Fun fact: This is why a huge amount of people don’t use self-checkout despite it potentially saving a lot of time. They are afraid the person behind them is going to judge them like this while trying it for the first time.
Well then don’t be a fucking moron. Sorry for being a dick towards those kind of people, but the voice prompts walk you through the entire process. All you gotta do is listen to them. I didn’t have any issues when I first tried one 20 years ago. They’re self-explanatory.
I mean at this point they’ve been around long enough that everyone should know how to use them by now, unless you recently moved from a country that doesn’t have them. But again, the machines walk you through the process every time.
I avoid self checkout for different reasons.
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I’m not getting a discount while I have to do more work and the supermarket less.
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I take extra responsibility, if I forget to scan one item I could get in actual trouble during a random check.
- It’s often very time saving to go through checkout. It is really that much hassle to scan your own items? If you’re using a card you typically handle that yourself anyway and many places already have you bag your own goods.
- you’re not going to get in any real trouble if you forget one item. If they happen to check and you did, simply go pay for it, or say “oops, missed that, here take it back I’ll get it next time” if it’s not needed.
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Fortunately, I’m the sort who goes, “Who the FUCK are you looking at?”, when I catch people staring.
I don’t need them to be speedy Gonzalez but to just not be actually illiterate buffoons
Screen: scan items to begin
Them: staring at the machine, slack jawed until the employee comes over
I’m also really lazy and don’t want to do it.
And so you blame the person whose thrown into having to use a self checkout with little to no instruction having to figure it out instead of the corpo execs who wanted to siphon a few local jobs into their new yachts?
If that person can’t even read a screen or do a minimum of reasoning, yes.
OMG this.
Person in front checking out:
BEEP
Lays item on the scale, but is leaning on the scale.
PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE
Picks item up
Please put item on the scale
puts item on the scale but has their hand on the scale still
PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE
HELP IS ON THE WAY
(help was not on the way)
Them: These things NEVER WORK!!!
30 seconds later the POS resets and lets them try again.
me: Stop touching the scale, just leave you item there and back off
it works
They scan the next item and place it on the scale and leave their hand on the scale.
PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE
Every single item, they never learned. I eventually went to stand in the single manned line that had 15 people in it.
I learned after a software update my local store now glitched if you put down a bag before you start scanning, it won’t let you proceed past the first item bagging without override. So now I wait and put the bag down with the first item so it won’t notice the specific bag weight and won’t force the person to help.
My husband was that guy, but I trained him. Eventually.
Everyday driving to work is almost the same experience for me. Not too sure they are even sober.
that’s why one line for multiple checkouts is better
Is it not the standard? Every store with self-checkout I’ve been to has a single line for all machines. I’ve even seen some stores with a single line for regular checkout.
Not standard here, but it’s a mix. Same applies to other checkouts: so many people are doing the devil may know what, I’m terrible at picking the fastest queue.
Self check at Sam’s Club at other club stores works in a one line per checkout way, where I am at least
Yes but it’s 100x faster to use the “Scan-n-go” on your phone anyways.
Scan shit with your phone camera as you put it in the cart. When done click checkout, pay on phone. Then just walk out. Occasionally someone will ask to check yer cart.
seems weird to use an app for a physical store
Yes it does but avoiding the madhouse seems worth it. Lines at my Sam’s are always 20+ minutes long
Costco started doing that except it’s them doing it while you’re in line. Like Chik-fil-A. Big brain.
Lines were already speedy, considering.
well, not in Jordan’s hood
Where I live the grocery stores all have groups of 6+ self checkouts that are reliable enough that only one or two might be out at the same time but generally work, all of the ‘too many items’ issues have been sorted out, and they are in places where people just naturally form lines and take the next free one. It works great and is so much better than checkout lines ever were as one person going slow doesn’t hold up everyone else.
Went on a work trip to a larger city and holy hell I understand why people there would hate self checkout. Forced lines, machines that constantly required human assistance, etc. That would suck to interact with regularly.
Yeah, self-chekout in the 'burbs is fantastic, we have like 4-8 machines and most of the time, at least half are available.
Whoever designed these machines had never used checkouts, touchscreens, or money before.
Early Wal-Mart models were the touchiest, naggiest goddamn things, like whoever invented PRESS X TO NOT DIE got fired from Capcom and went straight into commercial UX. You will bend over two times for every item, you may not swipe the same item twice for duplicates, and that half-ounce blister-pack better register on the bag-side scale or else the idiot alarm will go off anyway. As it will if you spend more than two seconds figuring out a screen that just jabbed your ears with a shrill beep to demand instant responses to a modal choice for no discernible reason.
