Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

That seemed to be a issue around here in past years, but it all seems better now? Some stores have wifi, albeit terrible wifi.

Boring Md I know they do that, and I would like to be flattered. Maybe I was flattered at 42 (twice 21) but it has since become tiresome.

Like, really?

Honestly I would be more okay if it were consistent. But at present there are at least four potential paths: "yeah, you're old, we're cool," "show me the front of your ID," "can you type in your date of birth?" "uh, can you take it out so I can scan the back?"

Sometimes they type in the actual date of birth, sometimes they just fake it with something that's a bit more than 21 years ago, sometimes they just want to get the year right. But then some places actually want to scan the barcode. My problem is that I never know which stores/cashiers/registers are going to require what.

Adding to this, the loyalty card, the phone number, the PIN, the '"do you want cash back," the "do you want to donate to the Abused Puppies Fund" prompt, and (in my jurisdiction) the "how many bags did you use" prompt? Oh and do you need parking validation as well?

All of it adds up. At this point I would seriously reward a business that was just called "Food for Money."

Particularly annoying when I'm trying to text my wife photos of potential replacements for when the specific thing she wanted me to pick up are out of stock and I have to walk clear to the front of the store and get as close to the doors as possible to even sent it out.

• Dislike self-checkout because I can't do all the cool things a cashier can do. Ten cans of catfood? How about I take one can and quickly swipe it ten times? No? I have to do each one individually? And hear PLACE ITEM IN BAG after each one?

• Usual complaints about alcohol purchases, but in my state, adults under 21 years of age can't sell you alcohol. When the red-vested manager finally shows up after five minutes, she usually pushes the twelve-pack across the scanner and punches in a random birthdate while the original casher stands there.

• Back in the 90s, I was once denied a pack of cigarettes because the cashier looked at my state-issued laminated driver's license and deduced that the "3" in my birthyear was actually a "9". Still steamed about that, but at least technology has taken a step forward from that.

• Don't know what the fuss is about the shoplifting. I haven't gotten one item for free at self-checkout, but Lord knows I've walked out with plenty of free twelve-packs of Coke in the bottom of the cart because both me and the cashier had forgotten about them.

self-checkout has honestly gotten much better since it started it seems to me, to the point where I prefer it unless I really have too much groceries. I've gotten really good at it. I guess the alcohol thing is a bit annoying, but I don't purchase it that often at my regular grocery store.

also both big grocery stores around here that I regularly go to have had self-checkout, then a couple of years later removed self-checkout, then putting it back in. With inflation and increased fear of shoplifting, I am wondering if they are going to take them out again.

I actually switched grocery stores because the one I liked switched to mostly self-checkout and it has one of those systems that weighs every item and gets upset at you when the weights don't check out. and it malfunctions constantly. it's really bad with produce. if I'm buying more than $50 worth of stuff it just takes forever.

I've gotten way less "put the item back in the bag" or whatever it was warnings in the last couple of years, which leads me to believe that they increased the tolerance for weights being slightly off, but I'm guessing this hasn't happened everywhere.

I understand why cashiers will card anyone and everyone buying alcohol, because I'm pretty sure the store can be presented with some astronomical fines if they are caught selling to someone underage.

Hilariously last week I was being rung up and the cashier said, "oh, wait a second..." and grabbed a card from the checkout station next to her. I thought she had maybe scanned something twice by accident and needed the card to void it, but no, she used it to apply A SENIOR DISCOUNT!!!!

Sadly the next time I went there the (a different) cashier did not try to give me the discount. I am really bad at math, but I think it was like ten percent off! I need to try to play up the doddering aspect of how I present from here on.

Most of the places near me do not have self-checkout (I think in part because of space limitations?) but in any case I avoid using them on principle (i.e., I hate doing things)

The self-checkout at the local Aldi is very hectoring--if more than about 3 seconds pass between scanning, it barks at me to scan an item or use the screen to checkout. Heaven forbid I take a moment to distribute things evenly in my bag.

one thing I've learned over the years of using self-checkout is that it's quicker to not put anything into bags as you do the checkout, just do the checkout putting everything directly onto the bagging area and only put it in bags once you've paid.

ftr this is just a tax writeoff scam, never do it

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Wednesday, October 18, 2023 9:25 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

how does the scam work? stores can't write off customer donations.

