MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
I love them. I live for the thrill of a clean sweep where i get it all in the bag i brought with me without being accused of stealing!
downunder in a classic bit of newspeak Coles supermarket call them "assisted checkouts"
...and in the small things that perplex you section...big signs that say "card only" and then you swipe the first item and there is a pop up you have to hit to acknowledge you know it a card payment only machine....then you get to the end hit payment and you have to choose how to pay....must have blown the coding budget on the pop up...
and why doesn't the item master know rice crackers weigh sweet FA ?
Love them. Favourite moment ever was when a mother and toddler were using the one next to me in our local Sainos and the little cherub reached out to have a look at what I had scanned. The mother calls out “ Now then Emmy, keep your hands out of that gentleman’s bagging area!”
Nothing better than watching a pensioner having a fight with one of these, scolding the machine every time it makes a sound!
The thing that really winds me up is the use your own bag facility. You get to the till, the screen says "If you want to use your own bag, place it in the bagging area and press Start". So you follow the instructions, and the next message is "Remove last item from bagging area". I've given up, put my bag on the floor and pack it when I've finished. Which does somewhat slow down the whole process.
I love the Tesco Express below my works HO. So loud until the very last bit when the machine lady lovingly whispers “Would you like a receipt”
People who take trolleys into the ones that are clearly set up for baskets only then take longer than they would at a normal till be cause they can't work it.
These people are first against the wall come the revolution.
They’ve recently fully refurbished our local Morrison’s and installed gleaming banks of the latest self-service checkouts
In these strange times in which we live there are very few certainties, but one of them is that at any one time at least 50% of them will be displaying the big red OUT OF ORDER Screen
They are not all created equal.
When using the ones in my local Waitrose, you do not need to put your recently scanned items in the bagging area. You can place the items straight in to a bag that you/somebody with you is holding or a bag on the floor. This means that you never get the "unexpected item" message and makes the whole process easier.
The machines in the local Sainsbury's and Tesco however feel very accusatory and untrusting of my bagging honesty.
Waitrose FTW by a mile - very fast.
Surprisingly our local Co-Op comes second... When they first installed them they were rubbish and crashed (I actually saw a version of Windows underneath it), but now they're pretty quick.
Sainsbury's seem to have the Gestapo of the self checkout tills.... Questions everything 😠
They're generally very good in my experience but one of the best self service things to pop up near me recently is a self service petrol station. Brilliant. Was a pretty minor petrol station before so crappy shop but now the shop is closed and replaced by a row of vending machines and the petrol is totally self service at the pump.
The thing that really winds me up is the use your own bag facility. You get to the till, the screen says “If you want to use your own bag, place it in the bagging area and press Start”. So you follow the instructions, and the next message is “Remove last item from bagging area”. I’ve given up, put my bag on the floor and pack it when I’ve finished. Which does somewhat slow down the whole process.
This does seem to have got better. I used to carefully build a Jenga tower of goods then pack them into my bag but now it seems I can put the rucksack on the scales, press the button and pack away straight into the bag. Just need to be careful that it doesn't lean over too much so the weight stays on the scales.
Asda:
Machine: "How do you want to pay?"
Me: Pokes the contactless card button
Machine: "Please fully insert your card into the reader"
Drives me nuts.
Tesco's always failed when buying a carrier bag as well as the scales couldn't register the weight and you had to wait for staff to sort it. I think they've fixed that now.
B&Q's are insanely impatient, prodding you to continue every 1.5 seconds.
I like these things in general but they seem to assume everyone is thick. Not in a helpful way either as it's often misleading/confusing (or perhaps I'm just thick!)
Waiting for someone someone to finish who is stuck and doesn't know what to do, oblivious to the message RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN and being bleated at them at top volume is also *breathe* ... somewhat frustrating.
I asked where the staff discount button was. Not found funny.
The self service at herriot Watt university shop don't weigh just scan the next item. This would be fine but the scanner is bloody good so if you scan upwards you're quite likely to scan it again on the downwards sweep to the bag shelf.
Nothing better than watching a pensioner having a fight with one of these, scolding the machine every time it makes a sound!
You're standing too close to me in the queue. 2 metres please.
These people are first against the wall come the revolution.
No the first people against the wall will be those who inflict these dreadful devices on us. Bah and humbug.
When they were first installed in our local supermarket an assistant came over to me and asked " are you having trouble sir" "yes" I said "where's the sod off button"