That’s my usual strategy. I agree!
The only thing worse than being behind someone trying to pay with Italian money orders is a cashier considering accepting them.
I’ve mentioned this here before, but as a former cashier/self-check out “monitor”, those poor “watchers” get shit on by corporate if they, for example, go to help out some poor little old lady on register 5 and some a-holes on register 3 take off with a ton of steaks and beer. Cashier gets a write up. And maybe fired. It sucks.
I tell ya, though, I almost never go into that place just on principle (we have options here), but the first time I was compelled to, I watched the cashier pick up two different items of the same type, look at them carefully and run the one that cost twice as much over the scanner twice. I mean, I know I am not going to try to cheat myself.
The newer self-checkout machines are much better. The first generation that started appearing in my local CVS about a decade ago were a nightmare to use. The store had stopped providing plastic bags, but the bagging area was too small to set down more than a couple of items, the machine would freak out if I tried to use my own bag, and certain lighter products didn’t register when I put them in the bagging area after scanning, which caused the whole system to melt down. But the newer machines I started seeing maybe five years ago work very well. Even looking up produce doesn’t take too long anymore. The only real issue is with buying alcohol or other items that require ID.
Incidentally, the grocery stores around here other than Trader Joe’s seem to have long since done away with baggers. I always feel a bit rushed when using a staffed checkout lane, as I’m trying to bag my groceries while juggling my ID and credit card and decline 3 separate requests on the keypad to round up for cancer, sign up for a club card, and take a survey, and then I still have a mess of stuff to pack up while the cashier is already scanning the next person’s items. I feel a little more like I can take my time at the self-checkout, because there’s just one line that feeds all registers so no one person is waiting for me specifically to get out of the way.
Our store does not set staffing levels. That is set by Corporate Headquarters, which allots manhours to each department for each week.
Cashiers are rated by the number and speed of transactions they complete. Your action shows up to the corporate overlords as fewer transactions going through staffed lanes and thus less need for human cashiers, not more.
Also, we’ll probably have to toss out some of your cart due to rules about perishables, representing a loss to the the store.
This will, of course, vary by corporation but the bigger the chain the more likely less use of the cashiers will mean fewer cashiers. The fact you’re peeved and walked off will never reach the actual decision makers via your method.
Now, if you contact corporate headquarters and inform them of your displeasure that might work… if enough people also complain. Just one complaint will do bupkis. If everyone who rejects this notion because “nothing will change” or “they won’t listen” actually did contact corporate then their complaint actually would be noticed and it might be acted on. If you don’t try it certainly won’t be acted on.
I’ve used self-checkout whenever possible since they first appeared. So many pros:
I’m much faster than most cashiers.
I find it painful to watch inefficient cashiers (without offering suggestions on how to be faster).
I can pack it the way I want, so the milk is bagged upright, freezer items are bagged together, and I never put heavy produce on top of the bread.
I don’t develop a twitch while the cashier chats with a coworker while ignoring me & taking forever to ring up my stuff.
I don’t have to listen to the cashier tell me their political views (yes, that has happened more than once, though my very hostile response may have broken them of that habit)
Cons:
Most stores don’t have enough space to check out a cartload of groceries so bags have to be juggled
Now that most people are using self-checkout, I sometimes have to wait in line watching other customers check out in slow motion
I once entered only the first two digits of my bananas before changing my mind & checking out something else, without hitting ‘Cancel’. Turns out ‘40’ is a code in use for something that costs $45, which I didn’t notice til I got home.
It’s a process that’s made a lot of advances in the past few years, with, hopefully, more to come. But anything that promotes less human interaction is something I’m going to support.
Actually, I hear that more often from “Greatest Generation” types, although you get the occasional boomer.
Here in the UK, self checkout is more common than not and most people (like me) very much prefer it.
People used to grumble about “unexpected item in the bagging area” but I think a couple of things have changed:
- The software / hardware seems more reliable now. They used to have the object detection ability of ED-209…
- Supermarkets staff them correctly now / staff are well trained. There is usually a store employee hovering around playing whack-a-mole. A couple of seconds after any error occurs, they are already there, over your shoulder keying in a pin. (not everywhere always, but enough of the time that self-checkout is usually very fast).