I think some of the self-checkout issues that people have aren’t a big deal for me because I was a grocery checkout person relatively recently and still know a lot of the PLUs and the quirks of scales and etc.

xp caek it looks like I was incorrect on that after some research

they do sometimes do shady things tho:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/06/metro/heres-why-cvs-was-sued-over-fundraising-fraud-checkout/

Good reasons not to donate at the register:

• It doesn't go directly to the charity, obviously. And who knows when the store lets go of the money.

• Does it go into an interest-bearing account before it's donated? Does the store donate the interest too?

• You're giving the retailer all of the credit for giving. Way to go for making Walgreens look good.

• Charities appreciate the money, but have no idea who's giving what, other than "shoppers at CVS" and can't follow up.

• Maybe the stores don't get the write-off, but neither do you.

I thought sleeve was right about the stores getting the deduction, but even if they don't, the altruism is still very small.

I think some of the self-checkout issues that people have aren’t a big deal for me because I was a grocery checkout person relatively recently and still know a lot of the PLUs and the quirks of scales and etc.

hashtag humblebrag

agree w/ all that pp, I still won't do it

my beef is when they have twelve checkout aisles but only one or two are ever open, no matter how busy they are... why did you bother to build all these ghost aisles, harrumph

I have a local grocery store here notorious for that Andy, they have around 30-35 lanes and in my 16 years of shopping there (off or on), I have never ever seen more than eight checkouts open at one time, no matter how busy they are.

“ Do US stores have self-scanners?”

Oohhhhhh do we ever

I love this thread and am sad I didn’t realize it’d been restarted until now

Out of curiosity, would y'all be interested in going back to the pre-supermarket age where the grocer would get you everything from behind the counter, at least for stuff like prepackaged goods (and would possibly be sporting a villainous mustache and commuting to work on a pennyfarthing bicycle)?

I guess that's kind of still the case with cigarettes in convenience stores.

I don’t like self-checkout and yet have become the kind of person who uses it because, well, there are never enough lanes with cashiers and as I age I don’t want to be in a place with lots of strangers any longer than I absolutely have to.

(This is magnified at present, during flu season.)

Philip, I don’t know if I’d want to go back to that 100% (haven’t experienced it) but it’d be cool to have maybe one or two stores where that could be done

it sounds really nice hearing older families reminiscing about what sainsburys used to be like (go to the butter man ask him to carve you some butter etc) but I wasn't there maybe it was shit

what we have now is probably marginally better from an autistic pov but it has put a hell of a lot of people out of work so I'm generally against it

table, thank you for your service. I have spent considerable time behind a cash register myownself. If needed I could probably key in my ID from 1990 blindfolded. I could also probably count and reconcile a drawer full of coins (remember those?) in my sleep. Every evening, arranging pennies like soldiers in ranks of ten.

I always use self-check at Walmart because it's the store of last resort and I never have more than 4 or 5 items, plus the staff there all have the "please release me from this hell on earth" dead eyes. I do my main shopping at a different chain in Tupelo and always go to a staffed lane because they make quick work of a full cart and don't seem miserable to be there, lots of laughing and shit-talking among themselves.

I never use self-check because they don't allow alcohol in those (at least here in CA) and I'm always buying some form of alcohol, sometimes just a beer for the parking lot

i will never use the self checkout options.
i like having a chat with the staff.
have got to know most of them on the checkout at the shop i use.
fuck automation.

ymp and jvc, wasn’t meant as a humble brag or boastful, just sharing my experience.

I just had to do a capcha thing for a finance thing for work... "Click any motorcycles" "Click any Traffic Lights, if there are none click next"

21 fucking rounds of this... 21 times I had to pick the bicycles and fire hydrants.. and THEN I had to do the double-identifier thing with a code sent to my phone... fuck this shit

Hilariously last week I was being rung up and the cashier said, "oh, wait a second..." and grabbed a card from the checkout station next to her. I thought she had maybe scanned something twice by accident and needed the card to void it, but no, she used it to apply A SENIOR DISCOUNT!!!!

