There was a problem every single time I’ve tried to do a self-checkout so I just do a normal checkout because it’s not worth it.
This is me. As a clerk. Fucking up shit constantly. And saying. One minute. I need an override.
Oops, accidentally forgot to scan an item 😏
Don’t be embarrassed, you’re keeping her in a job.
Good point. Great name I looooveee father ted!
I’m never the one that fucks up. It’s always the machine that is the problem.
Scan item, set in bag. Machine says “hey, you didn’t scan that!” the fuck I didn’t! You beeped! I see the fucking item in the list on your screen! 😬
My favorite was having multiples of an item, getting prompted to enter the quantity, and then having the machine yell at me for just placing them in the bagging area.
The fuck is the point then?
The best is when you buy fruit all vegetables and it decides that the Apple that you are buying doesn’t weigh the right amount.
One time I bought the largest potato you’ve ever seen in your life and it decided that it was too big and therefore could not possibly be a potato and must instead be some high value item I was stealing, although nonetheless scanning. But the problem is the alternative is to talk to people.
-dictated on an iPhone/iPad/Mac?
:)
Also
alternative is to
Be in the top 5% of customers the cashier had that day! (A little reframing for the next time self checkout is down, understand still not ideal)
scans one potato
Weighs as much as an entire bag of potatoes
“Thief! This guy’s over here tryna steal potatoes!”
You pay by weight, so I don’t really understand what its problem was.
I accidentally managed to rack up 36 large bottles of water. That amount wouldn’t even fit in my car.
I just calmly and smoothly switch to shop lifting at large chain stores (not local businesses) if selfcheckout starts wasting my time shrugs
If the self checkout spazzes put and needs me to get an assistant, that’s the last thing I scan at the checkout. Lady comes over, overrides the fail, I say thank you, pay for the stuff while she’s standing there, and put it back in the trolley with the stuff I didn’t scan yet. You see, I was so frazzled and confused by the disruption that I forgot I still had things to scan. Plausible deniability, I never hid anything, it was all out in the open, and the lady was just standing there. If she mentions it, then I can just resume scanning those items and pay for them too. This has not happened in several dozen grocery trips.
I just get so anxious and confused so easily!
I make it a point to steal a little something every time I’m forced to use these.
Big box hardware stores appear to have zero people to check you out anymore, so they all give me something every time I shop.
Pro tip: they won’t bother if you dont steal anything expensive. Additionally, there are cameras in the ceiling that are working with the register to see what is in the cart and determine if you have scanned everything. Buy a cardboard box (cheapest thing that works). Lay it over your cart. Put stuff under it and now the system cant see your cart to determine if you stole something. A GFCI outlet or two never seem to go noticed.
Just a warning - they might actually notice you doing it, and are waiting on you to steal a certain dollar amount (link shows thresholds for different US states) before they come after you so they can charge you with a felony.
Steal
$799 (in CA, as far as I know)[Edit: its actually $949, $950 is felony] then wait out the statute of limitations, and repeat 😎So don’t go over $500 in any state but New Jersey. Cool!
I usually bring a festive sombrero to block the cameras.
“UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!
UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!
…and it was me.” - Bill Bailey
Self checkout screws itself especially if I do everythi g to perfection
I just move on to the next machine, let them deal with clearing out your order with the machine.
It’s like having lives in a video game.
All of the self checkouts I’ve seen clear the transaction automatically if you don’t touch them for a couple of minutes. There’s a prompt asking if you want to continue, and if that times out it just resets
I actually haven’t seen one that does that yet. Although most of the stores they have near me put them in a while ago though. They typically want to retain the info for loss prevention purposes. I know the store closest to me would have to audit all of the non sale transactions at the end of the day or next morning.
Oddly enough I’ve worked as both a cashier sometimes watching over self-checkouts and also as an engineer in a company that manufactures self-checkouts (although I worked in a different department and only occasionally helped out with the checkouts). They can log that stuff no trouble. They cancel it as far as the customer sees, but that doesn’t mean anything for what it keeps behind the scenes. At least on the ones I worked with, there was the option for cashiers to retrieve the most recent state and print it out as a receipt either for the customer or to scan it to transfer to another checkout
Well they apparently have a time from inactivity to human resolution time tracker. If things look sketchy, especially multiple times they start investigating the self service employee.
But again, these machines are relatively old. I am not even sure if they have an auto reset or void feature. I have had to ask a clerk to clear out a prior order because of said system failure.
That’s fair enough. While I’ve seen a lot more of the insides of self checkouts than the average person, I definitely don’t know the ins and outs of every model out there, not even close
Yup, that’s what I do.
You can’t weigh the vegetable at the checkout.
Every other store can do that.
We don’t have a scale in the checkout. You have to walk across the store while everyone is waiting for you because the checkout can’t be canceled to weigh the vegetable and put a sticker on it. It is not guaranteed that the sticker will be recognised at checkout.
Oh you have a deposit receipt? At checkout to get it done quickly? If you’re receiving money a clerk has to come over to approve.
You want out? No, the gate won’t open unless you have a receipt. Yeah, yeah, the code reader is, well, confused.
2 weeks later
Stupid customers. Did you see how someone accidentally shattered the gate?
Well, the positive interpretation of the place you live based on this story is that the people in the place you live are extremely polite and compliant lol.
