I always see self-checkout as outsourcing the cashier’s job to a slow untrained amateur (the client) whilst doing away with paying for that work.
You need to be a sucker to choose to do work for the profiting of others without getting anything at all in return for it (at best, what you get is less slow checkout that the manned tills which they purposefully made worse than before in order to push you into self-checkout, which is not in fact better than what you had before, so not really a “benefit”).
Even in the most purely amoral “greed is good” judgement, it doesn’t make sense to do the work without at least getting a discount.
It’s absolutelly possible to just go through the thing as if the cashier was an automaton, in which case it’s still faster than self-checkout.
Personally I like the challenge of getting a laugh out of a tired cashier (especially if it’s a pretty woman), but nobody forces you to engage that person beyond a purelly utilitarian acting your side of the process you’re part of whilst the cashier acts theirs as if you were both machines.
It’s a weird problem to have not to be able to stand facing another human who doesn’t really care about you enough (or has the time) to engage in small tall, whilst being fine with standing facing a machine with particularly unappealing software which cares not at all for you and won’t engage in small talk ever, but I suppose if using the machine solves your discomfort with machine-like human-action then it’s a valid reason.
I’m gonna be honest, I fucking hate standard checkout. They are slow, there’s always a line and usually only 1 in 4 checkouts is open, at least that’s like it where I live. I know in the US there are like a thousand people working at checkouts and people use the cashiers as therapists or whatever, but that’s not it where I live. Usually self checkouts occupy 1/4 of the space, or even less, than a normal checkout, are faster and are always open.
Even better, where I live they’ve started implementing mobile scanners that you pick up when you enter the store, scan stuff as you go, and then checkout in literally 10 seconds. Just walk up to the self checkout machine, scan the special barcode and pay. There may be random checks where you need to go through a standard checkout and confirm the self scan. I believe they use an algorithm where, if your scans are usually correct, you get less and less random checks, until it’s basically none (or the opposite).
In the main supermarket where I live there are, iirc, 44-46 checkouts in total. 14 are standard checkouts, usually 6 or so open, then there are like 12 or so self checkouts and like 18 self scan checkouts. The standard checkouts occupy more than twice the space as all the others while doing a fraction of the throughput.
BTW, I believe the discount is the time I don’t have to wait in line. If you also want to sneak out something though, you do you, couldn’t care less, it’s not like you are stealing from the poor.
I always see self-checkout as outsourcing the cashier’s job to a slow untrained amateur (the client) whilst doing away with paying for that work.
You need to be a sucker to choose to do work for the profiting of others without getting anything at all in return for it (at best, what you get is less slow checkout that the manned tills which they purposefully made worse than before in order to push you into self-checkout, which is not in fact better than what you had before, so not really a “benefit”).
Even in the most purely amoral “greed is good” judgement, it doesn’t make sense to do the work without at least getting a discount.
I get absolute no social interaction from some bitch faced employee who doesn’t even put stuff in my bag so I might as well do it myself.
It’s absolutelly possible to just go through the thing as if the cashier was an automaton, in which case it’s still faster than self-checkout.
Personally I like the challenge of getting a laugh out of a tired cashier (especially if it’s a pretty woman), but nobody forces you to engage that person beyond a purelly utilitarian acting your side of the process you’re part of whilst the cashier acts theirs as if you were both machines.
It’s a weird problem to have not to be able to stand facing another human who doesn’t really care about you enough (or has the time) to engage in small tall, whilst being fine with standing facing a machine with particularly unappealing software which cares not at all for you and won’t engage in small talk ever, but I suppose if using the machine solves your discomfort with machine-like human-action then it’s a valid reason.
I’m gonna be honest, I fucking hate standard checkout. They are slow, there’s always a line and usually only 1 in 4 checkouts is open, at least that’s like it where I live. I know in the US there are like a thousand people working at checkouts and people use the cashiers as therapists or whatever, but that’s not it where I live. Usually self checkouts occupy 1/4 of the space, or even less, than a normal checkout, are faster and are always open.
Even better, where I live they’ve started implementing mobile scanners that you pick up when you enter the store, scan stuff as you go, and then checkout in literally 10 seconds. Just walk up to the self checkout machine, scan the special barcode and pay. There may be random checks where you need to go through a standard checkout and confirm the self scan. I believe they use an algorithm where, if your scans are usually correct, you get less and less random checks, until it’s basically none (or the opposite).
In the main supermarket where I live there are, iirc, 44-46 checkouts in total. 14 are standard checkouts, usually 6 or so open, then there are like 12 or so self checkouts and like 18 self scan checkouts. The standard checkouts occupy more than twice the space as all the others while doing a fraction of the throughput.
BTW, I believe the discount is the time I don’t have to wait in line. If you also want to sneak out something though, you do you, couldn’t care less, it’s not like you are stealing from the poor.