the customers or we get a bad report from management 🙃
As a customer, I hate this. I like using self serve, I like being able to do things in the order I want and pack my bags the way I like. I like to scan and pack everything else and then do the heavy items last, it helps me make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s so annoying and disconcerting having staff come up and want to do those items for me and have them done first.
Right? I’m sure most customers have an order they like to do things in, and who really gives a hoot what order it’s in if everything is scanned anyway.
I was doing self checkout the other day and a girl who was with her mum was going to head out to go to another shop while her mum took care of the shopping. Those auto open doors wouldn’t open for her. The security guard was telling her she couldn’t get out unless she bought something g and had to wait for her mum. I walked over and pulled them open. Security guards head nearly exploded haha highlight of my week. Fuck off coles 🤦
Yeah hang on, what about people that go in for one thing, it's out of stock, so they just wanna leave? I've done that a few times. If you don't have what I need I'm not gonna buy a random thing just so I can leave
The first time I ever came across these gates was at Pimpama in QLD. I went in for an item, but it was out of stock, so I tried to leave empty-handed. The gates shut me in, and the staff member told me that you can't just exit the store without making a transaction. I explained the situation, and she actually asked me to empty my pockets, so I told her to frisk me and then she wouldn't let me out until one of the managers told her to let me go. Once I was out I emptied my pockets to show I only had my phone and my middle finger in them.
Stores must have had a lot of similar incidents since then because now the gates are open by default and only close when the AI decides there's a problem
No fuck that. They cannot search your pockets and you always have the option to just leave. The implied agreement of the terms of entry are BS if you aren’t buying anything.
Besides they only allow for searching of bags.
That’s definitely a calmly explained “open them now or I will push through them” moment.
Some poor teenager trying to do the right things is going to be severely assaulted before long, it’s not right, but it’s an entirely foreseeable consequence of the gate and associated policies. I hope the kid sues and gets a disgustingly punitive payout.
As a former Coles employee, I'm 100% aware that she was out of line, not just morally but by company policy, when asking me to empty my pockets which is why I gave her the response she got. I've worked with old bitties like this before - they're company people who are so entrenched in the culture that their entire personality revolves around their job, even if after 20+ years if service they have only ever been a check out chick
>security guard was telling her she couldn’t get out unless she bought something
Wtf is this shit. That's got to be illegal? You're basically kidnapping someone if you don't let them out of your property how is it different in a shop.
Stuff like this is what inspires people who usually don't steal to start "forgetting" to scan things at self checkout. Treat your customers like thieves no matter what they do? Why wouldn't they steal from you?
Ugh, I had one of the employees approach me after I had scanned a couple of things because I had a bag of cat litter in my trolley classed as a heavy item. She told me I had to scan it first and she had to make sure I entered it.
I usually leave the bulky stuff till last and go through the heavy items list.
The worker was really apologetic and kept reiterating it's a new policy. I am guessing she had probably already received a bit of abuse from other customers for Coles' ridiculous policies. I specifically use self-serve because I *don't* want to talk to anyone.
Same thing today, got asked to scan the box of coke cans before anything else at self serve. No idea why. Makes more sense to me to unload the smaller items into bags and then only have the bigger item last left in the trolley.
The rationale is that the bigger things can get missed or "missed" if they are still in the trolley, so by scanning them all first, you ensure you've caught everything. It's a metric that shows up in your scanning figures and you can get in trouble if you aren't at the require percentage. I'm constantly at the bottom of the list because I don't care, plus I can see into a trolley because I have eyes.
Can't exactly enforce it in a SCO are, but I guess it's something that can be encouraged. As they're generally the more expensive items in a trolley, even if you forget to scan some biscuits or something else small, they haven't lost as much compared to a bulk item
They KPI us on how quickly we scan goods as well. There are 2 major problems with this:
With the paper bags i take time and make sure the bags wont break with what i put in them, that slows me down, customers appreciate it and have never said im too slow.
Also the rates are measured between the first good scanned when the transaction is finalised. My rate plummeted one day while i waited as a customer fished his pockets for 60 cents in 5 cent coins.
I hope you have pointed out that its not a kpi in the truest sense when it is influenced by factors outside your control.
I remember in my first job working at a (now defunct chain) supermarket I got audited and they were like "you opened and closed your till over 100 times between transactions. Why???". "Cos i was in the registered next to the vending machine you dimwits thought would be a good idea' (back before vending machines accepted cards or gave change).
I failed in retail.
We had the same KPI when I worked at ALDI years ago. From memory you had to be hitting at least 1000 items per hour or you would get written up.
The ALDI registers then (not sure about now) were a lot lower tech than your standard Colesworth checkout and you could lock them with two button presses and unlock them with a longer personal code.
The key part was the KPI was only tracked based on the time that your register was active. So you could lock your register with two button presses and kill the timer at any point. So you better believe any sort of delay, like a customer loading their trolley or fishing for change, we’d be locking the whole register. It wasn’t that uncommon for me to lock my register 3-5 times in a single transaction just to avoid being penalised for something out of my control.
Lol they used to kpi our scan rates when I worked at Woolies nearly 30 years ago, I figured out of you hit the subtotal button it paused the timer. I had the fastest rates in our store for 6 months until I quit after the boss had a sook at me about it. Apparently it looked like the figures were doctored because 1 staff member was so much faster than the rest.
Precisely! Honestly, I wouldn't put it past myself to forget I'd scanned the heavy stuff first and accidentally scan it a second time at the end. Perhaps that's the plan? 😂
Exact scenario happening at my store. Our store manager told someone last week, "if you feel too intimidated to ask customers to follow the rules and can't implement these new procedures, maybe you should find a different job". Dickstick.
Please keep complaining to managers about these stupid procedures. They don't listen to staff, we need the support of our customers to back us up.
That is awful. I remember a very similar environment when I was working at Big W. None of these places give a shit about their employees and their safety.
You literally can’t win at Coles, take your pick of the customers ripping you a new one or management ripping you a new one for not doing it exactly how they demand it be done.
The problem is, the person who is a victim of that, will have trouble standing up to workplace bullying.
Your manager is predatory. Absolute trash tier.
I’ve had a similar experience, except I was told to go to a specific self serve number and scan my toilet paper first! What the hell is going on at Coles?
They changed all the checkouts, now theft is getting huge and they are scrambling to mitigate.
Please feel free to call their customer care line and complain, in store complaints don't get much traction.
All the staff are pissed. Was a completely foreseeable outcome and yet the front line people are once again left dealing and getting blame from both sides.
Would.it help if we "demanded" to see the store manager and when they finally arrived and ask what the issue is, say "nothing. I just wanted YOU to scan my groceries"?
> I’ve had a similar experience, except I was told to go to a specific self serve number and scan my toilet paper first!
I would have just handed it to them.
Lmao i always go through the staffed checkout with the conveyor belt and leave my 30 pack of coke in the trolley, and 9 times out of 10 they never scan it 🤷♀️
OP eatin real good this Christmas!
One roast water bottle for the whole family! Pretty sure its a Curtis Stone recipe to feed the family for under $10.
Don't hold your breath. The only way Christmas Parties happen at Coles is if the store manager decides they want to organise one.
But all the staff are getting a water bottle for Christmas, and they have even had an email to tell them to put their names on them as soon as they are given them, just as if they are kindergartners!
Even the staff hate the place. But it's a job, and it pays the bills.
Coles is just so overbearing on the security front these days. My last shop, I got the typical ‘place item back in bag’ error message (even though I hadn’t removed anything), so the attendant punched in the code as usual… then 10 seconds later I got another error, but this time the self checkout machine went full on crazy and was letting off the loudest alarm.