It happened again, tonight! With a different cashier! What is going on? I realize the pandemic years have probably been rough on me but I don't look THAT old? Was it the Geritol that I put on the conveyor belt? I didn't give them the store discount card so it's not like they have magic access to my age, and even if so I doubt that their program begins at fifty?? The only thing I can figure is that someone made a huge fuss and subsequently management encouraged the employees to apply the discount when in doubt, like the reverse of carding for booze. Or that I tend to throw my change into their weird tip containers if I pay with cash, and it's karma boomeranging. Fwiw it's a "Foodtown" and the other Foodtown I go to doesn't ever give me magical age-based discounts.

a quick search reveals that at some stores such discounts apply to those as young as 55.

Not trying to be ~ageist~ or unreasonably vain btw, am just really fixated on this in part because grocery shopping is one of my favorite things in life. That Kurt Vonnegut thing about going to the post office is me, except replace w grocery stores. I love life but mostly the things that most people seem to think are boring or resent because perceived as quotidian. I should probably become a P.A., except not for the scary type-A people who are millionaires and want someone to arrange elaborate playdates for their kids. More like, can you go to the Hungarian bakery for me, it's treat time and I am kinda busy, etc.

xpost yeah, I'm fifty! Maybe Foodtown are pioneers in that respect, though.

Dell(ll) I am with you on one thing: I generally find grocery shopping really soothing and pleasant. Aisles, choices, colors, produce.

I love my wife utterly but this is a place where we differ: I would happily shop every day. (How do I know on Tuesday what I will want to eat on Friday?)

So she orders delivered groceries and does real adult meal planning. I just kinda go where whims take me. We work it out.

Yes! It's the summum bonum of creation. I'm surrounded by all these things that originate in plants or elsewhere and then feed us.

i’m on team YMP and del here— i love shopping every day. my husband hates it.

We have a local butcher and fishmonger; if they're busy on a Saturday morning you can spend 20 minutes waiting to be served listening to the same conversations about shared acquaintances, Spurs' chances this afternoon etc etc.

I find grocery stores awesome as an aesthetic experience, but only when they’re mostly empty.

I don't use self check-out as passive resistance against automated shops, even if I am not sure how much point there is in trying to save these jobs. And out of laziness of course.

I also secretly enjoy doing groceries, especially in the nicer shop. There's a little of the childhood magic left in all the things to choose from, the excitement of saving on good deals, the pleasure of picking and discarding with conviction or arbitrary rationales. Even if in the end I always more or less get the same things. I'm not very efficient in a shop, it's more a relaxing time.

I’ll wait in line for self checkout even if there are empty cashier lanes to support automation.

I don't really have an ideological relationship with self-checkout.

At first I liked it because I am very introverted and I enjoyed avoiding people. Now that it has gotten so fussy, with so many prompts, I no longer am as sanguine.

Also as Nabozo writes, capitalism isn't likely to reverse course and become more humane. I can patronize different businesses, like mom and pop corner stores, but I doubt that what I do inside Safeway or Target or whatever is going to affect their business model.

even if nobody uses automated checkout, it doesn't inherently mean more cashier jobs will be created. automation creates the potential for these employees that would have manned registered to be deployed elsewhere. it doesn't inherently eliminate a job.

When jobs are invariably eliminated ANYWAY but these greedy shit companies, is not really the fault of the automated checkout, but rather employers not giving a fuck about labor as they haven't for centuries. budget cuts, reduction in force, all these things were happening before automated checkout and will continue. they'll just have 3 cashiers handling everything while the line is 25-30 people deep at all times, much like every call center has 2 hour waits now.

also self-checkouts give you the ability to steal from greedy stores so that's a plus.

*by these

Otm Neanderthal

give you the ability to steal

Probably why smaller stores who wanted these to save a grand total of around $20/hr quickly got rid of them

I recently had two of something. Scanned one, forgot to scan the other, simply walked out. I don't generally think of myself as an inveterate criminal or serial shoplifter.

But I got home and had two thoughts:

Thought 1. "wow, I didn't mean to do that, oops."

Thought 2. "Damn, that was actually surprisingly easy! If I needed to sometimes steal stuff, that's a pretty slick way to do it. If caught, all you need to say is 'oops, didn't realize.'"

Did that when my mom and I drove two cars off the lot when we only filled out paperwork for one