I was checking out some groceries today, and the person next to me was clearly doing something the machine didn't like.
"Please scan the item before putting it in the bagging area".
Over and over again. I started thinking about what an entirely bogus thing "self-checkout" is. It seems to have exactly zero benefits to the consumer. No bagger, no help if you're missing a price sticker, not even ample room to put your groceries while you scan. You're left with exactly one square foot of space to do this job.
Is it making groceries cheaper? After all now they don't have to staff as many cashiers now. Nope! Groceries are higher than they've ever been! All that delicious margin gets sent straight to our benefactors at the Kroger corporation. Where would we be without them!
Not to mention the thing is calling you a thief every five seconds. The ones by me even film you and if they feel you're swiping something, it will show a slow motion video of you in the act and it tells you to correct your mistake.
So it's work that I have to do. That nobody is getting paid for. And that is taking videos of your face and your behaviors. And it's constantly announcing that you're a bread thief to everyone in the store.
And for what? To increase unemployment of course! It's one of those things I can't believe collective society has taken sitting down. It's one of the most egregious examples of pure corporate greed at the expense of the consumer experience, all the while cutting swaths of entry level jobs.
Nah, I’ve done that many times. You memorize a few phrases first just in case: “thank you,” “I don’t speak Slovak,” “do you accept card,” and you watch the cash register display to see how much it is, hold your card up to indicate your payment method, then you’re done.
You can even pay attention first and probably figure out if the cashier is asking people about a loyalty card ahead of time by seeing if they ask something in a bored tone of voice that most people say no to before the payment method determination, if you’re interested.
It’s a little uncomfortable to be surrounded by a language you don’t understand at first, but you get used to it pretty quickly. Obviously things like social anxiety can affect how you feel about it, but they also affect how you feel about those interactions in any language