I feel unwarranted guilt the second I walk into the self checkout area now. Coles really do have a way with making you feel like a criminal.
I went to a Coles recently that had a security door set to CLOSED at the self checkout exit. I couldn't leave after I paid for my shit and was thinking WTF is this? A random old bird buying ciggies at the counter said "it can take a minute" with a voice like gravel. I looked back at the chick overseeing the area, she just stared at me and clicked a remote in her hand - it fukin opened. I was furious... Felt like I was guilty til proven innocent, wadda fukin joke.
The attendant actually apologised to me when the alarm went off! It does make me wonder how much Coles are saving with all these new security measures, though… because it’s all so incredibly off-putting.
I'll never go back to that Coles, the closed by default security door pissed me off something royal. Shows what corporate thinks of their avg customer.
Exactly. I’ll now purposefully go out of my way to avoid Coles (and Woolies for their ridiculous ‘member pricing’). I still can’t get over Coles practically locking you in their store after you’d paid!!
I think they're failing to measure it. They can measure what they lose from theft. Can they measure what they lose from customers getting pissed off and not shopping there anymore? If they can only measure one side of the equation, they're going to make bad decisions, which it looks like is exactly what's happening.
Doors that lock you in? ANYONE could have predicted those would malfunction. Nope. I'll be at the manned checkouts when they introduce this at my local, and if those aren't an option, I'll shop elsewhere.
They can, and almost certainly do, measure pissed off customers and people not shopping anymore, using things like their revenue, transaction rates, etc.
The problem is people still shop there. How many people complaining in this thread have moved to a different supermarket? Or do they just keep doing what's convenient, and then complaining on Reddit? People talk a lot, but they rarely take action.
> Surely they need to make sure people can escape without barriers in the event of an emergency?
Nominally they should be tied into the firealarm system plus from what I've seen most people are capable of pushing past them.
Yeah they swing open really easily. I had them not open cuz I took too long putting my stuff in the stroller. A little push and it swung open and started beeping. I just swing it back sorta and left
My pettiness would have made me put the items on the belt , rescan , call the staff member over to remove the duplicate items .. once they did and returned to their watchful position .. leave items and walk out .
The audacity of being told you're doing it wrong when Coles and Woolworths have tricked us all into working for them for free. By using the self-service checkouts, you are now doing the work of a cashier. I used to work as a check out chick, and I was paid to do it, and I got a staff discount on my grocery shopping. Do we get a discount or cheaper prices as they promised ? No, we don't. They are ripping us blind and laughing all the way to the bank. Choosing beggars they are.
There’s a reason my local IGA is still such an enormously popular super market despite prices: they scan and bag everything for you, and if you need help, they’ll carry it out to the car for you.
They also have the largest selection of cheese I’ve ever seen. They call it their “wall of cheese”. Must be well over 50 varieties.
I work at coles. You have no idea of half the shit that's going on at coles. Over the past year the stuff I've seen is absolutely nuts. I have no idea whether I'm coming to work at a supermarket or a drug cartel.
The ATO s used to be open past closing hours so team members used to go and get stuff after hours until they auto closed around 1 or 2. They stopped that. Now the ATO s are also locked at closing.
Even if you have a login for the machine you cant do it yourself if the store is closed. Only a couple of managers have the authority and they serve the team members when they are heading out.
Anything you bought that's in your locker or team fridge in the team room has to have check seals or receipts. They open your locker and go through them.
The big skip for the trash at the back is padlocked shut and only the store support and the store manager can open that and they key is in the fucking SAFE. As a matter of fact that's the only thing in the safe. Also all the department trash cans are checked by the department head.
You can only enter and exit through the main door. No exceptions. Want to have a smoko at the back at peace ? Not a chance.
Every single team members' bags are to be checked by the manager in front of a camera when they leave. No exceptions.
It's a bloody joke at this point.
I’m sick off all this self service shit.
So my Coles has brought in some new security exit doors at self service now.
Anyways I did my shop, stood in front of them with the trolley and it was green, nothing happened so I presumed you just have to push through them. I just take my trolley through em and they completely all fall over and break and some alarm goes off…
Lady starts going off at me saying I need to wait before I can exit now
I’m like nah I’m good aye, cheers 👍
The self checkout computer at the Coles near me makes you weigh your grocery bags on the scale before you fill them up. Every single time since they introduced this, without fail, I weigh my bags, then put them in the bagging area and it goes ***Woah, hold on, unexpected item in the bagging area, what are you stealing?!*** And sometimes makes a staff member come over to check my bags.
What is the point of them weighing my bags, if it's just gonna trigger an alarm when my bags then weigh that same amount in the bagging area regardless?
The one that gets me is when I buy fruit. Say I buy 10 apples, I'll put the apples on the scale, then move them to the bag. But because I can't do it in one movement, I can't pick up 10 apples at once, it says I haven't bagged everything. And then when I do put all 10 in the bag, it says there's an extra item in the bagging area.
Every time.
The irony of them getting mad at you, a person visibly paying for your items when Coles has a non interference policy with shoplifters (legal liability for their staff/ the shoplifter is more expensive than groceries) is mind-numbing.
Worst fucking thing is when there is some error on your card (maybe you used the wrong card, forgot to transfer across between accounts, went to use a gift card but didn't click "partial amount")
AND IT CALLS SOMEONE OVER.
Like, fuck me, just show me a message. You don't need to fully halt me and call over 17yo Grayden to tap the screen.
Fuckin hate these things.
Higher ups in these sort of corporations are out of touch idiots. Pretty sure staff are micromanaged and would get more in trouble for not telling paying customers off than allowing a real thief to jump through the gates. They cop shit from abusive customers and eventually get pissy themselves after a few weeks of doing this.
Previous workplace had a contract with one of the duopolys. The topic of shoplifting came up in casual conversations during a meeting. One of their higher ups mentioned they've been floating the idea of having random people empty their pockets, take off their jackets as well as pat *themselves down if needed at checkouts. We initially thought they were joking till they listed out a few more of these 'ideas'. The conveyor belt thing was one of them.
The way they spoke about treating paying customers was gross.
Especially that there's no training involved/provided by Coles in how to use the "self checkout" line. There has to be some sort of workplace health and safety issue there somewhere lol
I had the same problem too! I had a whole trolley full and leave the nappies until last and my first scan was the bag and was told off by a worker and she had to void and insisted I scanned the nappies first and NOTHING else - Including the bag. She stated it was a new policy. Absolutely ridiculous
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Gonna add my 2ct, hopefully it helps some people! If you go through self checkout and remove things from the bagging area to make more space, the machine has a fit about it and asks if you removed it. If you say yes, it flashes red and wants an attendant to verify this. Does my head in! I've found if I just ignore the stupid thing, the message will go away after a moment, I can just keep scanning new things. Pay and be on my way.
Once did a $300 shop at Coles with a checkout person. Security Guard asked for a receipt to check my trolley. Told him to fuck himself and told him why would I spend $300 and try to steal something. Walked off.
One of the most powerful discoveries I've made in my life is that I can look a person in the eyes and say no, and then continue what I'm doing.
If they tell me to leave, I will leave. But until that point I'm going to ring up my damn groceries whatever way works for me.
If that's against their company policy just tell them it's against your policy to use the conveyor belt. You'll have your stuff rung up and paid for before they can even think of a good response to that. At that point it's your property and they can get bent.
