This has been Target and Walmart for the last 30 or 40 years. They build them with 30 lanes with the idea of Xmas rush but then only have one or two lanes open no matter how many customers are waiting.

This was a problem long before self checkout or higher minimum wages or any of that.

or check out yourself

Thanks CEO's megayacht. I'll always pick self checkout over forced human interaction.

I keep hearing this argument, but having to put all my stuff up for scanning fucking sucks. In my ideal world stuff gets scanned when I put it into my cart and at the end I simply pay. Everything else is dogshit. Sadly, there are too few supermarkets that offer this.

yes, but some of us got social anxiety and would much rather not have to interact with people when shopping.

the walmart here must be experiencing a high rate self-checkout 'discounts'. they've added more 'watchers' who are actually watching everything. enough extra bodies now that they could just staff the regular registers, and with less waiting in line for the customer.

Do you feel the same way about getting the stuff off the shelves yourself?

I've stopped using the self-check out all together. My grocery store has clearly been trying to do more with less. So I want the bean counter to see people using normal check outs so they're more inclined to hire more people. It's sold to customers as "a convenience" when really it's just having 1 person watch 4-12 self-checkouts instead of hiring more people and having 3 or 4 lanes open.

Also, self check outs are prone to failure, and if multiple fail at a time there's usually a single person having to manage all of them.

My personal belief, if you can't carry the items in your hands, then you have too much stuff. I find it very inconsiderate people who roll up with full carts. I don't care you're reason, but especially if you're like "I have social anxiety", buddy everyone is glaring at you. You couldn't have more eyes on you and more people pissed off at you. And then if there's any error, even more people are looking at you and you're still going to have to deal with someone.

A well trained person will get you through the check-out much faster. I've also had cashier's double check items to ensure they're good (like eggs), or apply coupons for you, or in rare instances I've had something fail to scan so they do an over-ride and set whatever it was to $1 because they just don't care.

"Obviously it's the checkout supervisor's fault, they're too expensive. Minimum wage for 8 hours with 4 hours unpaid overtime?! How do you expect a corporation to lose that much money to their employees and still fulfill their responsibilities of producing record revenue for their shareholders. Obviously the answer is to let go of the checkout supervisor's at our stores and contract out one checkout supervisor to five stores and have them rotate between them in their own vehicle. It's not like they really do anything anyway, they're just their to make the consumer feel better."

Said a CEO to his board.

they could use them all. but they allow self checkout to have a line. it’s ok though, the self checkout discounts usually help offset.

that's true now but that isn't how it used to be before the self checkouts came. It was not unusual to enter a grocery or big box or general goods store and see every single checkout lane staffed by humans during daylight hours. You could almost always go right to a waiting checker or get in the shortest line and be next in line. The grocery stores operated like this for many decades!

I always go to the cashier.

I hate self checkout.

The payment flow is always way too confusing, I hate scanning and bagging…

Please keep the cashiers.

My supermarket is the opposite. The registers have a few people with like 2 items, and old grampa with 4 weeks worth of groceries is learning how to use the self checkout, and talking back to it when it says there's an unexpected item on the scale.

When the picking, processing, packing, transportation, and shelving of products is all automated I'll be a withered old man and will be damned if I don't steal everything not bolted down.

Does your local grocery not have the AI cameras set to over-react mode where it flags things that get scanned and put into the bagging area too quickly? Or when you scan a heavy item and put it under the cart since it would never fit in a bag anyway?

If not, it's something you can look forward to soon!