Am I the only one who gets to the self checkout and is compelled to finish as soon as humanly possible?
Imagine if there was a speedrun timer on them and a leaderboard
Would make boring everyday life a little more interesting
I love them because i am not being rushed, i can pack my groceries up in peace and properly stacked in the bag. Meanwhile at a normal checkout a bored cashier routinely scans my 30 items in less than 10 seconds, leaving me struggling to pay, and pack up my shit while a dozen people are waiting in line behind me.
I imagine if OP were your cashier, they might be thinking of it as a game to see how fast they scan stuff. Bonus points if they make you sweat.
Come ooon hurry up and tap your card this could be PB!
I’m busier thinking about the people that is being paid to make sure I do the checkouts.
Is your problem that fewer cashiers are being paid or that someone’s being paid to make sure you don’t steal anything?
It feels weird to me, like I feel pressured to do the cashier job on myself while the person that would normally do it watches.
That is what it is, but the person isn’t watching just you, they’re watching 10 at once, which means less queuing
I find I do it much faster than cashiers tend to, it’s not a lot of effort and it takes less time out of my day than if they were to have done it for me
Thats exactly what it is ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’m just annoyed that I’ve been using self checkout for thirty years, it was dead obvious how it worked the very first time I used it, but I still have to hear instructions like “place your APPLES in the bag”.
Yes. I know.
Place your item in the bagging area.
Unexpected item in the bagging area.
Place your item in the bagging area.
Unexpected item in the bagging area.
It’s loss prevention. People enter the wrong products that cost less, so it alerts the one cashier what was supposed to be weighed. Not super likely they’ll catch it watching 9 registers, but it increases the risk to the thief.
I try to be quick because I want to hurry and get out of there.
Its amazing to me how many people use them without a fucking clue what theyre doing and just hold up the line.
Fortunately there are usually loads of them
But yeah it’s kinda annoying to see someone take 20 minutes with one
There’s usually a wave when all the old people in my area all decide they want to go shopping at once, though fortunately they tend to ignore the self checkout
I’m one of the old people. I WAS a speed runner. About 40 years ago, I got a union job as a cashier. The customer put their items on the belt, the cashier scanned the items, and the bagger sorted the items and put them in paper or plastic bags. Cashiers were required to memorize the produce codes and process at MINIMUM 30 items per minute. The timer ran from the moment you unlocked your register to the moment you relocked it or opened the drawer. You would leave your register locked while the customer started putting things on the belt. You greet them and make a mental note of what sort of items are where while the belt brings the load to you. Once the belt is at least half full, you’d unlock the register and start grabbing and scanning items in a fluid motion that passed them over the scanner and on towards the bagger – sorting as best you could as you went. As soon as you were done, you’d hit ‘total’ and lock the register until the customer was ready to pay. You’d help the bagger and chat while this happened. Then the customer would hand over cash or check (they were just starting to do credit and debit in grocercy stores so those weren’t common), so you’d unlock the register, take their payment, open the register and get change. Your best speeds were always going to be for express checkout (10 items or less), but there is a cruel loop in that because managers schedule fast people for express, but you won’t be as fast unless you get scheduled there.
As I recall, we didn’t get to see our items-per-minute until the end of the day – not per-transaction, but it was still fun to see who had the best scores.
As a customer, I NEVER use self-checkout because: 1) I’m not working if you aren’t paying me, and 2) every time I’ve tried to use self-checkout, the machines could never, ever keep up with me. Sometimes the issue was the bagging area was trying to weigh things, sometimes the scanners themselves were bad/slow, and sometimes … I don’t know, the dang machines are just barely working? Anyway, it is never worth it for me. Additionally, I find it better to do my own bagging than to allow anyone else to do it.
Side note: The typical bagger can not bag as fast as a cashier can scan because they have to wait for: cans on the bottom/bread on the top, frozen in one bag/lettuce no where near frozen, detergents and chemicals by themselves/pet foods also by themselves.
Fair enough if you’ve had to do it as a job and don’t want to, personally I value my time higher than effort expended and in general self checkout is much faster than normal checkout
It depends on the machine, though for me usually I’m just trying to get it to go as fast as the machine can do
But conversely, would you be OK with having the attendant at a fuel station pumping your gas, like in Oregon and New Jersey? Or would you rather pump your own gas?
It depends on the weather and the cost. I remember when gas stations offered “full service” or “self service”. Full service cost more per gallon, but in addiction to pumping gas, they cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and wiper fluid levels, and might even put air in your tires if they were obviously low. If you wanted it done for you, you paid more. Seemed fair. These days, gas is cheaper in New Jersey than surrounding states, so you pay LESS to have someone else take care of you.
I try to be as efficient as possible. I don’t think most people even think about it.
Don’t know about how it is in the US, but in the UK the idea of people rushing to finish their transaction fills me with dread. I’ve worked in a supermarket with self service and the general public really struggles with them.
I’m in the UK, young people don’t tend to struggle with them as far as I’ve seen. Mostly late gen Xers and older that seem to struggle
That would stress me out too much. I shop for people for a living and I’m constantly timed. The bosses are obsessed with my metrics. Even if I have to stop to tell a customer or to guard a spill per company policy, all they care about is that I’m not getting 100 items per hour.
If I was being timed for my personal shopping, I’d just start screaming and never stop.
I do scan as you shop. So when I get to the checkout, answer a question about whether everything scanned OK and then pay. But today we had 70+ items in our shop and got flagged for random spot check. Some exasperated cashier, frustrated she actually had to do some work and couldn’t just sit there having excess calories around her waist weighing her down heavily breathed “I need to check 40+ of these”. So that took forever.
You seem like a nice person.
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Apparently those are being phased out now because they weren’t really automatic, just outsourced to people in india
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Nothing wrong with AI, it’s a tool that’s very good at specific problems
Tech companies just don’t know what is and isn’t a good use case yet
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True, you’d think Amazon would have the talent to do it though if they wanted to
Glitches allowed?
All the best runs are
Shopping Any% speedrun (WR)
That’s just walking out without paying (without getting caught).
