# Self Check-out: yea or nay? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105 "2009-10-17T01:05:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/41 "2009-10-17T14:42:25Z")
What intervention do trash bags and ice need? Self check out is fine if I have a few things that are easily scannable. That said, I hardly ever use it, because I’m usually getting more than a few things, and in the event that I AM getting just a few things, those things usually include produce, which isn’t scannable, or alcohol, which requires a human interaction. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/42 "2009-10-17T14:44:10Z")
Yea. I use them all the time, to the point where I almost exclusively use them whenever I shop for groceries. I’ve had the occasional error here and there, but these days it’s a smooth ride about 95% of the time. Easy and fast. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/43 "2009-10-17T15:41:49Z")
Fortunately, America does not seem to be exporting this to the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![UncleNito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7cd45c/32.png) [@UncleNito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleNito)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/44 "2009-10-17T16:41:15Z")
Love them. Always have. I use the “express” ones anytime I’m carrying a basket. I’ll admit to not paying attention to the item-count limit, but I’m very fast. My only gripe is that the no-limit machines at one of the stores I shop at are SLOOOOOOOW. I think the problem is that there are two belts, the first of which weighs the item, and the machine won’t let you scan the next item until the previous one is onto the second belt. I much prefer the setup where there is no belt, just a six-bag carousel next to the machine. It’s a little tedious when I’m buying booze, but I’m old enough now that the attendant will override the ID check without coming over about half the time. For some reason, none of the Walmarts I’ve shopped at have them. That’s my biggest complaint about Walmart as a grocery store, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/45 "2009-10-17T16:47:42Z")
Neutral. I like it if it means that I get finished faster, but I’d rather have a cashier do the work. (I presently work at a grocery store. I often buy food on break to eat immediately. The self check-out is a heck of a lot further from the break room, but almost never has a line when I’m on break. So this amplifies the I’d rather have a cashier, but the self check-out is ok.) ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/46 "2009-10-17T17:06:47Z")
I usually avoid them. I will usually only use them if I’m there in the early morning and there is only one cashier. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/47 "2009-10-17T17:26:50Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > What intervention do trash bags and ice need? They’re the two things I’m likely to buy that are kept under lock and key. (Other examples are cigarettes and baby formula.) Our town doesn’t bill you for trash service; we have to buy special bags for that, and those are kept at the manager’s stand. Ditto for ice; it’s in a locked freezer and the manager has to see your receipt before she’ll unlock it. If I go through the self-checkout, the one cashier has to get the manager to get me that stuff. If I go through a regular lane, the cashier can send the bagger. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/48 "2009-10-17T17:52:27Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I don’t MIND doing all the work; it gets me out the door faster (in terms of speed, line length, and not having to go through awkward patter). > > Plus, I don’t see them as a threat to cashiers, not as long as people buy a month’s worth of groceries at a time or bring their very young kids along. I’m mostly with **Martini Enfield** on this. It destroys a non-brutal entry level work category, at a very bad time for such things to be eliminated. Right now it might be faster because many people aren’t accustomed to using self-checkout. Obviously the stores will keep pushing self-checkout and eventually it might be no faster at all. (I can’t accurately guess how the process will scale up.) And while there may be cashiers for a long time --to handle the fogies, Luddites, and overwhelmed-- I can easily see the cashier workforce reduced by 70%. Should people be required to support “buggy whip” jobs? Nope, but I’m going to generally be boycotting the self-checkouts for a few more years as a personal choice. OTOH… if grocers implement a “scan as you shop” system, I might not be able to resist. :^) I like to know how much I’m spending. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/49 "2009-10-17T18:39:10Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > I only use it for short shopping trips. I really don’t like bagging at all, and **you can’t write a check at self checkout, which means you can’t get cash back**. In general, you can get cash out of the self-checkout machines by using a bank-issued debit card. This might vary state to state, among different grocery chains, and among checkout machine models. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/50 "2009-10-17T18:50:06Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > … in the event that I AM getting just a few things, those things usually include **produce, which isn’t scannable** , or alcohol, which requires a human interaction. This stuff must really vary a lot, because around here you can punch in produce pretty readily at self-checkout (but, yeah, they can’t be scanned). ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/51 "2009-10-17T19:02:00Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > In general, you can get cash out of the self-checkout machines by using a bank-issued debit card. This might vary state to state, among different grocery chains, and among checkout machine models. True. F&E does not offer a cashback option, but the other places do. ---
