this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 101 points 4 days ago (4 children)

that's why one line for multiple checkouts is better

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 83 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Is it not the standard? Every store with self-checkout I've been to has a single line for all machines. I've even seen some stores with a single line for regular checkout.

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[–] Pissmidget@lemmy.world 82 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Not only the self checkout. I usually end up behind someone who's new to the concept of exchanging goods for legal tender and needs an introduction to it.

This is of course after they have told the story about why they're in the store, starting with the new testament and moving on from there...

I spend a lot of time thinking about how it's not my place to judge these people, but I think very few of them would manage to sit the right way on the toilet without outside assistance.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 33 points 4 days ago (1 children)

People on their cell phone who act surprised and annoyed that the act of checking out requires a brief moment of their attention.

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[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago

"Can I go ahead of you in line? My kid is acting up. Great thanks. (To cashier) I'd like to buy this alcohol and cigarettes with these food stamps that I acquired totally legally. No? Let's take several minutes to discuss if there's any way around the law. Now that that's over, I'll pay with a check. Oh, also, can I get 20 scratch off tickets? I just want to scratch them off while you wait. Here, I have a giant roll of cash that I will use, but don't worry, I wasn't doing this to make things go faster. Now is my chance to try to do a cash-changing scam on you."

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 days ago

I remember self checkout arriving in 2008 when I was living in the arse-end of Ireland. Took quite a few years for it to arrive anywhere in France, I guess because we could clearly see it was gonna kill more jobs... anyway, they didn't take over but for little old me who is used to it, it's a godsend when I'm faced with families doing their weekly shopping or, worse, pensioners...

And yet, somehow, after all these years, I regularly meet people who indeed seem to have never faced one. No hate on them, I just find it amazing! And I always wonder what suddenly pushed them over, made them decide "today is the day I face my fear and confront the Beast!"

[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 31 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (24 children)

Fun fact: This is why a huge amount of people don't use self-checkout despite it potentially saving a lot of time. They are afraid the person behind them is going to judge them like this while trying it for the first time.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago

Super fun fact, the people who aren't idiots at the self checkout, are not notable and therefore are not noted. It's the morons who stand out.

Just like with driving. The guy in front is always too slow, and the guy behind is always going too fast. Because you don't notice when the inverse is true.

[–] camelbeard@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (11 children)

I avoid self checkout for different reasons.

  1. I'm not getting a discount while I have to do more work and the supermarket less.

  2. I take extra responsibility, if I forget to scan one item I could get in actual trouble during a random check.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (12 children)

Further:

  • Most self-checkouts are too small and unwieldy to hold two shoppings bags when you're packaging a week worth of purchases.
  • You still need an employee to come over and certify that you're over 18 if you buy alcoholic drinks, and there's usually just one for many tills who is usually busy with somebody else.
  • I like to pack my weekly shopping in specific ways (cold items together, fragile stuff on top, weight balanced) and whilst in a normal checkout I can do packaging in parallel with somebody else doing the checkout plus already place things roughly ordered on the threading band to the cashier, in the self-checkout it's just me and things are in whatever order it went into the trolley so it takes at least twice as long.
  • They often have quirks, such as for example the one I used more recently would not let me start unless I put a bag in the output compartment first, so I needed to have or buy a bag even though I was buying just 1 item (mind you this might have just been trying to force people to buy a bag, since many forget to bring one - in other words, structuring the software to force people to spend money which is a form of enshittification).
  • They're non standard and each store has a different model, with different physical structure and different software with a different UI with buttons in different places and often different quirks, so anything you learn beyond the basics about how to use one effectively is often non-translatable to self-checkouts in different stores.
  • They often don't take cash. Cash is good, it means your buying habits are not in some database somewhere and used for things like having an AI estimate how much an airline company can wring out of you for a ticket for a flight or a Health Insurer assessing your risk profile and upping your price, it works always even during outages (of power, of your bank, of payment processors) and studies have shown people save money if they pay in cash because they tend to spend less (something about the physicality of parting ways with your notes and coins makes people be more wary of paying more than if it's just a number on a screen).
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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago

My number one reason for avoiding self checkout is that I want people to have jobs.

If fewer and fewer people use the manned cashier lines, there will be fewer manned cashier lines.

If it's busy, and I'm just grabbing a few things, sure, I'll divert to the self checkout, but if there's nobody in line, or just a few people in line, I'll avoid self checkout. I'm not going to be the reason someone lost shifts.

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[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

No matter what line I pick at the supermarket, that’s the line that will have a technical issue, a grandma with 200 coupons, a guy who wants to scan 50 lottery tickets, and a price check that takes 10 minutes.

Also no matter what spot I pick in line, that’s the spot where people decide to pass through

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[–] M154nthr0p3@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I like self check because it's less interaction with people, mostly. Also, you can rip 30 packs of PBR near the handle and just scan the can instead on the box.

A 30-pack for a six-pack price is a good deal.

But yes, they are shifting labor to customers.

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm surprised that:

  1. You don't get flagged for a human to check your ID
  2. The weight doesn't flag you
[–] M154nthr0p3@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mos def.

They check ID but I've never had them scrutinize the price. I think they are just focused on the ID.

I hold the 30 pack and scan near the handle (which I have ripped a little) to scan the can (which I have rotated). Place case on ground to save room for other groceries.

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Yaknow that tracks. No one at self checkout will give a shit. Underpaid.

[–] Zephorah@discuss.online 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

If you’re there for a bag of brown sugar or a carton of half and half self checkout makes sense.

I’ve used scanners outside of this retail environment and I know how to pack both a vehicle and a box well. But the awkward height, shape, configuration of self checkout and its bags or lack thereof turns me into a fingerless, blind man trying to use a calculator.