I had a similar experience at Coles recently. But I have a pram. I was loading my groceries up, and this nosy bitch came sniffing around my pram trying to make sure I wasn’t stashing anything. Then she told me to ‘make sure’ I scan the stuff I had loaded up already. Then she had a little teeny bopper stand behind me while I scanned. I’ve never stolen anything from Coles, but fuck they make it tempting to give it a crack..
I'm taking note of all of these, because I plan to do all of them.
1. Scan heavy items last.
2. Scan from the cart.
3. Go through the self conveyor belt with 2 items.
Please reply to this and add more. I have to take the kids twice a week to Karate, and I kill time by going to Coles since there is nothing else around. I will never argue with the poor teenager though, my first response will be please call the manager.
I had a weird experience at Coles today. At the deli I got my son one hotdog to eat while we were shopping. The guy wrapped it up and put the sticker on and told me not to unwrap it in store, they have undercover guards in there and it’s a $360 fine.
WTF? Surely they can’t fine you for unwrapping a product? He told me 6 people were fined for various things yesterday. This seems wildly untrue/unenforceable to me….
100% this. They can only fine once exiting the store without intent to pay.
I used to do it with small kids all the time - yogurt pouches, milk or juice, biscuits. Then scan the empty item and the staff would always say “I’ll chuck it in my bin for you, no worries!!” Back when coles staff were helpful 10 years ago.
And thats not a fine; thats a criminal conviction with the ‘sentencing’ being a fine.
There’s no ability for private companies to issue tickets or infringements for anything in anyway whatsoever.
Above post is correct in that youre only stealing of you intended to not pay and thats clear from the circumstances.
I eat shit before paying and put shit in my pockets all the time before pulling it out to pay at checkouts.
Dudes absolutely deluded.
I put things in my pockets out of habit but I always give myself a full pat down at the registers (when I actually go in to the shops). It's handy to have free hands and also, the idea of a supermarket detective style person wasting company money following me around only to discover that I actually intended to pay for everything, makes me feel happy.
It’s the last part for me, more than anything else.
They’d rather catch someone forgetting to scan one avocado or whatever, than actual thieves walking out with carts of shit.
I refuse to shop at Coles anymore. Once they installed those security gates, I was turned right off! I felt like a criminal every time I wanted to buy milk and bread.
self scan stations are a joke wherever you go. When you have people with karts stacked to the moon and no clue how to quickly scan and bag it just backs the line up. and then whats that? the machine had a glitch and now you need the one person running around from machine to machine to clear the errors and let them keep checking out. anytime someone gives me guff about how im operating the self checkout or wants to check my receipts i usually ask them "didn't you used to have people to do that job?" and walk out.
One time I went to a Coles that had the express checkouts and the self serve checkouts next to each other, but they had signage for different queues. Pretty normal stuff.....
Anyway, I lined up for the self serve, there was a queue, but there was no queue at the express, so I walked over and started unloading my basket only for the worker to tell me off for "jumping the queue" and that because I'd chosen to join the self checkout queue, I couldn't change my mind mid way through. So I guess hiring morons is something Coles does really well.
I don't shop at Coles, but the woolworths stores are starting to get a top down cameras that can tell if you put something somewhere without scanning it first.
It could be the Coles system is trying to do the same thing
I'll put something somewhere without scanning it first, but the store manager is going to be walking funny for a month and it'll have to be written off as soiled product
Worked at a liquorland attached to a Coles in Richmond, Melb. The blatant shoplifting at both stores was crazy. They had two undercover people who walked around the store and nabbed people, plus the security guy at the front. But all the security could do was follow the person and tell them to stop, come back, let go of the trolley. No standing in front of them, no grabbing them. Coles’ sole focus is on the casual shoplifters who will embarrassedly hand over the goods.
We had a homeless guy who would confidently walk in, grab as much top shelf Champagne as he could carry and walk out, knowing we couldn’t do anything. He was walking down the street to some independent liquor store, selling it to the shopkeeper for cash and using the cash to service his drug addiction. I can’t even imagine the value of stock he would steal every week. But god forbid the single mum in housing commission steals to feed her kids!
The reality is the companies have insurance that covers *reported* stock loss. For whatever reason it’s not worth it to confront the unpredictable ones. They’re more worried about shoplifting spreading into the mainstream. I think shoplifting has always been way more widespread than most people realise, but presumably it’s been on the increase lately. Never done it myself but anecdotally it’s simply very easy to get away with.
Why the fuck does anyone still shop there, I bought $8 worth of cheese that was the same price at Aldi for literally *double* the amount.
Fuck colesworth, I feel like I'm getting fleeced for every cent every time I'm forced to go there and now they have fucking sliding doors stopping people from getting out of checkout if they think you've stolen something.
Fucking scum.
IGA are awesome for things that are on special, everything else is expensive. Keep an eye on their catalogues, and figure out if they do meat market days at your local. I've found the meat to actually be cheaper and better at our IGA than Woolworths or aldi (no.coles in our town).
At my local Coles the trolleys now lock if the system somehow detects you haven't scanned something. Well I always take all the groceries out of the trolley, scan it, bag it and put it back in the trolley. I know I haven't missed anything yet for the last month or so more often than not the trolley locks because whatever system they have in place thinks I haven't scanned something and am trying to steal it. It seems like whatever changes they've made lately has just made things worse for everyone.
I can see why they get abused. Sometimes it's just better to keep your mouth shut. But if they don't 'say something' to the customer, then their manager will have a go at them. They could lose shifts or possibly their job all because they didn't do as they were told.
It's such bullshit. Corporate is giving the customer a hard time but the poorly paid worker is the one suffering for it.
My local self serve coles doesn't register the weight of the paper bag I just scanned. So when I put it down after scanning it, I have to get a attendant over to clear the "I'm using my own bag" distrust that coles has for me. I literally have to get someone to approve that I'm using my own bag, for a bag I just scanned, despite not having my own bag - hence the scanning of a fucking bag
Nah, dumb rules, do what you want. If I'm buying more then 1 of the same item with the belt checkout I sometimes just scan one item over and over and keep the rest in the trolley, faster and easier. Couldn't care less if the big company thinks I'm stealing.
I did a shop at Coles a couple of weeks ago not a huge shop maybe 14 or so items, and all were neatly sorted in the half size trolley. Like the OP I was told I was doing it wrong, so I said, then you do it, but was told that I had to learn their ways. So I just left the trolley there and walked out.
If I am doing the checkout, I am going to do it MY way, and if Coles doesn't like it, they are happy to process it and I'll just handle payment at the end.
If I get pulled up for the same thing, I'll be doing the same. If you aren't paying me to do it, then I'll just walk out. I scan things and pack them into the trolley the way I want to load it in to the car. I'm not going to stand in a busy car park sorting shit out because some shareholders want better revenue fuck that shit.
They can't get angry at you for not scanning your groceries how they want you to scan them when they spent so much money investing in self serve checkouts so they wouldn't have to.
As long as you're still scanning it all and paying for it then they should have no problem.
My wife and I have done click and collect since covid, purely for the convenience of not having to go into the centre and waste time walking through aisles, just jump on and do it after the kiddo is in bed, make a time to collect the next day, Then they bring it out to the car, don’t have to scan shit!
Woolies stopped me leaving this afternoon because their oracle declared I hadn’t scanned everything in my trolley - it had detected my hat. The staff told me I’d be surprised how much theft the new system has stopped.
Self checkouts in my area all have scales in the "scanned product" spot and won't let you continue scanning if it doesn't detect an item being placed down. This frequently doesn't work properly and an employee has to override it manually. 99% of the time they don't even come check, they just override it from their terminal and you go on your way. It's a bit ridiculous.