**Author:** ![Haunted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@Haunted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haunted)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/52 "2009-10-17T19:16:34Z")
I HATE self check out. I won’t use it unless I have to and if the store is trying to make me use this torture device by not having any other registers open, I always let the manager know that I don’t appreciate it. Usually, when I go to the grocery store, I’m getting a lot of produce, so I can’t just scan and PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG. Every time I go shopping, I try to use my own shopping bags so as to minimize waste, but self check-out wants me to use its bags. Because it doesn’t give a shit about the environment. It’s a machine. Half the stuff I want to scan won’t scan. It’s a machine. It won’t give an inch. The machine is always telling me to wait for an attendant because… how the hell do I know? It’s a machine. It’s not going to answer my questions. Fucker. And, yes, if that fucking machine tells me to PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG one more time, I’ll pull its plug. I swear. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/53 "2009-10-17T19:19:33Z")
Makes me miss the old liquor counters. I don’t know if this was all over the U.S. or just California, but the liquor sections of the large chain grocery markets used to have their own checkout counters, just like a regular liquor store. You could take a reasonably small number of items there, and get out of the store quickly. You didn’t have to buy alcohol, either. IIRC they disappeared in the early 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/54 "2009-10-17T19:23:19Z")
And now I have to chime in with a very UNdesirable alternative to full-service: “scan and bag as you go”. You pick up a handheld scanner. You go through the store and as you pick your items, you scan them and put them in a bag immediately. By the time you’re done, you’ve got everything bagged and you just go to the checkout, scan a barcode there, and pay. Sounds pretty good, in concept. Except you’re trying to wrestle stuff in bags on the fly. The scanner doesn’t always work on the first or forty-first try. Some things simply won’t scan at all (we have brown eggs instead of the white ones I started with because apparently white ones don’t work with the system, fortunately I know brown and white are identical and will work in the recipes). And when you get to the checkout, the instructions they have for using the system… don’t work. All in all, it took roughly 4 times as long as a normal shopping trip would have, including waiting in line. But as advertised, no loading stuff onto a belt for the cashier. We’re no technophobes but I don’t see this being the greatest idea. I’ll try it a couple more times but I don’t see it becoming my preferred way to shop! ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/55 "2009-10-17T19:36:43Z")
> [@Haunted](#): > > … > Usually, when I go to the grocery store, I’m getting a lot of produce, so I can’t just scan and PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG. > > Every time I go shopping, I try to use my own shopping bags so as to minimize waste, but self check-out wants me to use its bags. Because it doesn’t give a shit about the environment. It’s a machine. > … Oh, produce - that SUCKS when doing self scan. The one at the grocery store we mostly use requires you to look up the thing on a picture menu. Easy enough, but it takes a lot more time. The bag thing varies by store. Our regular one senses when you put the item on a belt to go to the far end of the counter (the bagging area). So, you could use your own bags there, quite easily. Another store (different chain) has the bags there that you have to put the stuff in right away, and the system will complain if you don’t do it. I guess that’s the system in use at your shop. I did, finally, today, figure out how to get the 5 cents a bag credit for bringing my own bags. You go to the **produce lookup** menu. And you push a button. And you wait 10 seconds for it to cha-ching. Then you repeat for each individual bag. I was very apologetic to the guy behind us in line (he was also stuck while we were figuring out how to pay for our already scanned stuff). ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/56 "2009-10-17T19:53:11Z")
Love them, use them exclusively whenever available, because it eliminates the need to put up with A) some doddering old geezer who buys sixty-five cans of cat food and only starts writing a check once everything is scanned, B) small talk with a cashier, and idiot cashiers who insist on trying to bag my groceries in a plastic bag, or in some insane manner that doesn’t work in a canvas bag or my backpack. If you want to use your own bags, just put the items in the bagging area, not in a bag. Problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/57 "2009-10-17T20:18:56Z")
