It’s always a bit humiliating when you’re the guy at the self-checkout whose screen freezes up and starts flashing, prompting the attendant to come over and free you like you’re the kid whose bumper car broke.
“May I please be allowed to keep paying for my groceries,” you’re essentially asking, and the clerk responds “Okay,” so you can continue doing their job for them.
Is This Thing On?
We’re well over 20 or so years into the grand self-checkout experiment, and the results are a bit mixed, with customers developing a love-hate relationship. Stores have, too. In recent years, chains like Costco and Albertsons pulled their self-checkouts and then brought them back. Big Y did the same. It all must be pretty confusing for the robot cashiers.
Everyone is beyond familiar with the occasional hiccups. You bring your groceries to the self-checkout lane under the assumption of quickly checking out and avoiding small talk, and the opposite occurs.
The scanner doesn’t recognize an item or it recognizes an item too much and scans it seven times. It tells you…
Read Full Article Source
