Can we talk about how self-checkout lanes assume everyone works at the same speed?

I was at the Kroger off of 12th street last night around 7 PM and the self-checkout line was wrapped halfway to the dairy section. There's this old guy two machines down trying to scan loose green beans and the machine keeps yelling at him about unexpected item in bagging area. Meanwhile I'm standing there with 12 items thinking I could've been home in 8 minutes if they just had one more cashier open. But instead we all get to watch a machine have a meltdown over produce. Why does every store act like this system saves time when it clearly just shifts the frustration to us? Has anyone else had a self-checkout machine freeze up and then you have to wait 5 minutes for a teenage employee to come reset it?

2 comments

2 Comments

morgan51226d ago

Honestly I used to be one of those people who was like "self-checkout is fine, people just complain too much" but then I had a machine glitch out on me during a rainstorm with a bag of ice melting on the floor and yeah, I get it now.

ivanjones26d ago

Do you think stores actually do this on purpose to make us less likely to complain about prices? Like if we're busy wrestling with a buggy touchscreen and yelling at a scale, we stop noticing how much a bag of chips costs. It's a pretty good distraction tactic when you think about it.