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[–] LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

I personally really like self checkout. Even with a full cart im in and out significantly faster than most everyone else. I dont get how people get tripped up at them but my god Is it so many. I would like to have the option to remove something I accidentally scanned without needing someone though. We finally got passed the bag scale issues this is the next hurdle!

As a side note I only do self check with a full cart because im a late night shopper I would never in a million years do it during busy hours.

[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 35 points 4 days ago (12 children)

Oh man! I'm a city bus driver, and the amount of people that struggle with getting fare in the box is too damn high! I don't understand how you could make a bus full of people wait for you to dig through your pockets at a pace that would make glaciers impatient. You're standing at the bus stop, you know you're getting on the bus, know you'll need fare, yet here we are.

I want to get a documentary crew to follow some of these people around for a while just to see what they do with their days. I genuinely wonder how some people function.

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[–] kamen@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago (10 children)

Either that, or I have to wait for an employee myself for the stupidest reason, i.e. that I've brought a canvas bag that they have to verify I didn't steal.

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[–] SurfinBird@lemmy.ca 35 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Have you seen the couple that both get out of the car at the gas station and have to collaborate way too much to work the pumps?

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

How do these people function in society? The machine is extremely simple to use. Insert card, type code, remove card, pick gas type.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 3 days ago

I hate how everyone with a billion items in a cart goes through the smaller, 1-3 items checkouts that have no belts, while people with 1-3 items are all at the belted lanes. Why are y'all so bass ackwards?

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And so you blame the person whose thrown into having to use a self checkout with little to no instruction having to figure it out instead of the corpo execs who wanted to siphon a few local jobs into their new yachts?

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 14 points 4 days ago (3 children)

If that person can't even read a screen or do a minimum of reasoning, yes.

[–] Barometer3689@feddit.nl 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

In the Netherlands , 18% of the population can’t properly read (functioneel analfabeet).

Yeah I didn’t believe that either first time I read that.

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 days ago

That's actually crazy, but in that case there's still normal checkout.

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

Working with office and business types all day long in a highly technical field, I will say this: people don't even bother reading when it's literally their job to read, understand and act upon something.

I'm not even going to touch the minimum of reasoning thing.

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[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago (9 children)

I always notice people are super cocky about this kind of thing. Yet self-checkouts are so fucking terrible it basically everyone runs into problems at them eventually. So just tempting fate from everyone in this thread really.

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[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

What kills me is when I'm behind an old person attempting to use a check like it's 1989. I haven't been to a grocery store that accepts checks in the past decade, I just don't understand why they think it will suddenly change back to how it was, and they always act angry and confused when stores don't accept their checks even though like I said I haven't seen a store that accepts checks in the past decade

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[–] YoiksAndAway@lemmy.zip 24 points 4 days ago

There are an unusual number of people in this world who gawk at the self-checkout as if they found themselves at the controls of an alien spaceship.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 20 points 4 days ago

Whoever designed these machines had never used checkouts, touchscreens, or money before.

Early Wal-Mart models were the touchiest, naggiest goddamn things, like whoever invented PRESS X TO NOT DIE got fired from Capcom and went straight into commercial UX. You will bend over two times for every item, you may not swipe the same item twice for duplicates, and that half-ounce blister-pack better register on the bag-side scale or else the idiot alarm will go off anyway. As it will if you spend more than two seconds figuring out a screen that just jabbed your ears with a shrill beep to demand instant responses to a modal choice for no discernible reason.

Recently CVS had one that's ATM-shaped, with an itty-bitty platform for your stuff. The cash slot is at knee height. The lower half of the machine is angled toward the ground. You can't fucking see it, while it's still demanding immediate responses to modal options, like you're playing a game and have no sane reason to look away from the screen. Hi! Press button to begin. Are you buying something today? Press button to buy. Do you speak English? Press button for English. Will you be scanning things? Press button to scan. Okay, begin scanning things. Press button to scan something else. Press button to not scan something else. Press button to check out. Press button to pay your bill. Press button for how you'll be paying your bill. Press button to activate the cash siphon conveniently located upside-down and backwards two feet off the floor, for use with popular brands of shin-mounted wallets, because the cocaine-chewing lizard person who designed this object has never seen a goddamn vending machine.

It was fine ten years ago! For like a decade, you got a shelf with a scanner in the middle, like a goddamn checkout counter, and you did the thing you've watched register-jockeys do since you got to sit in the cart. They didn't model human customers as idiot robots who'll instinctively stare at a screen and blindly follow instructions as quickly as possible. They acted like you had expectations, and were perhaps engaged in some manual activity involving a cart, a scanner, and three dozen disparate objects.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 16 points 4 days ago (6 children)

OMG this.

Person in front checking out:

BEEP

Lays item on the scale, but is leaning on the scale.

PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE

Picks item up

Please put item on the scale

puts item on the scale but has their hand on the scale still

PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE

HELP IS ON THE WAY

(help was not on the way)

Them: These things NEVER WORK!!!!

30 seconds later the POS resets and lets them try again.

me: Stop touching the scale, just leave you item there and back off

it works

They scan the next item and place it on the scale and leave their hand on the scale.

PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE SCALE

Every single item, they never learned. I eventually went to stand in the single manned line that had 15 people in it.

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[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

If there is a cashier available, then I refuse to use self checkout.

These things seem to be meant for people buying a few items, not for 250 items a family of 4 would have In a cart.

[–] chocrates@piefed.world 15 points 4 days ago (6 children)

To be fair it is so much better than it was when they came out.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 3 days ago

This is the most true thing anyone has ever said.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago
[–] kubica@fedia.io 14 points 4 days ago (13 children)

If every self checkout was similar to others, but each of them want to make things different.

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