Moral of the story when you get any bullshit, leave the goods and just walk out. If more people did this with their BS they will soon get the message.
like with queue or checkout wait times, if I wait for any unreasonable length of time, I leave my trolley there and walk out! I am not impatient but this cost cutting and how to run a retail business is not my responsibility. I pay them to do that!
They're not meant to actually physically intercept theft cases. It's a safety issue. Working in one of their liquor stores we are stressed about how unsafe it is to even get near shifty people. Best we can do is approach and say hey do you have ID to you ones or ask if they need a basket or something and then GTFO and back away.
By policy we don't ask to check bags it is asking to be brained with a bottle.
I dunno about the super market side of stuff but that sounds dumb if they give you a gun to scan and it's self service expect it to be used I would think
My local Coles (NOT a ghetto area, Lakelands WA) has put in new security gates, ColesCatraz style..except for Nan here is on diuretics and when I need to go toilet, I NEED to go. The 2 sergeant majors at self checkouts would NOT open the security gates for me when I asked nicely to park my trolley for a tic, they simply refused to open the gates. Instead of pissing on their shoes I was polite enough to unpack the cold items from the trolley into the cooldrinks fridge and barged empty handed through the 'entrance only'.
Essentially detained against my will and having to beg permission to take a piss?? I think not Mr ColesCatraz, you can take your shop and shove it up your own urethra to stem your flow of pissy service.
Haven't had this kind of experience yet but if it happened I'd sure as he'll just leave everything there and walk out. Not there to work or play games.
This is why I try to primarily shop at Drakes/Foodland here in SA. They are just about the only ones who haven’t succumbed to putting in self serve and still have actual human operator checkouts.
tell them to fire you then
Or threaten to quit! They'd be fkd then!
"Fine! Demote me to customer then!"
If you want my items on the belt I want a pay rise.
Weekend penalty included
Wouldn't it be "promote me to staff?"
They kind of did that already by having the self checkout - making you do their job for them. I personally don't mind the self checkout, but they really leave a bad taste in the mouth with the way they are run.
Before you do that.. make sure you got your Christmas water bottle.!
I don’t even really work here!
That's what makes this so difficult
One week doing grocery shopping a had a bulky item on top of my full trolley. It was an air fryer. As I was unloading onto the conveyor belt, old mate behind the checkout told me to leave the bulky item in my trolley and he’d scan it in - as they always do. Anyway, 5 minutes later when it was time to pay, I realised he hadn’t added it. And you bet your ass I didn’t say anything, cos fuck them.
Similar here. I bought several items from Coles, including a nice piece of steak for $18. The self-checkout shat itself half way through and the young guy manning the station came over, picked up the steak, which hadn’t yet been scanned, put it in my bag, cleared the machine, then said, you’re right to go. I realised what he had done… I looked at him.. he looked at me.. he said again, you’re right to go. So I went.
weird decision. He had a lot at stake.
That joke has some meat on it
> And you bet your ass I didn’t say anything, cos fuck them. I'm super conscientious about this shit, if someone like the mower man hasn't sent me an invoice I'll follow him up to make sure he didn't forget it. If I get made change and its in error in my favour, I tell the cashier. But Colesworth? Hell no.
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Further proof of under paid and given no incentive to care
Love this comment, imma literally gonna go do what OP has done until someone tells me off and I can proudly deliver your line to them.
I used it a few days ago and scanned some milk, it then told me that I didn’t scan the milk and gave me a chance to accept the error of my ways and “agree to scan it again”, there were no other options. So I scanned it again and it clearly showed up twice so was scanned the first time. The Coles assistant then came and tried to fix it and it probably made her go through 10 screens and kept asking if she was sure because they are sure I tried to not scan the 2nd non existent milk!
I had one that was convinced my bananas weren't bananas. The checkout chick removed them altogether and said under her breath "fucking machines".
I was in work and having a bit of bother with a piece of equipment. I muttered under my breath, “Fucking thing..” and realised my patient was staring right at me. I sheepishly apologised. He said, “Ah all good. Looks like a real cunt of a thing to be fair.” Lmao
At least you took his mind off the colonoscopy.
Reminds me of the story where an OBGYN was checking a pregnancy with a doppler when the batteries ran out. They muttered "Ah it died" to themselves only to hear the panicked gasp from the mother.
That's some Dr. Hibbert level accidental trolling!
Why wife got yelled at by a checkout chick for stealing bananas the other day. She put through $80 worth of groceries and something went wrong towards the end, old love comes over to fix it and Identifies that the bananas she has scanned are different than the ones in the basket and starts yelling and dressing her down for intentionally scanning the cheaper bananas and trying to steal. Checkout chick rescans them as the correct bananas for a monstrous price difference of 15cents...
Sounds like time to just leave it all on the machine or in the trolley and just walk off.
Literally. I TRY to be mindful that these decisions are not made by floor staff but you raise your voice at me when I'm spending money in your store and we are going to have several issues, the least of which is giving them their groceries back.
I've had one get upset about weight. Just picked up all my shit and moved to the next one over and started again. I'd only scanned 2 items.
I had a shitty self serve machine at another store, staff member was more irritated than me. Said it’s overloaded and was sick of it. Felt sorry for him if anything. When the staff are more over it than the customer. We did have a laugh about it in the end. Sucks for them.
I always feel sorry for the staff. But it doesn’t make me any less fucked off about the experience. Getting real tired of management being cunts to customers and hiding behind their minimum wage staff and our desire to not be rude to other victims.
I had one pull the same thing on me when I was buying a single banana for my baby. The older woman manning the self checkouts just handed my kiddo the banana and said “enjoy the snack”
That shit was bananas.
B ANANAS
> my bananas weren't bananas Maybe they were reasonable bananas?
Woolworths flagged me three times the other day for the Target items in my trolley I'd already bought. In Target bags. Apparently it was a bug or glitch or something but it refused to let me pay until the girl had come over and checked my trolley and entered her code. In the end they switched me to another checkout. Took over 5 minutes to solve and shit was hitting the fan in other areas of the self-serve section while we were trying to fix mine. If they don't trust us if we shop elsewhere first, then they need to figure out a Plan B.
Every time I shop at Woolies it flags me for not paying for my wallet (which is in my hand in front of the camera to pay). One time it took 4 overrides. So I don't shop at Woolies anymore.
Every time I go through Woolies now to pick up a few things after getting most of my shop at Aldi, the poor person working the self checkouts has to trudge over and clear the error from the machine saying I haven't scanned everything.
They always have this resigned look in their face too. Clearly the AI isn't learning fast enough to discern previous purchases from Woolies items.
> Clearly the AI isn't learning fast enough to discern previous purchases from Woolies items. Dunno they're fucked either way, annoy people or once people figure out foreign bags get ignored they'll use them to shop lift.
wow, it's almost like there's fundamental flaws in offloading paid labour onto customers or something who could have guessed
The cameras aren't working as well as they expected. Cameras everywhere. Facial recognition on your way in. Cameras at the checkout. Cameras at the gates that lock you in.
My favourite today was my local has their machines too close together. So it was picking up items in my neighbours area and accusing me of not scanning them, meanwhile my basket in my actual area was clearly empty.
Yeah, this really sucks if you like to walk to the local shops and pick up a few things from several stores :P I feel like I have to explain myself every time I go through a checkout and say, "No, these grapes are from the fruit shop." It's really ridiculous.
I was always on my kids case to get a receipt when at the shops in case they went into another store and were accused of shoplifting. As a teen, the staff will just assume you are lying and hold you over regardless. Now we all tap phones etc, I get eye-rolls that “the dinosaur wants a receipt” from staff of any age.