I **love** the scan as you go ones. You bag and weigh the produce right in the produce section which spit out a bar code for you to scan. Takes mere seconds. Yeah, sometimes it can be awkward, but since I’ve learned to go into the store with both hands free it works well. Well, that plus they added a wire holder thingy for you to stash the scanner in when you’re not using it. What totally sold me is that you can bag to suit your own tastes, and that checking out literally takes less than a minute (scan your store card, scan your debit card, punch your pin, collect your receipt) with no unload your basket to counter, reload from counter to basket… love it. love it. love it. Of course, my biggest hassle with the cashier/bagger system at my local store was that they used Developmentally Handicapped (or whatever the current PC term should be) baggers. Which is somewhere between Nobel and self-serving for the store (the salaries of those baggers are partially subsidized.) And most of them are good enough, except that at the time of week that was best for me to shop they always had this one girl on duty. Who could NOT learn the basics. She was always doing things like putting bread in the bottom of bag and dropping other stuff on top of it. Putting squeeze bottles of cleaners in the bag on top of bags of flour and sugar. It was a rare trip when I _didn’t_ have to throw away a couple of items because of her packing job. ☹ On top of that she was very slow because she had to comment on EVERY SINGLE DAMN THING. Whether she’d eaten the thing in the past. That she prefered brand X to brand Y, so why wasn’t I buying brand Y? On and on and on, with the groceries piling up at the end of the table until the cashier would have to stop ringing and do a bunch of bagging before she’d do back to ringing. And the whole time I’m mentally screaming at her to SHUT UP and BAG DAMMIT. Because I have to get all this stuff hauled back home, unpacked, put away and get to work and there ISN’T much time to spare in my schedule… She’s still working there, I see her nearly every week, but now I no longer cringe when I see her. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/58 "2009-10-17T22:37:09Z")
I do most (ie practically all) at Aldi and Wegman’s; neither of which have self-checks or are likely to get them anytime soon. As anti-social as I can be I won’t use self-checks if I’m shopping someplace that has them. The ones with the bag stand are a pain in the ass (I use my own bags) and the conveyor belt models aren’t much better. Unless there’s someone on other end to bag as you scan you end up with a bunch of groceries piled up that you get to bag as someone else is scanning and sending their own order down. Also I used to work in a supermarket that had them and I grew to hate “attending them”. One cashier to 4 units sounds nice, but often translated 2 or 3 (or 4) different customers all complaining that you didn’t help them bag (who get’s a bagger; the elderly woman, the young man who can’t speak English, or the pregnant woman with a toddler). Check and Foodstamp customers could scan their orders on ours, but had to pay to pay at the attendant stand (cash & EFT could elect to pay the attendant too). This made it hard to keep cash in the till as people often wrote checks over their total (up to $20 or $50), but we didn’t get alot of cash coming in as cash customers usually payed at the self-check :smack:. Another design flaw was the lack of a scale at the attendant stand. If a customer didn’t weight their produce at the machine we had to either send them back through or to customer service. People didn’t like that and of course it was the fault of the attendant. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/59 "2009-10-18T00:47:16Z")
I’m fine with em. I just used one recently and actually sought it out because I (a guy) was buying women’s socks (story for another time) and wanted to avoid other people cuz I’m weird and think everyone is judging me. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105/60 "2009-10-18T01:32:10Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > As I said in my first post, far as I’m concerned, I’m being “paid” in time: not having to stand in line behind people with cartfuls of groceries, not having to engage in awkward conversation with the cashier, and sometimes scanning stuff faster than the cashier would. Whereas I disagree; I don’t lead a rushrushrushmememebusybusybusy life and being able to save a minute or two in the queue is not adequate compensation for me doing a job that people are traditionally paid for. > [@](#): > > And the point I was making in my first post is that I think the belief that grocery stores will try to go to all-automated is a fantasy, for reasons mentioned by **Chanteuse** , and the fact that there will always be people who shop with small children and/or buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries at a time. They may not go all-automated soon, but a bank of 12 self-checkout lanes is 12 cashier positions rendered obsolete. So sure, there will be _a_ manned checkout line, but eventually that’s going to get filled up pretty quickly and human nature being what it is, people will gravitate towards the self-checkout lines. Which means that Head Office can look at the figures and say “We don’t need many manned lines because people are using the self-checkout ones”, overlooking the fact people are using them _because there aren’t enough manned lines_ open. The current system works just fine and I don’t see any reason to change it, especially since all its doing is making more money for supermarkets at the expense of the community and its customers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-check-out-yea-or-nay/514105.md?page=4)