I like checking myself out when there’s only a few items. I use the regular lane for a basketful of groceries. The cashier & grocery sacker can do it much quicker than me.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43729757/ns/business-consumer_news/
Thought it might be interesting to see how the Dopers respond to msnbc’s poll. I added a couple options.
This is the SDMB. I will be surprised if anyone votes for willing human interaction.
Disclaimer: I voted that I loved them.
I love self check out lanes. One of the local grocery store chains has them. I was sad when they closed all the stores close to me.
I use them almost exclusively at my local home improvement stores.
-D/a
I love them, unless I have a very large cartfull, at which point, I’ll use the cashier.
What I hate are the people who use the self check-out lanes when they really shouldn’t.
The person with a full cartload (i.e., at least 50 items) who decides to use the self-service lane which doesn’t have a conveyor belt (just a little shelf with the bags, clearly meant for no more than a few items). He fills a bag, then goes to put it in his cart – which triggers the machine’s weight sensor, forcing him to get the attendant to come over and punch a few buttons, “authorizing” the removal of items before he’s paid for them. Lather, rinse, repeat, again and again.
The person who’s just very slow, and would undoubtedly get through checking out faster if they’d gone to a cashier
There’s one particular grocery store in my area which suffers from having a lot of customers like the above; I avoid going to that store for that very reason.
If there’s an empty one, I’ll use it over a cashier. If they’re all taken and there’s an empty cashier’s line, I’ll use the cashier or if I have a full cart, then I don’t even bother with the self-checkout. I don’t have anything against human interaction, though. I often chat with the cashier as I’m checking out because hey, why not.
I’ve even memorized some of the item codes for produce. 4011 is bananas at Kroger. 
Comes in handy when an apple doesn’t have the sticker on it.
I like the self check out but not because I don’t like “human interaction.” I like it because it’s usually faster plus I can bag my things exactly as I want them.
“Other” for me. I hate 'em, but not because I have to “do all the work”; I kinda like bagging my own groceries. I buy a lot of stuff on clearance and I’ve yet to use a self-check-out that didn’t refuse to scan at least one of my items, resulting in a delay while I flagged down a flesh-and-blood employee so I could complete my transaction.
Even if the scanners improve I’d rather wait for a regular checker because that’s one more person in my neighborhood who’s employed, as opposed to (I strongly suspect) someone watching a computer in another time zone.
They are fine for quick purchases of a few items, but generally I think they suck.
Buying beer? You need an over-ride from the clerk anyway. Buying produce? Way too much trouble in my view.
And if I am doing the work of the clerk so the store can employ fewer of them, why am I not getting a discount when I use self check out? I don’t get anything for my trouble except maybe not waiting in line too long. And there are frequently even lines at the self check out.
I’m pretty anal about how my bags are packed, so I frequent the self-checkout to save myself the frustration of baggers who forget to use my reusable bags or filling them 1/4 full so they end up giving me umpteen extra plastic bags that I don’t want. Seriously. The other day the bagger actually put only one item in each plastic bag, so hubby rebagged them all before he walked away from the register. They are insistent on bagging for us even when we offer to bag them ourselves. I like humans but despise baggers.
Don’t like them. If you got a discount for doing the work yourself, different story. But it’s just a profit center for the stores.
I exclusively use the self-checkout lanes but my situation is rather particular. First, I do my shopping in multiple, spread-apart shopping trips which are small enough to use the combination of the hand-held baskets available for shoppers and my “wheelchair bag” strapped on the back of my chair; so the lanes are more convenient in that aspect.
More importantly, however, the self-checkout lanes allow me to bag the items myself. I bag the items to fit a particular way in my wheelchair bag and back into the little Meijer basket and this most often is not the way an employee would bag them. I know what works best for me so using these lanes helps me get it done much faster and smoother. I dread it when they’re down. 
4011 is the code for bananas everywhere The PLUs don’t change, which is handy for when you go to a different store.