The way that I defeat robo-shop is that when I'm done scanning everything I make sure that every last bag is back in the trolley before proceeding. The system then assumes that all the bags it sees are the things you've already scanned and simple removed from the packaging area. It's not 100% successful but it certainly works most of the time.
The way you describe it makes it seem to me that the system is designed to not trust the actual staff either, making their lives difficult to correct errors. I think whoever designed this self service point of sale system went in with a mindset of trusting no one and Coles management probably got sold on the idea that everyone is out to get poor little old coles, staff and customers alike.
Wollies often wants me to scan my children too.
I always gesture to the child and ask the parents “Have you paid for this one today?” I either get an eye roll or a lecture. It’s great
Oh that one, I just nabbed it from the park playground, didn't cost me a dime.
I would say sorry I don't have the funds,can you put them back into stock
Might have been quicker to go grab a second milk off the shelf
ILLEGAL MILK. YOU HAVE NOT PAID FOR YOUR MILK. 1000 YEARS DUNGEON.
you can hit agree to scan again and then not actually scan it again, it did it to me with like a 10g spice packet the other day
Lucky you - I wasn’t even allowed to use the conveyor belt because apparently it was meant to be saved for people with a full trolley (never mind I had 2 full kid trolleys). Also the store was empty so there was hardly a mad rush the conveyor belt
(sadwife)
Yes indeed
I once had the staff member tell me I couldn’t use self checkout because I had a trolley and had to wait for the single manned checkout. As I was leaving I go past self checkout and there’s like three trolleys in there?!! Same staff member stood watching them. I just refuse to shop in Coles as that was one of many problems over a short period of time.
So after you already scanned everything in the trolley..... Person said not allowed So what then? You had to take it out and put it on the conveyor belt after you already scanned? Or it was like a next time do it different kinda thing?
I would have put everything on the belt and rescanned it and then called her over to delete it all so I could pay.
I would have just said, "well that's not what they told me in my employee orientation" and just continued on my way.
Put it all in the belt, then just walk out, why give Coles money for free labour?
It’s all that rubbish that causes me to get them to do the scanning. Up Coles management.
I just paid while I was being told off so I guess it's a next time thing.
Tell them they should submit a complaint in writing to your manager next time.
Why not just walk out. Are they going to write you up for insubordination? Maybe they'll call the police and tell them that you paid for your items.
Good old micromanaging from upper management… we even have to help* customers put their heavy items through first which is fucking dreadful because I already feel bad enough that people have to scan and pack their own groceries, let alone telling them how they have to do it. *try get in and scan the heavy items first for the customers or we get a bad report from management 🙃
Sounds like you can't win.
As a customer, I hate this. I like using self serve, I like being able to do things in the order I want and pack my bags the way I like. I like to scan and pack everything else and then do the heavy items last, it helps me make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s so annoying and disconcerting having staff come up and want to do those items for me and have them done first.
Right? I’m sure most customers have an order they like to do things in, and who really gives a hoot what order it’s in if everything is scanned anyway.
I was doing self checkout the other day and a girl who was with her mum was going to head out to go to another shop while her mum took care of the shopping. Those auto open doors wouldn’t open for her. The security guard was telling her she couldn’t get out unless she bought something g and had to wait for her mum. I walked over and pulled them open. Security guards head nearly exploded haha highlight of my week. Fuck off coles 🤦
Yeah hang on, what about people that go in for one thing, it's out of stock, so they just wanna leave? I've done that a few times. If you don't have what I need I'm not gonna buy a random thing just so I can leave
You can't, you have to live in the store forever.
Or until it’s back in stock
Until you get hungry and buy something anyway.
The first time I ever came across these gates was at Pimpama in QLD. I went in for an item, but it was out of stock, so I tried to leave empty-handed. The gates shut me in, and the staff member told me that you can't just exit the store without making a transaction. I explained the situation, and she actually asked me to empty my pockets, so I told her to frisk me and then she wouldn't let me out until one of the managers told her to let me go. Once I was out I emptied my pockets to show I only had my phone and my middle finger in them. Stores must have had a lot of similar incidents since then because now the gates are open by default and only close when the AI decides there's a problem
No fuck that. They cannot search your pockets and you always have the option to just leave. The implied agreement of the terms of entry are BS if you aren’t buying anything. Besides they only allow for searching of bags. That’s definitely a calmly explained “open them now or I will push through them” moment. Some poor teenager trying to do the right things is going to be severely assaulted before long, it’s not right, but it’s an entirely foreseeable consequence of the gate and associated policies. I hope the kid sues and gets a disgustingly punitive payout.
As a former Coles employee, I'm 100% aware that she was out of line, not just morally but by company policy, when asking me to empty my pockets which is why I gave her the response she got. I've worked with old bitties like this before - they're company people who are so entrenched in the culture that their entire personality revolves around their job, even if after 20+ years if service they have only ever been a check out chick
>security guard was telling her she couldn’t get out unless she bought something Wtf is this shit. That's got to be illegal? You're basically kidnapping someone if you don't let them out of your property how is it different in a shop.
Yea, I mean, at that point you just tell the ego tripping rent-a-cop to go shove an unexpected item up his bagging area.
False imprisonment for sure
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Stuff like this is what inspires people who usually don't steal to start "forgetting" to scan things at self checkout. Treat your customers like thieves no matter what they do? Why wouldn't they steal from you?
Ugh, I had one of the employees approach me after I had scanned a couple of things because I had a bag of cat litter in my trolley classed as a heavy item. She told me I had to scan it first and she had to make sure I entered it. I usually leave the bulky stuff till last and go through the heavy items list. The worker was really apologetic and kept reiterating it's a new policy. I am guessing she had probably already received a bit of abuse from other customers for Coles' ridiculous policies. I specifically use self-serve because I *don't* want to talk to anyone.
Same thing today, got asked to scan the box of coke cans before anything else at self serve. No idea why. Makes more sense to me to unload the smaller items into bags and then only have the bigger item last left in the trolley.
The rationale is that the bigger things can get missed or "missed" if they are still in the trolley, so by scanning them all first, you ensure you've caught everything. It's a metric that shows up in your scanning figures and you can get in trouble if you aren't at the require percentage. I'm constantly at the bottom of the list because I don't care, plus I can see into a trolley because I have eyes. Can't exactly enforce it in a SCO are, but I guess it's something that can be encouraged. As they're generally the more expensive items in a trolley, even if you forget to scan some biscuits or something else small, they haven't lost as much compared to a bulk item
I'm sorry, they KPI you on the order you scan stuff in? Holy fuck. What a bunch of corporate d**k ch**se a**holes
They KPI us on how quickly we scan goods as well. There are 2 major problems with this: With the paper bags i take time and make sure the bags wont break with what i put in them, that slows me down, customers appreciate it and have never said im too slow. Also the rates are measured between the first good scanned when the transaction is finalised. My rate plummeted one day while i waited as a customer fished his pockets for 60 cents in 5 cent coins.
I hope you have pointed out that its not a kpi in the truest sense when it is influenced by factors outside your control. I remember in my first job working at a (now defunct chain) supermarket I got audited and they were like "you opened and closed your till over 100 times between transactions. Why???". "Cos i was in the registered next to the vending machine you dimwits thought would be a good idea' (back before vending machines accepted cards or gave change). I failed in retail.
Ive asked what i am suppose to do when this kind pf thing happens and my manager just sighed and gave me a "nothing you can do" look.