As I understand it, “boomer” now means “an older person who disagrees with a younger person”.
It no longer means a person born 1946-64.
This is not a fact that one can dispute. Doing so is an inherently boomerish thing to do, and since being a boomer disqualifies you from having any valid knowledge or opinion, disputing the definition of “boomer” is self defeating.
Source: certain young people.
Plus, the SCO won’t judge you by the items in your cart; no side eye of sneering contempt.
I almost exclusively use self checkout at the big supermarket. Mostly shop and scan using the store app on my smart phone. When the app crashes my cart repeatedly ( I always imagine someone behind the curtain is pulling the plug on purpose) I’ll go to a cashier or a self check out line.
I suspect the self checkouts can monitor you and your purchases. There’s that mirror thingie on the POS register I think is recording the transaction.
The small family owned grocer in town recently upgraded to self checkout with brand new not secondhand equipment. I like it. I’m sure it’s been the talk of the town for weeks. Slowly I see more folks using it, at first many avoided it preferring to queue up for the cashier. I’d see them eyeing the self checkouts watching us go through quickly. Itching to get out of there but reluctant to try the new fangled machinery. Lol! They’ve kept a couple lanes for cashiers and put the other cashiers to work stocking shelves,
It’s a scam. They’re getting me to work for them for free.
I am old enough to remember going shopping for my mum with a list that I handed to the assistant in each shop - grocer, butcher, fishmonger and fruit & veg. They would select the items and put them in the bag I had to carry with me.
These days I do half of my family shop as “click and collect”. It costs me £1.50 to have someone do the boring stuff, and when it’s in the back of the car, I park and go in to choose the fresh veg, meat and fruit. I scan everything as I go round and pack it in my bag in a trolley. When I check out, all I do is scan the till, pay by CC and leave. I always pass the time of day with the two ladies who are usually supervising the area.
The idea that we are “taking away jobs” is ludicrous, since there are a great many vacancies for low-pay low-skill jobs in the leisure industry. As for abandoning your trolley in the car park to give someone a job - I dispair. Do you also throw your rubbish on the ground to keep street cleaners employed? Naturally, you pee all over the toilet so the cleaners are kept on.
If the self-checkout gave something like a 5% discount, then I would be glad to use it. I’m doing labor for the company, so I should get paid for it. If I can’t get paid for it, then I’ll use a cashier who does get paid for it.
If I can’t avoid using the self-serve, then I am not expending any effort whatsoever to ensure correctness or loss prevention or efficiency. Machine couldn’t scan or weigh the vanilla extract? Oops. Machine gets confused and halts the process? I walk away and leave all the groceries there.
I refuse to make it easier or cheaper for a store to harvest my free labor so they can eliminate someone else’s paid labor.
If the self-checkout is faster (and in my experience it nearly always is), then your discount is whatever your time is worth.
Plus whatever you’re saving by “not expending any effort to ensure correctness or loss prevention,” which is just a fancy way of saying that this is a circumstance where you think stealing is the moral option. 
If that’s not enough for you, then by all means take the extra time to wait for somebody to help you.
I don’t like self-checkout in most scenarios. Bottle of wine? Need a human to confirm your age, so you wait. Sam’s does well with it, though, having a detachable gun. But I think fellow shoppers can be incredibly slow, deliberate, passive-aggressive, whatever and I end up waiting in line.
My favorite is Aldi. Let a pro check out, I’ll bag—it’s the fastest. At a regular market I’ll watch the teen slowly bagging my stuff and I start tapping my foot impatiently.
It’s a pain, if I’m buying lots of items.
Too crowded–not enough room to bag my own purchases.
I never have this problem, as there is always room in the cart. I can’t imagine having to fit all your purchases on the same tiny counter at the same time.
I generally like it fine so long as I don’t have to wait for an open register. If there’s a line I have no idea how long the customers in front of me might take, so I’m looking for the more reliable cashier. I think this is less of an issue now that more people are more familiar with self checkouts and can get through faster.