Recently CVS had one that’s ATM-shaped, with an itty-bitty platform for your stuff. The cash slot is at knee height. The lower half of the machine is angled toward the ground. You can’t fucking see it, while it’s still demanding immediate responses to modal options, like you’re playing a game and have no sane reason to look away from the screen. Hi! Press button to begin. Are you buying something today? Press button to buy. Do you speak English? Press button for English. Will you be scanning things? Press button to scan. Okay, begin scanning things. Press button to scan something else. Press button to not scan something else. Press button to check out. Press button to pay your bill. Press button for how you’ll be paying your bill. Press button to activate the cash siphon conveniently located upside-down and backwards two feet off the floor, for use with popular brands of shin-mounted wallets, because the cocaine-chewing lizard person who designed this object has never seen a goddamn vending machine.
It was fine ten years ago! For like a decade, you got a shelf with a scanner in the middle, like a goddamn checkout counter, and you did the thing you’ve watched register-jockeys do since you got to sit in the cart. They didn’t model human customers as idiot robots who’ll instinctively stare at a screen and blindly follow instructions as quickly as possible. They acted like you had expectations, and were perhaps engaged in some manual activity involving a cart, a scanner, and three dozen disparate objects.
To be fair it is so much better than it was when they came out.
Can you elaborate? This was before my time, so I’m curious what that early experience was like.
It was a nonstop barrage of “Unexpected item in the bagging area!” on repeat until you just give up and walk out the door leaving everything behind for the store to clear away for the next customer.
Unfortunately the more regional stores and co-ops still have the old units. Which like, good for them for maintaining their stuff, but also it’s kinda a pain lol
The store can configure them to have higher tolerances. One store near me turned the scale off entirely. They have way more throughput on the machines, and don’t need as many human cashiers now. The scales didn’t enough theft in the first place.
The big improvement has been image recognition on produce. It used to be you needed to either know the produce code, or navigate a terrible menu system. Nowadays, you can just put stuff on the scale, hit the camera icon, and have it show you a few possibilities, which is almost always correct.
There was also a long period where the anti theft system would trigger if you breath on the bagging area, and require a staff member to unlock it. They seem to have toned that down a lot. Even when it triggers, it just nags you without locking anything.
I put something on the scale, hit search, type the first 3 letters of the item, select the relevant item, select whether it is in any additional container (like the produce bags), and it’s done. Takes me 3 seconds to do.
I’ll have to look to see if my grocery store has image recognition. I have not noticed that feature, but I’d be interested in trying it.
Not only the self checkout. I usually end up behind someone who’s new to the concept of exchanging goods for legal tender and needs an introduction to it.
This is of course after they have told the story about why they’re in the store, starting with the new testament and moving on from there…
I spend a lot of time thinking about how it’s not my place to judge these people, but I think very few of them would manage to sit the right way on the toilet without outside assistance.
People on their cell phone who act surprised and annoyed that the act of checking out requires a brief moment of their attention.
At every checkout you pay twice. Attention and money. If you’re doing it correctly.
“Can I go ahead of you in line? My kid is acting up. Great thanks. (To cashier) I’d like to buy this alcohol and cigarettes with these food stamps that I acquired totally legally. No? Let’s take several minutes to discuss if there’s any way around the law. Now that that’s over, I’ll pay with a check. Oh, also, can I get 20 scratch off tickets? I just want to scratch them off while you wait. Here, I have a giant roll of cash that I will use, but don’t worry, I wasn’t doing this to make things go faster. Now is my chance to try to do a cash-changing scam on you.”
I always notice people are super cocky about this kind of thing. Yet self-checkouts are so fucking terrible it basically everyone runs into problems at them eventually. So just tempting fate from everyone in this thread really.
I don’t know how you can go wrong. You scan the thing, set it down, repeat. Press pay, scan your card, done.
“Unexpected item in bagging area” was a common misery for everyone in London in 2012. Don’t know if it’s improved there since.
In NL they now do ‘random checks’ of 10 items, which is basically ‘you having to unpack all your shopping’ and pack again so they can check if you stole.
The concept of self checkout is ridiculous, making you an unpaid employee and then blaming you for mistakes. It tries to solve the owner’s stinginess for not hiring more staff. It’s not there to help you, it’s there to suppress employees.
I love self checkout. It allows me to avoid most of social interactions and physical proximity with strangers, making the experience just that much less uncomfortable.
You’re right that it’s being used against the employees, everything that possibly can will in this system, that doesn’t make it inherently bad.
It should be an option, together with a well paid, well treated (let them sit ffs) workforce.
I’m not the most social person myself, but I can still comfortably stand 2m away from a cashier, say “Hi”, “Card”, “Thanks, bye”. That’s all the interaction that is needed, and it’s still a lot more relaxed than having some poor dude ask me to unpack all my shopping to check if I accidentally forgot to scan a yoghurt. So no, thanks I’ll boycott self checkout as long as possible.