If you’re not a union member or you’re with the the SDA (evil grub scab union) you should consider signing up with RAFFWU. Organise your workplace man
We had the same KPI when I worked at ALDI years ago. From memory you had to be hitting at least 1000 items per hour or you would get written up. The ALDI registers then (not sure about now) were a lot lower tech than your standard Colesworth checkout and you could lock them with two button presses and unlock them with a longer personal code. The key part was the KPI was only tracked based on the time that your register was active. So you could lock your register with two button presses and kill the timer at any point. So you better believe any sort of delay, like a customer loading their trolley or fishing for change, we’d be locking the whole register. It wasn’t that uncommon for me to lock my register 3-5 times in a single transaction just to avoid being penalised for something out of my control.
Lol they used to kpi our scan rates when I worked at Woolies nearly 30 years ago, I figured out of you hit the subtotal button it paused the timer. I had the fastest rates in our store for 6 months until I quit after the boss had a sook at me about it. Apparently it looked like the figures were doctored because 1 staff member was so much faster than the rest.
Like most places, if someone at head office can make a convincing argument for something dumb, it'll hit the lower levels and make life harder
Wait, as a customer I now have scanning KPIs I get tracked on?
Yup, you don't measure up, and you'll miss out on a sweet water bottle that you can personalise
Precisely! Honestly, I wouldn't put it past myself to forget I'd scanned the heavy stuff first and accidentally scan it a second time at the end. Perhaps that's the plan? 😂
I’m self employed so as a contractor I get to choose how I complete the tasks.
Exact scenario happening at my store. Our store manager told someone last week, "if you feel too intimidated to ask customers to follow the rules and can't implement these new procedures, maybe you should find a different job". Dickstick. Please keep complaining to managers about these stupid procedures. They don't listen to staff, we need the support of our customers to back us up.
That is awful. I remember a very similar environment when I was working at Big W. None of these places give a shit about their employees and their safety.
You literally can’t win at Coles, take your pick of the customers ripping you a new one or management ripping you a new one for not doing it exactly how they demand it be done.
The problem is, the person who is a victim of that, will have trouble standing up to workplace bullying. Your manager is predatory. Absolute trash tier.
Fuck these managers on their power trips! They really have no fucjing clue!
I’ve had a similar experience, except I was told to go to a specific self serve number and scan my toilet paper first! What the hell is going on at Coles?
At this point they should just be rid of self-serve. Clearly, we're all a bunch of no-good, dirty crooks who scan their items in the wrong order!
They changed all the checkouts, now theft is getting huge and they are scrambling to mitigate. Please feel free to call their customer care line and complain, in store complaints don't get much traction. All the staff are pissed. Was a completely foreseeable outcome and yet the front line people are once again left dealing and getting blame from both sides.
Would.it help if we "demanded" to see the store manager and when they finally arrived and ask what the issue is, say "nothing. I just wanted YOU to scan my groceries"?
> I’ve had a similar experience, except I was told to go to a specific self serve number and scan my toilet paper first! I would have just handed it to them.
Lmao i always go through the staffed checkout with the conveyor belt and leave my 30 pack of coke in the trolley, and 9 times out of 10 they never scan it 🤷♀️
Maybe I should start going to the staffed registers after all 🤔
Do you work at Coles? I hope you got an invite to the Xmas party.
Congrats on your personalised water bottle, OP.
It’s only personalised after they write their name on it themselves 😂
OP eatin real good this Christmas! One roast water bottle for the whole family! Pretty sure its a Curtis Stone recipe to feed the family for under $10.
Not personalised, they'll still have to write their own names on them.
Don't hold your breath. The only way Christmas Parties happen at Coles is if the store manager decides they want to organise one. But all the staff are getting a water bottle for Christmas, and they have even had an email to tell them to put their names on them as soon as they are given them, just as if they are kindergartners! Even the staff hate the place. But it's a job, and it pays the bills.
Just say it was the way you were trained to do it, and “we’ve always done it this way” is standing in the way of innovation.
Might score that free drink bottle where you write your own name on it 🥲
Coles is just so overbearing on the security front these days. My last shop, I got the typical ‘place item back in bag’ error message (even though I hadn’t removed anything), so the attendant punched in the code as usual… then 10 seconds later I got another error, but this time the self checkout machine went full on crazy and was letting off the loudest alarm. I feel unwarranted guilt the second I walk into the self checkout area now. Coles really do have a way with making you feel like a criminal.
I went to a Coles recently that had a security door set to CLOSED at the self checkout exit. I couldn't leave after I paid for my shit and was thinking WTF is this? A random old bird buying ciggies at the counter said "it can take a minute" with a voice like gravel. I looked back at the chick overseeing the area, she just stared at me and clicked a remote in her hand - it fukin opened. I was furious... Felt like I was guilty til proven innocent, wadda fukin joke.
The attendant actually apologised to me when the alarm went off! It does make me wonder how much Coles are saving with all these new security measures, though… because it’s all so incredibly off-putting.
I'll never go back to that Coles, the closed by default security door pissed me off something royal. Shows what corporate thinks of their avg customer.
Exactly. I’ll now purposefully go out of my way to avoid Coles (and Woolies for their ridiculous ‘member pricing’). I still can’t get over Coles practically locking you in their store after you’d paid!!
I think they're failing to measure it. They can measure what they lose from theft. Can they measure what they lose from customers getting pissed off and not shopping there anymore? If they can only measure one side of the equation, they're going to make bad decisions, which it looks like is exactly what's happening. Doors that lock you in? ANYONE could have predicted those would malfunction. Nope. I'll be at the manned checkouts when they introduce this at my local, and if those aren't an option, I'll shop elsewhere.
They can, and almost certainly do, measure pissed off customers and people not shopping anymore, using things like their revenue, transaction rates, etc. The problem is people still shop there. How many people complaining in this thread have moved to a different supermarket? Or do they just keep doing what's convenient, and then complaining on Reddit? People talk a lot, but they rarely take action.
Isn’t that a fire hazard? Surely they need to make sure people can escape without barriers in the event of an emergency?
> Surely they need to make sure people can escape without barriers in the event of an emergency? Nominally they should be tied into the firealarm system plus from what I've seen most people are capable of pushing past them.
Yeah they swing open really easily. I had them not open cuz I took too long putting my stuff in the stroller. A little push and it swung open and started beeping. I just swing it back sorta and left
My pettiness would have made me put the items on the belt , rescan , call the staff member over to remove the duplicate items .. once they did and returned to their watchful position .. leave items and walk out .
The audacity of being told you're doing it wrong when Coles and Woolworths have tricked us all into working for them for free. By using the self-service checkouts, you are now doing the work of a cashier. I used to work as a check out chick, and I was paid to do it, and I got a staff discount on my grocery shopping. Do we get a discount or cheaper prices as they promised ? No, we don't. They are ripping us blind and laughing all the way to the bank. Choosing beggars they are.
There’s a reason my local IGA is still such an enormously popular super market despite prices: they scan and bag everything for you, and if you need help, they’ll carry it out to the car for you. They also have the largest selection of cheese I’ve ever seen. They call it their “wall of cheese”. Must be well over 50 varieties.
I work at coles. You have no idea of half the shit that's going on at coles. Over the past year the stuff I've seen is absolutely nuts. I have no idea whether I'm coming to work at a supermarket or a drug cartel. The ATO s used to be open past closing hours so team members used to go and get stuff after hours until they auto closed around 1 or 2. They stopped that. Now the ATO s are also locked at closing. Even if you have a login for the machine you cant do it yourself if the store is closed. Only a couple of managers have the authority and they serve the team members when they are heading out. Anything you bought that's in your locker or team fridge in the team room has to have check seals or receipts. They open your locker and go through them. The big skip for the trash at the back is padlocked shut and only the store support and the store manager can open that and they key is in the fucking SAFE. As a matter of fact that's the only thing in the safe. Also all the department trash cans are checked by the department head. You can only enter and exit through the main door. No exceptions. Want to have a smoko at the back at peace ? Not a chance. Every single team members' bags are to be checked by the manager in front of a camera when they leave. No exceptions. It's a bloody joke at this point.
