In theory modern supermarket shopping is very simple: you take your basket of shopping to the till, the nice lady or gentleman scans your goods, you pay and off you toddle.
If it’s busy you can use the automated till. This works in the same way, only you scan your purchases yourself.
These machines have been introduced for you, the shopper. They are there to make your life easier and are IN NO WAY an attempt to make even more swill for greedy shareholders by chucking a few more members of staff on to the scrapheap. Oh no. They’re only thinking of us, the customers, who they love like children (well, not the children working in the sweatshops making the clothes they’re selling, obviously, but children all the same.)
The trouble is, at shropshirestar.com’s local supermarket, someone appears to have decided that the automated till should also include a Nightmare setting that would not only try the patience of a saint but send him screaming around the supermarket disembowelling anyone in sight.
Last night, for example, shropshirestar.com’s attempt to pay for four items of food and a cheapo comedy DVD, began well enough. I joined the “20 items or less” queue (and, by the way, that should be “fewer”) and began scanning my items.
Being a bit of a greeny I take my own bags, one of which I put in the bagging area.
“Unexpected item in bagging area,” said the machine, in that soothing voice that sounds a bit like HAL from 2001.
I looked for help, and one of the harassed assistants came over, scanned a bit of card, and let me carry on.
After about eight attempts the machine registered that I wanted to buy burgers.
After another eight attempts it registered that I was buying cottage cheese.
After another eight attempts I was allowed to buy a steak.
And then I scanned the DVD.
Hang on, said the computer. How old are you, sunshine? Get me the assistant. Now!
The assistant came over. She whipped out and scanned the magic card and then scanned the DVD.
And then she scanned it again as it didn’t appear to have registered.
“There you go,” she said.
I looked at the bill. Suddenly, in addition to the food, I was now buying three DVDS.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I only wanted the one.”
The assistant, who was very nice, then spent five minutes trying to explain to the machine that I was buying one DVD, not three.
Naah, said the machine. I’m not having it. I think you’d better start again.
This time she scanned everything for me and put it in the bag – the exact opposite, in fact, of what these machines are designed to do. And she seemed to have no problems getting it to register.
Then, before I paid, she went off to help another customer before he hacked off his own legs in frustration.
At this point I realised she had forgotten to scan the baguette I was buying, so I scanned it (and it worked first time) before putting it in my bag.
The lady then came back to see how I was getting on.
Spotting the baguette she said: “Oh, were you buying this? I didn’t realise. Have you scanned it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And I’ve paid for it.”
“Oh,” she said. “And you’ve paid for it.”
“Yes,” I said. “Look. Here’s the receipt. You can see for yourself.”
“Ah, she said. “Yes, you have.”
Isn’t it terrible when someone who, not five minutes before, was friendly and helpful, now eyes you with suspicion?
So, honesty established, I was free to leave the shop.
Whether or not I return is another question.
If you happen to be the managing director of a big supermarket chain, and if you happen to be reading this, could I ask you one favour?
Please, just once, stop thinking of your massive profits and your equally massive shareholders and actually pay some people to do a job.
They are, on the whole, nice things, people.
You should think about them a bit more.
15 Comments
I have a 4 year old son who frequently ‘helps’ scan our stuff and to be honest we don’t have that many problems.
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good article and my experience as well. Bob, you must be one in a million not to have had trouble with them.
It would help if they guided you to which part of the machine you’re supposed to show the barcode to, but of course they don’t. Its always the “bagging area” that causes problems, and again why they cannot explain that you must put your goods there (whether you want to or not) I don’t know.
You have more chance of winning the lottery than buying your goods without needing assistance.
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Don’t you just love these wonderful labour saving techy devices we have these days? This is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t consider using the automated tills.
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Well you dont go to McDonalds and cook your own burger do you?
Case closed!!!
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I work in TESCO and can honestly say I HATE THE BLIMMIN’ THINGS. I prefer a human serving me. It is only on a Saturday at 10pm after my shift I don’t have much option. Automatic ones can’t give cashback or print lottery tickets either.
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I use these things all the time and never have a problem, there again I’m not a MORON.
What does annoy me however is having to stand tapping my foot whilst waiting for a complete dunce to work out how to use the device. Can I please ask that those folks without the intellegence to use these scanners to move on and let us technologically savy people get on with our lives. Quick frankly I’m amazed some of these people actually managed to find their way into the supermarket in the first place!
Rant over.
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reference the bagging area and why you must put goods there
I can explain that – every item has a weight, you scan it, put it in the bagging area, it checks the weight matches with what it expects – too heavy or too light and it alerts staff to watch in case something has been taken (ie: you scanned a birthday card for 99p and took a birthday cake for 9.99..it’d look like you had scanned and paid but it knows you haven’t because of the weight.
personally I love self check out – so easy and hassle free once you get the hang of it, and if it keeps their costs down and they pass these savings to me, even better. I do believe they pass savings on because the grocery business is so cut throat these days
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They’re so good the CO-OP at Radbrook have ditched them.
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This article should have been called Supermarkets – Proof of Satan. Just do it on-line and avoid all the hassle and the drones with their trollies!
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They are anti left handed people, I got told off by the machine and staff member for trying to do it the “wrong way round
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the self check out in canada accept payment by cash,debit, credit, give cash back, accept vouchers not sure about dispensing lottery tickets though, but then can you get them at every staffed check out these days? (I’ve not been in the country for a couple of years)
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#6 you’ve got it spot on!
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Brimindo, I completely agree with you! They’re quick and convenient provided that you don’t get stuck behind a technophobo who’s afraid of machines.
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if you can quite clearly write such a long message and use a computer, why not spend your time shopping on line, then you can simply press the key “1″ for one DVD and one will be delivered to you and not 4.
The alternative is to go to a local shopkeeper and keep them alive by giving them your valuable trade. You cant have it both ways.
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I like them but the problem is there are not enough staff monitoring them when there’s a problem – Asda Donnington now has I think it’s ten of these machines but only ever one member of staff monitoring and inevitably once one plays up they all do and you stand there waiting longer than you have done to get served at the manned checkout!
And you can never get reduced stuff through yourself!
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