Where I shop, if you go too fast it confuses the machine and calls an attendant over to clear it while a video of what I was doing plays. Which is bs.
Unless you get booze, need to use cash, or it’s an item the machine wants to weigh. Or worse, expects the weight to be different than it is.
At least most places seem to have turned off the weight thing (or it got ‘smart’ enough to not care so much).
It’s not you that goes wrong, it’s the scanner
Oh here’s one now.
Eh, I love them. If there’s a line, I’ll go for the human, but if a self-checkout is available and I don’t have a ton of produce, I’ll take it every time.
To be honest, the self checkouts are almost always time savers for me, but it really depends on the store and set-up.
The poorly designed machines that make you touch the screen before you can even start, scan each item one by one, place each individual item in the bagging area and leave it on the scale until the very end, use “AI” to make sure you’re not stealing, and then force you to select your payment option on the touchscreen rather than just automatically detect when you’ve swiped/tapped? Yes, those are an abomination.
However, there are a few stores in my area (surprisingly Walmart is one of them) where they’ve mostly got a decent implementation. You can walk up and just start scanning. You don’t even have to place items in the bagging area/scale, you can literally scan everything in the cart with that hand scanner if you want. There’s probably loss prevention / AI watching you do your thing, but I don’t know. I’ve never been stopped by it or noticed anybody else getting stopped. If I tap my card at any point, it automatically understands I’m paying now and just wraps the order up. Plus, these places usually have a sufficient number of the machines with an open corral style set-up, so that one or two people who’ve never seen a self-checkout machine in their entire life are only tying up one or two machines and the rest can move pretty quickly.
Not having to put the items on the scale is a huge step up.
Oh man! I’m a city bus driver, and the amount of people that struggle with getting fare in the box is too damn high! I don’t understand how you could make a bus full of people wait for you to dig through your pockets at a pace that would make glaciers impatient. You’re standing at the bus stop, you know you’re getting on the bus, know you’ll need fare, yet here we are.
I want to get a documentary crew to follow some of these people around for a while just to see what they do with their days. I genuinely wonder how some people function.
Does your area still use cash for bus fares? In 2025? Where I am it feels like we’re behind because only this year did they start letting you tap on with your debit card or phone. We’ve had transit cards since like 2007.
We’ve got transit cards, but some people still insist on cash. To be fair the same people that struggle finding coins are the same people who struggle finding a fare card. Or will try to sit in the entryway of the bus, fire up the app, and buy a ticket, then activate said ticket, then struggle to scan said ticket.
if the bus doesn’t take cash how in the world would tourists be able to use it?
I got an Octopus card when I went to Hong Kong. I got an Oyster card in London. I got an Opal card in Sydney. It’s really not hard to get the appropriate public transport card for the place that you’re at.
Plus, as I mentioned, many places are now moving towards being able to just use your normal debit card, phone, or smartwatch to tap on and off.
Yup, I rode the bus a lot for a few years, and the first time I went, I checked what the fare was and made sure I was ready, and even on the 100th time, I still kept my fare in hand before getting on. I honestly don’t understand why you wouldn’t, surely you want to get where you’re going instead of digging through your pockets in front of the driver…
some people just living life on hard mode.
here buses haven’t taken cash for like 15 years. card or pre-bought tickets only.
Must be nice. We’ve got cards, but a sizable population still uses cash
I was stoked when they introduced fare cards in my area because:
- discount on fare
- easier than cash
- they supported credit card tap at the same time
- easy to reload and freeze online
I bought three, one for me, my SO, and my oldest kid (wasn’t free anymore), and if I misplaced one, I’d just freeze it and move the balance to a different one until it turned up. I’d lend one to family so they could take transit to the airport after visiting us and then return it when they came back (I’d be fine if they lost it).
Fare cards rock, I honestly don’t understand why they weren’t very popular.
They since removed the discount, so the value of the pass is a bit less, but we still use it occasionally since it’s less bad to lose the card than a credit card.
Have you seen the couple that both get out of the car at the gas station and have to collaborate way too much to work the pumps?
How do these people function in society? The machine is extremely simple to use. Insert card, type code, remove card, pick gas type.
Tourists from New Jersey or Oregon.
Yeah, I only do that when my kid wants to “help,” and that usually means messing with the squeegee/sponge thing.
There are an unusual number of people in this world who gawk at the self-checkout as if they found themselves at the controls of an alien spaceship.
Lately I’ve seen people get stuck at the pament step. The screen is begging them to pick a payment option and they just stare at it, clueless, until a staff member comes over.
Which is weird, surely people have used online checkout where they ask for various payment options, no?