May I ask which country? We never ever have self-checkout-issues at all. It’s a bliss I waited my whole life for. Reducing unnecessary social contacts 😁
Holy shit, better question is what country do you live in? Self checkout is problematic at best in Canada
I think it really depends on the store. In the UK I have to say that they’re generally pretty terrible, but the ones in M&S (a UK supermarket) are normally fine. Tesco’s has the worst ones, they are always complaining about something and there’s never enough cashiers to fix them. Plus of course occasionally they just decide to pick on you and rescan all your items.
IKEA ones are floorless though
Germany. Sadly not soooo many shops got them, but those that do, there it works. Best part is that it feels like 90% don’t use those (and weirdly prefer to stand in line for 25m. Like a good kraut!) so we save literally hours each month.
Not who you asked but I live in Poland and our self-checkouts are pretty flawless in my opinion. Simple combination of scale, bardcode scanner and touch screen and voila. Most shops that have them, have at least four of them. Supermarkets often have 6-8 and dedicated employee to oversee them, sometimes with their own touch screen and ability to bypass age checks or weight problems from their stand without moving to you.
They only scream if you scan something age-restricted or if weight doesn’t match. The second problem was much bigger in beginning, nowadays it’s actually rare.
Edit: Oh, and we do have that scan-the-receipt to leave. Again, early on they were…less than flawless, but today they work ok. Heck, one supermarket got it installed only a year ago and damn that scanner is snappy af. Sometimes scans code before I manage to fully position it xD
Northern Germany
Oh…Ruhrpott here, we really never ever encountered any problems in any shop so far. Except when they’re being broken completely and repairs take 5 years, like the usual amount of time.
I feel called out, you even got an image of me.
Cashier: you have no idea how many ways and to what degree I’m plotting your murder.
Oh…apperently I’m too evil to be a cashier.
I wouldn’t murder. I would go about my day, without a trace of evidence that I’m even angry.
I’d just come over, help the guy, and take note of his appearance, and the current time. Then I’d head to the back after my shift, and talk to the security guy. I’d make up some reason I have to check the security tapes. But I’d do it in a way that sounds like it’s just buddys being buddies. Nothing suspicious.
Then I’d watch the tape 10 minutes after the encounter. I’d watch the parking lot. See where he goes. Find him getting into his car. Take note the make and model of the car, and the liscense plate.
Now I use public records to track him down. I find out his name, his address, his work, his life. I find out everything I can about him.
Now I hire the biggest musclehead there is. Not to beat him up, but to have an affair with his wife. Make his wife feel properly fucked and orgasm multiple times. Make it a regular thing. All without the wife realizing it’s a ploy.
His marriage ends, as his wife no longer loves him. And NOW the real plan can commence.
I’d hire a woman who looks visually similiar to his wife, but much more dominant. I’d hire her to seduce him, but also take control of their relationship. She’d have him whipped, and play off his emotional insecurity that he would lose her if he doesn’t do what she wants. And she’d get demanding, and have him whipped.
She would eventually take him to an actual dungeon. She’d get him naked, and tied up, laying on his back with his ankles being worn as earrings. And as he’d tied in that position, completely vunerable, that’s when I emerge from the shadows, revealing my master plan for revenge!
Except, it was a forgetable moment, 5 years ago. He has no idea who I am. Doesn’t matter. He’s already in position, and I’ve worked too hard to get this exact moment to where it is.
He’s totally exposed, vunerable, and can’t move.
COMMENCE THE TICKLE TORTURE!!!
as someone who works in a grocery store* off the top of my heat I cannot remember any customer (I don’t know outside of work) OTHER than a funny Irish man and someone with a confederate flag shirt.
when I’m on cart duty i DO remember bumper stickers though, I take photos of the funny ones sometimes. Also bugs/birds/cats/etc are all free reign to gawk at.
a tiny spider I saved while cleaning out one of the check out areas
fluffy cadpiller!!! 🐛🐛
I got bored and little bits of stuff fall off sometimes so I started collecting them. This isn’t an animal but it’s a nice memory 🌻
uhhhhhhhhh
???
*also technically I’m a “front end service” something, so I bag and do carts and clean sometimes, but it’s close enough to a cashier
“unexpected item in the tickle area”
And then your realize that this happens way to often and you have to manage thousands of those at a time
Relevant username if I’ve ever seen one
I imagine they’re depressed. Their job is to help out idiots every few seconds. When not doing that they’re probably pondering the validity of a doomed race.
I’ve been a cashier before, and while it is a deeply dull job honestly the people screwing things up are not the problem. You help them, they leave, you forget about them. The ones that made me hate it there are the angry ones and the management
My grocery store has closed all lanes and replaced them with self checkout. The only one left is the express/lottery ticket counter. I always go to that lane and plop down my week’s worth of groceries and ignore the limit. I’ve already told them I won’t use the machines, not only are they frustrating and I have to call the employee over half a dozen times while checking out, but I’m a union worker and I refuse to use those damn machines.
I don’t use those self checkout machines because they’re a serious liability to me. If I fuck up and miss scanning something, then I get a shoplifting charge. Best case, they realize it was a simple mistake a trespass me indefinitely for it.
Fuck you. Ring up the items for me.
I also now have a new policy. If they have more self checkout open than regular checkout, I leave my cart in the parking lot NOT in the buggy corral.
There used to be sort of an unspoken honour system that if they didn’t have to pay a kid to collect carts, prices would stay down. Now they’re reducing their labour AND bumping prices to increase profits.
Fuck you. Collect your own cart.
shoplifting charge
If you have jury trials in your jurisdiction, you might as well just “forget” to scan an item every so often.
Even if they catch you, no jury is gonna convict on what appears to be a simple mistake.
Hit on them! You never know <3
