this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 150 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I love self checkout. It allows me to scan avocados for my daily avocado toast as russet potatoes. Only 50 more years of that and I'll be able to afford a house!

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I pictured the people overseeing self checkout calling you the potato guy amongst themselves

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago

We 100% know and 95% of us don't care lol.

Also, if any readers want to try this, the people most likely to care are older workers, but they're also the least likely to notice.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Going "beep" (optional) and just pocketing every other item does the trick too. At least at Aldi. They skimp on security.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I work in a secure area that requires every person entering to have and show id to security, whether you're recognized or not. They have these scanners that tell them if you're allowed or not. sometimes the scanner doesn't work, so they'll have printed sheets of paper that I'm sure is the equivalent, just takes longer.

One day I came in, gave my ID, heard a "beep", got it back and continued on. About 10 seconds later my brain caught up to the very obvious vocal "beep" that came from the security guy. I have no idea if they just decided to say fuck it that day and let all the fun people in, or if just the speaker wasn't working and they were just having some fun.

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 1 month ago (16 children)

To me, this has always been more of a boomer complaint.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The things boomers complain about aren't always wrong. I ain't their damn employee.

[–] [email protected] 106 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm also not an employee of the vending machine company. I'm also not an employee of the gas station.

I don't really see what added value a cashier checking out my items for me has.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (4 children)

There was also a time when people would get pay to press an elevator button for you. But we don't do that anymore because those things are super easy and having someone doing it for you won't make the process faster.

On the other hand, the thing that pisses me off the most about the self-checkout is that people take forever to scan their stuff. When I was working as a cashier I would have an average of 50 clients/hour. There ain't no way those self checkout are more efficient considering the time people take.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago

From what I've seen, the slower average time is made up for by having more of the stations. Depending on arrangement, you can fit three self checkouts in the same area as one traditional checkout. In my experience, the self checkout line is always moving faster overall.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They are quite a bit more efficient when you consider that there's only 1 staffed register open, but 8 self checkouts open.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)

And why is that? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the business benefits by making the customers the employees, too? Would a business be in any way incentivized to make paying customers also perform labor for them?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That's not an apples to apples comparison. I am buying a single thing at a pump: fuel. I boop my card. I stick nozzle in hole. I pull lever until it stops. Vending machines? Second verse same as the first. I boop card. I push button. I take chippies, I walk away. Vending machines specifically are purpose-built for self-service.

I spend maybe 30 seconds to 3 minutes at these things. The only work I do is tapping my payment and pressing a button or two. Groceries are a whole different animal. It's scanning, weighing, coding, bagging, loading, and paying. It's a fuckton more involvement by the customer. I don't think you can in good faith compare self-checkout to a vending machine.

The business is incentivized to trick you into performing labor for them. Part of the cost of my groceries is for someone to have a job doing that. If I'm gonna do that labor for the store, I should get an employee discount, at least.

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is such a boomer take.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Nah fuck that, the machines are scabs, I want someone to earn a paycheck for work.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 month ago (4 children)

OK Boomer.

Do you get the stuff off the shelf for yourself though, or give a list to the stock boy like when you were growing up?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

Look at these plebs pumping their own gas

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

I mean... That is effectively what Instacart and Uber are.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You can pull the self checkout option out of my rigid, dead, introverted hands.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Most times the corpos have the employees watching you like a damn criminal during self-checkout, I find talking to the cashier much less awkward

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

Look, saying “I don’t work here” to avoid using self-checkout completely misses the point. Technology has always evolved by shifting little tasks onto the user in exchange for speed and convenience. It’s not about “working for free,” it’s just self-service - like when grocery stores first let people grab stuff off shelves instead of asking a clerk behind a counter. At the time, some people probably whined about it too, but now nobody thinks twice because it’s way faster and gives you more control. Same thing with ATMs - you used to have to stand in line and talk to a bank teller just to get cash, now you punch a few buttons yourself. Are you ‘working for the bank’ when you use an ATM? No, you’re just getting your money faster without the hassle. Self-checkout is the same idea: a tiny bit of effort, way more convenience. Complaining about it like it’s some moral stand is honestly missing the bigger picture.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (5 children)

That'd be a great point if self-checkout was anywhere near as convenient as an ATM. But it's not, it's literally the same machine a cashier uses, bolted onto a card reader. There's no added convenience unless you're buying literally only one item. It's not innovation, it's outsourcing labor to the customer so the company can cut jobs and boost profits. You're doing 100% of the work they used to pay Someone for.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Except self checkout isn't faster. The professionals that check you out do this every day, they're way faster than me.

Not to mention 100% of the time I use self checkout, the machine doesn't realize I've put something in the bagging area and I need a staff member to sort out the broken machine, but because there's 1 staff member doing this for a dozen machines, they're constantly busy sorting out these broken machines so you often have to wait minutes for them to fix it.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I use the self-checkout so I don't have to talk to anyone.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (10 children)

My local grocery store self checkout after every single item:

Unexpected item in bagging area.