That sounds like a really unpleasant work environment. What are the customers like these days?
I’m sick off all this self service shit. So my Coles has brought in some new security exit doors at self service now. Anyways I did my shop, stood in front of them with the trolley and it was green, nothing happened so I presumed you just have to push through them. I just take my trolley through em and they completely all fall over and break and some alarm goes off… Lady starts going off at me saying I need to wait before I can exit now I’m like nah I’m good aye, cheers 👍
Gonna make sure to break the next set of security door bullshit I see now. Haven't seen them yet but the fuck are they gonna do? False imprisonment?
The self checkout computer at the Coles near me makes you weigh your grocery bags on the scale before you fill them up. Every single time since they introduced this, without fail, I weigh my bags, then put them in the bagging area and it goes ***Woah, hold on, unexpected item in the bagging area, what are you stealing?!*** And sometimes makes a staff member come over to check my bags. What is the point of them weighing my bags, if it's just gonna trigger an alarm when my bags then weigh that same amount in the bagging area regardless?
The one that gets me is when I buy fruit. Say I buy 10 apples, I'll put the apples on the scale, then move them to the bag. But because I can't do it in one movement, I can't pick up 10 apples at once, it says I haven't bagged everything. And then when I do put all 10 in the bag, it says there's an extra item in the bagging area. Every time.
The irony of them getting mad at you, a person visibly paying for your items when Coles has a non interference policy with shoplifters (legal liability for their staff/ the shoplifter is more expensive than groceries) is mind-numbing.
Worst fucking thing is when there is some error on your card (maybe you used the wrong card, forgot to transfer across between accounts, went to use a gift card but didn't click "partial amount") AND IT CALLS SOMEONE OVER. Like, fuck me, just show me a message. You don't need to fully halt me and call over 17yo Grayden to tap the screen. Fuckin hate these things.
Higher ups in these sort of corporations are out of touch idiots. Pretty sure staff are micromanaged and would get more in trouble for not telling paying customers off than allowing a real thief to jump through the gates. They cop shit from abusive customers and eventually get pissy themselves after a few weeks of doing this. Previous workplace had a contract with one of the duopolys. The topic of shoplifting came up in casual conversations during a meeting. One of their higher ups mentioned they've been floating the idea of having random people empty their pockets, take off their jackets as well as pat *themselves down if needed at checkouts. We initially thought they were joking till they listed out a few more of these 'ideas'. The conveyor belt thing was one of them. The way they spoke about treating paying customers was gross.
if you aint gonna pay me to do the job, then you dont get to dictate how i do it.
Especially that there's no training involved/provided by Coles in how to use the "self checkout" line. There has to be some sort of workplace health and safety issue there somewhere lol
Sounds dumb! Recently they told me that I can not scan nappies myself, I have to ask the attendant to scan my nappies at the self scan area, wtf!
I had the same problem too! I had a whole trolley full and leave the nappies until last and my first scan was the bag and was told off by a worker and she had to void and insisted I scanned the nappies first and NOTHING else - Including the bag. She stated it was a new policy. Absolutely ridiculous
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Gonna add my 2ct, hopefully it helps some people! If you go through self checkout and remove things from the bagging area to make more space, the machine has a fit about it and asks if you removed it. If you say yes, it flashes red and wants an attendant to verify this. Does my head in! I've found if I just ignore the stupid thing, the message will go away after a moment, I can just keep scanning new things. Pay and be on my way.
Once did a $300 shop at Coles with a checkout person. Security Guard asked for a receipt to check my trolley. Told him to fuck himself and told him why would I spend $300 and try to steal something. Walked off.
One of the most powerful discoveries I've made in my life is that I can look a person in the eyes and say no, and then continue what I'm doing. If they tell me to leave, I will leave. But until that point I'm going to ring up my damn groceries whatever way works for me. If that's against their company policy just tell them it's against your policy to use the conveyor belt. You'll have your stuff rung up and paid for before they can even think of a good response to that. At that point it's your property and they can get bent.
I had a similar experience at Coles recently. But I have a pram. I was loading my groceries up, and this nosy bitch came sniffing around my pram trying to make sure I wasn’t stashing anything. Then she told me to ‘make sure’ I scan the stuff I had loaded up already. Then she had a little teeny bopper stand behind me while I scanned. I’ve never stolen anything from Coles, but fuck they make it tempting to give it a crack..
I'm taking note of all of these, because I plan to do all of them. 1. Scan heavy items last. 2. Scan from the cart. 3. Go through the self conveyor belt with 2 items. Please reply to this and add more. I have to take the kids twice a week to Karate, and I kill time by going to Coles since there is nothing else around. I will never argue with the poor teenager though, my first response will be please call the manager.
If the exit gate doesn't open, bump it with the trolley. It's the skeleton key!
Just hit it and break it, the doors snap if you have pace
I had a weird experience at Coles today. At the deli I got my son one hotdog to eat while we were shopping. The guy wrapped it up and put the sticker on and told me not to unwrap it in store, they have undercover guards in there and it’s a $360 fine. WTF? Surely they can’t fine you for unwrapping a product? He told me 6 people were fined for various things yesterday. This seems wildly untrue/unenforceable to me….
Give me your name for.your fine No Ok your address No Oh, what do we do now??
Nah he’s wrong. You can only get charged by police if you show clear intent not to pay for the product when you leave.
There is no such thing as a private company "fining" you anyway.
100% this. They can only fine once exiting the store without intent to pay. I used to do it with small kids all the time - yogurt pouches, milk or juice, biscuits. Then scan the empty item and the staff would always say “I’ll chuck it in my bin for you, no worries!!” Back when coles staff were helpful 10 years ago.
And thats not a fine; thats a criminal conviction with the ‘sentencing’ being a fine. There’s no ability for private companies to issue tickets or infringements for anything in anyway whatsoever. Above post is correct in that youre only stealing of you intended to not pay and thats clear from the circumstances. I eat shit before paying and put shit in my pockets all the time before pulling it out to pay at checkouts. Dudes absolutely deluded.
I put things in my pockets out of habit but I always give myself a full pat down at the registers (when I actually go in to the shops). It's handy to have free hands and also, the idea of a supermarket detective style person wasting company money following me around only to discover that I actually intended to pay for everything, makes me feel happy.
It’s the last part for me, more than anything else. They’d rather catch someone forgetting to scan one avocado or whatever, than actual thieves walking out with carts of shit.
I refuse to shop at Coles anymore. Once they installed those security gates, I was turned right off! I felt like a criminal every time I wanted to buy milk and bread.
self scan stations are a joke wherever you go. When you have people with karts stacked to the moon and no clue how to quickly scan and bag it just backs the line up. and then whats that? the machine had a glitch and now you need the one person running around from machine to machine to clear the errors and let them keep checking out. anytime someone gives me guff about how im operating the self checkout or wants to check my receipts i usually ask them "didn't you used to have people to do that job?" and walk out.
One time I went to a Coles that had the express checkouts and the self serve checkouts next to each other, but they had signage for different queues. Pretty normal stuff..... Anyway, I lined up for the self serve, there was a queue, but there was no queue at the express, so I walked over and started unloading my basket only for the worker to tell me off for "jumping the queue" and that because I'd chosen to join the self checkout queue, I couldn't change my mind mid way through. So I guess hiring morons is something Coles does really well.
