I know this isn’t the most popular opinion, but I love self-checkout systems when they’re available and used correctly. My local supermarket closed 2 10-item-or-less lanes and put 6 self-checkouts in the same space. I probably make 2 trips/week to the store for fewer than 10 items, and being able to check myself out has been a huge time saver. There are still another 8 lanes with cashiers for larger shopping trips. If the supermarket can avoid the race to the bottom thinking of "well, we replaced 2 lanes, maybe we can also replace the other 8), it’ll be a nice compromise.
Now contrast that with my local Home Depot, which typically has 1-2 cashiers MAX at any given time. They have turned the checkout process into a tedious pain in the ass, and I’ve more or less stopped shopping there as a result.
When self-checkouts were first rolled out, my friends and I loved them.
As twenty-something introverted nerds, it helped a lot when buying “embarrassing” things like condoms.
You didn’t have to have the checkout person giving you the stink-eye because they’re ultra religious or something.
Now, twenty-some years on, they’ve been abused to the point that some places they’re all that’s ever open, Target and Walmart seem to be the biggest offenders there. When there’s a line down three different aisles because the self-checked is so backed up, it’s defeated the purpose of creating “efficiency.”
However, I’ve noticed that about a lot of business practices lately. We’ve rounded the bend and they’re still doing things that aren’t actually producing efficiency anymore. Like staffing with nothing but a skeleton crew, so anytime someone calls out sick, everything falls apart because you’re short a person. Personal opinion, but if one person missing work wrecks everything, that’s not an efficient way to schedule people.
It’s proof that these MBA business school chucklefucks are just repeating the shit they tell each other ad nauseum, because when it comes to real-world results the results are abysmal and inefficient.
No it’s probably the method that lands the most euros into the shareholders pockets, regardless of the effects in other places. Dollarstore in the US is this but then at an extreme, John Oliver did a nice piece on it.
My supermarket implemented these barcode scanner you can carry in the store so that you can scan and put your stuff in your grocery bags in your cart as you go, as well as some scales so that you can also scan those items paid by weight, which you can then scan at the self-checkout terminal. They also spot-check every 4th scanners and scan for random items in the cart to make sure you actually added them to your list as a theft-deterrent.
It’s way faster and less finicky than dealing with the scale that checks if you added the item you just scanned (and complains often that something’s wrong).
I hope this kind of system will stay, it’s really nice going to a self-checkout terminal and pay with your bags already filled.
I know this isn’t the most popular opinion, but I love self-checkout systems when they’re available and used correctly. My local supermarket closed 2 10-item-or-less lanes and put 6 self-checkouts in the same space. I probably make 2 trips/week to the store for fewer than 10 items, and being able to check myself out has been a huge time saver. There are still another 8 lanes with cashiers for larger shopping trips. If the supermarket can avoid the race to the bottom thinking of "well, we replaced 2 lanes, maybe we can also replace the other 8), it’ll be a nice compromise.
Now contrast that with my local Home Depot, which typically has 1-2 cashiers MAX at any given time. They have turned the checkout process into a tedious pain in the ass, and I’ve more or less stopped shopping there as a result.
When self-checkouts were first rolled out, my friends and I loved them.
As twenty-something introverted nerds, it helped a lot when buying “embarrassing” things like condoms.
You didn’t have to have the checkout person giving you the stink-eye because they’re ultra religious or something.
Now, twenty-some years on, they’ve been abused to the point that some places they’re all that’s ever open, Target and Walmart seem to be the biggest offenders there. When there’s a line down three different aisles because the self-checked is so backed up, it’s defeated the purpose of creating “efficiency.”
However, I’ve noticed that about a lot of business practices lately. We’ve rounded the bend and they’re still doing things that aren’t actually producing efficiency anymore. Like staffing with nothing but a skeleton crew, so anytime someone calls out sick, everything falls apart because you’re short a person. Personal opinion, but if one person missing work wrecks everything, that’s not an efficient way to schedule people.
It’s proof that these MBA business school chucklefucks are just repeating the shit they tell each other ad nauseum, because when it comes to real-world results the results are abysmal and inefficient.
No it’s probably the method that lands the most euros into the shareholders pockets, regardless of the effects in other places. Dollarstore in the US is this but then at an extreme, John Oliver did a nice piece on it.
Link to said piece
My supermarket implemented these barcode scanner you can carry in the store so that you can scan and put your stuff in your grocery bags in your cart as you go, as well as some scales so that you can also scan those items paid by weight, which you can then scan at the self-checkout terminal. They also spot-check every 4th scanners and scan for random items in the cart to make sure you actually added them to your list as a theft-deterrent.
It’s way faster and less finicky than dealing with the scale that checks if you added the item you just scanned (and complains often that something’s wrong).
I hope this kind of system will stay, it’s really nice going to a self-checkout terminal and pay with your bags already filled.