If they're going to treat me like I'm stealing the groceries I'm paying for, making the process slow and inefficient, then I'm just going to go to the regular checkout and not deal with it.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Nobody at the self checkout is holding me up because they are having a chat with the cashier. No one in the self checkout is holding me up because they want to talk about every item I purchased like it's some rare lost artifact. No one in self checkout is causing me to be "in the slow line" because one line feeds to multiple kiosks. No self checkout ever struck up an unwanted conversation with me, or caused me to roll my eyes in irritation with their inability to figure out how to pay wirh some obscure format, or wait for 10 mins for some stupid price check or price compare with a website or another store or whatever.

I get my shit, and I leave unbothered. I'm not working for the company any more than I am by picking my own food off the shelf. I am, however, unburdening myself of other people. I actively avoid places with no self checkout.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

If I look at this topic the American skewedness is so obvious.

In Belgium the only thing you get by going the old fashioned way is they scan your shit and push it off at the end or you need to rush to put it in your cart. Same in The Netherlands. There are no baggers.

So yeah, let me just scan my items, put them in my bags like I want them, scan the thing at the self checkout, put scanner in tray, pay, walk out.

Every so often you get a bag check and if less people cheated on their scanning there would be less of that (is what they hope you think)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (11 children)

I don't know how the self-checkout is constructed in Belgium, but in the US (at least, the stores I go to), the self-checkout is a small kiosk with a small weight-sensitive platform where you bag your groceries. You're supposed to scan each item and then place it in the bag so the scale can register it, and then scan and bag the next item, and so on. The problems are that:

  1. The technology is buggy and doesn't always recognize that you've bagged an item, so it locks up and won't let you scan your next item until an attendant comes to assist.
  2. Certain items like cooking wine or cough syrup or matches require proof that you're old enough to purchase it (again, an attendant has to get involved)
  3. If god forbid you take a second to rearrange items in one of your bags to make more room for your next item, the stupid machine nags you and then - yep you guessed it - locks up until an attendant comes.
  4. The machine-monitored security camera sometimes misinterprets what it sees you doing. For example, one time I was done scanning my items and realized I was still holding onto my shopping list, so I tucked it into my pocketbook as I was getting my credit card out. The camera must've thought I was stealing something, so it locked up until an attendant came to review the video footage.
  5. The bagging platform is too small for a full week's worth of groceries, so it's really only useful if you're picking up a handful of items, meaning you still need to go through an attended line if you're doing your weekly shop.

Honestly I prefer bagging my own groceries, and if the problems with self-checkout were fixed, I'd be happy to only do self-checkout. But the way it is now, it's annoying to use.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Your self checkouts oversee bagging and lock up constantly? No wonder you hate it.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago

Cashier line: Empty

Me: "I don't come here to talk to people"

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The self-checkout at Aldi is a godsend. Way too many times I've been on my lunch break trying to buy a sandwich and snack, only for some old git to be using the time at the till to have a chinwag with the cashier!

By all means, have a chat with the cashier, but not when there's a massive queue of people waiting behind you! Also, you know those shelves near the window with the sign saying "Pack here"? That's not a suggestion. Pack your shopping away from the tills so people can keep buying stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (17 children)

Self-check out makes it easier to steal from the mega corporation. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (7 children)

If you don't trust me to the point where you're going to point 2 security cameras at me while I checkout, and this is your idea of "more efficient", then I can grocery shop somewhere else.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not only do I not work here, I wish to spend as little time here as possible.

So I’ll hand the scanning and bagging task to someone who has been doing it every day for years and can get that done quickly, in the lane where they provide enough table space to actually work, two people to do the two jobs of scanning and bagging… and all that without the extra steps of weighing every individual item, stopping for assistance if you look at it funny, and stopping to upsell you on the fucking loyalty program.

Grocery pickup > normal checkout > self checkout.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

They aren't nearly as motivated to go as fast as I am, and they can only bag one person at a time and have lines, while usually there are 4-6 machines wide open for me to jump onto immediately.

I fucking hate going to the grocery store though.

EDIT: also lonely old people will stop and chit chat sometimes slowing shit even more.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (5 children)

My grocery store recently got rid of their self checkout machines, and I'm actually upset by it. It went from having 6 self checkout lines plus the cashiers to only the cashiers, and now it takes like three times longer to buy my shit.

Also I'm team self check out because I dont want to talk to people

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Honestly with my social anxiety, self checkout works perfectly for me. I feel a hard to describe tension when being rung up by most folks that I don't feel when ringing myself up, and if I'm just popping in for a few things I'd rather not stress myself out more than I need to.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

"I don't work here, and I refuse to be a class traitor." Fuck corporate greed that kills jobs for more profit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

At my usual supermarket, you can take a scanner thingy and scan your items as you put them in your cart. Once you're at the lane, you put back the scanner in place, pay for your stuff, and it's done.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Self checkout (at least in my experience) is now just become "regular checkout" with extra steps.

Each time I scan an item it refuses to scan, so I need to wait for an associate to approach me.

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