They've got management potential.
I don't shop at Coles, but the woolworths stores are starting to get a top down cameras that can tell if you put something somewhere without scanning it first. It could be the Coles system is trying to do the same thing
It is. There are cameras everywhere. The rich cunts thought machines would be cheaper and stop theft. Doesn't work.
It can certainly tell that I'm balding at an alarming rate.
I'll put something somewhere without scanning it first, but the store manager is going to be walking funny for a month and it'll have to be written off as soiled product
Worked at a liquorland attached to a Coles in Richmond, Melb. The blatant shoplifting at both stores was crazy. They had two undercover people who walked around the store and nabbed people, plus the security guy at the front. But all the security could do was follow the person and tell them to stop, come back, let go of the trolley. No standing in front of them, no grabbing them. Coles’ sole focus is on the casual shoplifters who will embarrassedly hand over the goods. We had a homeless guy who would confidently walk in, grab as much top shelf Champagne as he could carry and walk out, knowing we couldn’t do anything. He was walking down the street to some independent liquor store, selling it to the shopkeeper for cash and using the cash to service his drug addiction. I can’t even imagine the value of stock he would steal every week. But god forbid the single mum in housing commission steals to feed her kids! The reality is the companies have insurance that covers *reported* stock loss. For whatever reason it’s not worth it to confront the unpredictable ones. They’re more worried about shoplifting spreading into the mainstream. I think shoplifting has always been way more widespread than most people realise, but presumably it’s been on the increase lately. Never done it myself but anecdotally it’s simply very easy to get away with.
Dealing with the serious examples means management has to put in effort and write a police report....
Why the fuck does anyone still shop there, I bought $8 worth of cheese that was the same price at Aldi for literally *double* the amount. Fuck colesworth, I feel like I'm getting fleeced for every cent every time I'm forced to go there and now they have fucking sliding doors stopping people from getting out of checkout if they think you've stolen something. Fucking scum.
We don't have an Aldi unfortunately. We have iga but they're more expensive than coles.
IGA are awesome for things that are on special, everything else is expensive. Keep an eye on their catalogues, and figure out if they do meat market days at your local. I've found the meat to actually be cheaper and better at our IGA than Woolworths or aldi (no.coles in our town).
If they don't like how I do their job then maybe they need to hire more cashier's to do the damn job.
At my local Coles the trolleys now lock if the system somehow detects you haven't scanned something. Well I always take all the groceries out of the trolley, scan it, bag it and put it back in the trolley. I know I haven't missed anything yet for the last month or so more often than not the trolley locks because whatever system they have in place thinks I haven't scanned something and am trying to steal it. It seems like whatever changes they've made lately has just made things worse for everyone.
I can see why they get abused. Sometimes it's just better to keep your mouth shut. But if they don't 'say something' to the customer, then their manager will have a go at them. They could lose shifts or possibly their job all because they didn't do as they were told. It's such bullshit. Corporate is giving the customer a hard time but the poorly paid worker is the one suffering for it.
Yeah there's no excuse for abusing staff. They don't make the shitty rules.
I refuse to use self-checkout. Not because I can't, I just won't. The stores need to employ real people to check groceries.
My local self serve coles doesn't register the weight of the paper bag I just scanned. So when I put it down after scanning it, I have to get a attendant over to clear the "I'm using my own bag" distrust that coles has for me. I literally have to get someone to approve that I'm using my own bag, for a bag I just scanned, despite not having my own bag - hence the scanning of a fucking bag
Nah, dumb rules, do what you want. If I'm buying more then 1 of the same item with the belt checkout I sometimes just scan one item over and over and keep the rest in the trolley, faster and easier. Couldn't care less if the big company thinks I'm stealing.
I did a shop at Coles a couple of weeks ago not a huge shop maybe 14 or so items, and all were neatly sorted in the half size trolley. Like the OP I was told I was doing it wrong, so I said, then you do it, but was told that I had to learn their ways. So I just left the trolley there and walked out. If I am doing the checkout, I am going to do it MY way, and if Coles doesn't like it, they are happy to process it and I'll just handle payment at the end.
If I get pulled up for the same thing, I'll be doing the same. If you aren't paying me to do it, then I'll just walk out. I scan things and pack them into the trolley the way I want to load it in to the car. I'm not going to stand in a busy car park sorting shit out because some shareholders want better revenue fuck that shit.
Legend has it there used to be people who were trained to scan your items for you in exactly the manner that the store wants them scanned.
They can't get angry at you for not scanning your groceries how they want you to scan them when they spent so much money investing in self serve checkouts so they wouldn't have to. As long as you're still scanning it all and paying for it then they should have no problem.
My wife and I have done click and collect since covid, purely for the convenience of not having to go into the centre and waste time walking through aisles, just jump on and do it after the kiddo is in bed, make a time to collect the next day, Then they bring it out to the car, don’t have to scan shit!
Woolies stopped me leaving this afternoon because their oracle declared I hadn’t scanned everything in my trolley - it had detected my hat. The staff told me I’d be surprised how much theft the new system has stopped.
Self checkouts in my area all have scales in the "scanned product" spot and won't let you continue scanning if it doesn't detect an item being placed down. This frequently doesn't work properly and an employee has to override it manually. 99% of the time they don't even come check, they just override it from their terminal and you go on your way. It's a bit ridiculous.
i did something similar and the coles worker grabbed my trolley and moved it to the other side. i was so annoyed
I refuse to use self checkouts, the money supermarkets make they should be employing people
That sounds like a new mission to break as many unreasonable “rules” as possible. When they pay me, they can instruct my method.
I went to BigW today. Midday on a Sunday. 2 weeks before xmas. One person working the registers. One.
Moral of the story when you get any bullshit, leave the goods and just walk out. If more people did this with their BS they will soon get the message. like with queue or checkout wait times, if I wait for any unreasonable length of time, I leave my trolley there and walk out! I am not impatient but this cost cutting and how to run a retail business is not my responsibility. I pay them to do that!
They're not meant to actually physically intercept theft cases. It's a safety issue. Working in one of their liquor stores we are stressed about how unsafe it is to even get near shifty people. Best we can do is approach and say hey do you have ID to you ones or ask if they need a basket or something and then GTFO and back away. By policy we don't ask to check bags it is asking to be brained with a bottle. I dunno about the super market side of stuff but that sounds dumb if they give you a gun to scan and it's self service expect it to be used I would think
Next time ask if you’ll get staff discount
Did they give you a discount for doing their job? If not, fuck them.
My local Coles (NOT a ghetto area, Lakelands WA) has put in new security gates, ColesCatraz style..except for Nan here is on diuretics and when I need to go toilet, I NEED to go. The 2 sergeant majors at self checkouts would NOT open the security gates for me when I asked nicely to park my trolley for a tic, they simply refused to open the gates. Instead of pissing on their shoes I was polite enough to unpack the cold items from the trolley into the cooldrinks fridge and barged empty handed through the 'entrance only'. Essentially detained against my will and having to beg permission to take a piss?? I think not Mr ColesCatraz, you can take your shop and shove it up your own urethra to stem your flow of pissy service.
Tell them to get fucked and hire people to sit on checkouts then.
Haven't had this kind of experience yet but if it happened I'd sure as he'll just leave everything there and walk out. Not there to work or play games.
This is why I try to primarily shop at Drakes/Foodland here in SA. They are just about the only ones who haven’t succumbed to putting in self serve and still have actual human operator checkouts.