Gotta say, there aren’t enough :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: for the people who come in and say “I’m not using those if I don’t get a discount!” or “I’m not using those because they’re taking away jobs!” First off, it’s just an alternative to waiting in line behind that person with three carts and four screaming kids. Don’t want to use it? Okay. Have fun waiting an extra twenty minutes. Secondly, where we used to have the four U-Scans there was just ONE register. The same cashier that used to be on that one register is now operating the four U-Scans. No loss of employment. Are you saying that you would rather wait in line behind those four people because that’s how it used to be back in the stone age?
At my job all of the incoming people are trained on the traditional cash registers and then the U-Scan. I like using U-Scans because I often don’t have much at once and it’s great since I know all the codes and order everything needs to be done in, it’s so quick! I can understand the other people who are easily frustrated when they don’t know why a customer assistant has been notified (90% of the time it’s a weight trigger of them taking off their bags or not putting an item in the bag.) I don’t even mind doing it for people. I’ll even pull people out of a long line and volunteer to do it for them so they can get out of the store quicker (most people like this :)) I’ve taught people how to use them so they aren’t so quick to shy away from the technology, too.
I do dislike people who have huge orders and then take every little bag off without telling me. It’s hard to catch that and cancel out the weight on my screen when I have three others to look at. On the flip side, it’s also annoying when people scan twenty weightless items in a row, think kool-aid packets. Those have NO weight so it’s not registered as hitting the bag, machine notifies me, and customer is confused/angry. Instead, I have to sit there and cancel each one out on my screen.
I don’t mean to rant. I just wanted to put that out there to let the U-Scan users know that it GREATLY helps to notify the cashier of too large/too small items in advance so they know what they need to do. It’ll definitely make for a smoother transaction! If you have an item that is too heavy to lift or takes up too much room on the weight bag rack, just let the cashier know and they’ll scan it for you.
love love love love love
I don’t like them because checking you out could be someone’s job, and I don’t like to encourage businesses to get rid of workers. Oddly, the grocery store that absolutely refuses to install self-checkout has significantly lower prices than the stores that use them, so savings aren’t being passed on to customers anyway.
I’ll use them if I’m paying with cash or a card and I don’t have any clearance, “reduced for quick sale” items, loose produce sold by weight, tobacco, alcohol, or a ginormous sack of something heavy, and if the line has 2 or fewer people waiting. If I’m paying by check or have any of the listed items, I go to the staffed registers.
I like the self check-out because I can scan items in the order in which I want them bagged. The cashiers always seem to ring up the last thing I put on the conveyor belt. 
I almost always bring my own tote bags and when I use the staffed registers, I usually let the baggers take care of bagging. I can’t stand when they put each item in its own plastic bag, but there are people who want it that way. I can’t get mad at the baggers, they’ve been told to do it that way.
The local major supermarket has several self-check-out registers and they work okay. The local Sprawl-Mart has them, but they’re never activated, leading me to suspect that particular store doesn’t use them anymore.
I like them because after trial and error I now know how to use them correctly. This summer I went through one with my boyfriend’s mom, who has never used them before. She is a lovely lady but she was driving me nuts because every time I scanned an item she tried to put it into a bag that she was holding herself.
I feel the same way about self checkouts as my mom’s generation of women tended to feel about pumping their own gas: I don’t like them and only use them if there are no other options or the other options suck worse.
My local Kroger, Publix and Al’s Foodland are pretty good (with one or two exceptions) about bagging my groceries in the order that I put them on the belt and using my cloth bags correctly. I generally have produce and other sold-by-weight items in my buggy, so the U-Scan takes longer, even if I’m first in line.
Just personal preference.
I use whatever’s shorter, though, overall, I prefer an actual cashier, if only because they can scan faster than I can. Really, though, I don’t care either way.
What ticks me off is when self check lines are closed, or most of them are closed, forcing me to wait in line anyway. Sigh. First world problem.
Love them. Fast and easy.