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self checkout


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2014 Aug 3, 8:45pm   12,826 views  26 comments

by epitaph   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Just wanted to rant about something that has bothered me for a few years, the self checkout at the super market. Whenever you agree to scan and bag your own groceries for free, you are taking somebody else's job duties without compensation. That pretty much sums it up. Don't be a sucker and work for free.

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1   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Aug 3, 9:30pm  

It's stupid on so many levels.

From the out sourced programming for them, to the "Please remove all items and start over", followed up by "Please call the attendant".

I refuse to use them, with out the attendant there, ideally scanning each item her self.

2   anonymous   2014 Aug 3, 11:40pm  

What's next. They're going to open a restaraunt where they dupe you into cooking your own food? And then probably charge a premium cuz "its so effin cool"

3   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Aug 3, 11:43pm  

Hey I could go for some Singapore Steamboat

4   zzyzzx   2014 Aug 4, 12:36am  

I wouldn't mind the self checkouts so much if they actually worked good. That AND you have to hope that the people in front of you are not morons.

5   New Renter   2014 Aug 4, 12:47am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

I was in a BofA

THAT was your mistake right there.

6   Ceffer   2014 Aug 4, 3:06am  

epitaph says

Just wanted to rant about something that has bothered me for a few years, the self checkout at the super market. Whenever you agree to scan and bag your own groceries for free, you are taking somebody else's job duties without compensation. That pretty much sums it up. Don't be a sucker and work for free.

You forgot about all the people they have to hire to de-moronize the self checkout.

Make something idiot proof, they invent a better idiot. Then they invent the class action lawyer to sue over it.

Wells Fargo seems to hire bimbos with heaving cleavages to be tellers. They can see all your personal information and your bank account balance before wafting perfume your direction. They use their jobs as bimbo radar for asset dates. That is really what they want to know about you anyway, not that you are a good person.

Should that be called "ass for assets" or "asset rape"?, Rin beware.

7   drew_eckhardt   2014 Aug 4, 3:38am  

epitaph says

Just wanted to rant about something that has bothered me for a few years, the self checkout at the super market.

My favorite super market doesn't have or need self-service checkouts. Wages for checkers and baggers are built into the prices like $20 for a one-pound steak and $15 for a six pack of beer. I suggest trying a less proletarian grocery store.

Whenever you agree to scan and bag your own groceries for free, you are taking somebody else's job duties without compensation. That pretty much sums it up. Don't be a sucker and work for free.

Whenever you check yourself out you're not paying for some one's wages plus FICA, Medicare, state and federal unemployment insurance taxes, workman's comp insurance, overhead like payroll costs, and perhaps expensive benefits like health insurance.

Depending on the incremental value of your time that can be a good or bad deal. If it means giving up billable hours at several hundred dollars each you should pay some one to shop for you. You're better off taking care of yourself when you're struggling to make ends meet with a salaried position or hourly job where they limit how much you work.

8   drew_eckhardt   2014 Aug 4, 3:41am  

errc says

What's next. They're going to open a restaraunt where they dupe you into cooking your own food?

Yup.

Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale

And then probably charge a premium cuz "its so effin cool"

Nope. I paid $12 for my last steak at the Rok versus $36 when I had my local brew pub cook one for me.

9   HydroCabron   2014 Aug 4, 3:41am  

If stockholders and owners of grocery stores have to pay employees, or refrain from dumping garbage in city parks, or piss in bathrooms instead of out in the open, they'll just pass the costs of doing so on to their customers.

Sorry, but I ain't payin'!

10   New Renter   2014 Aug 4, 4:49am  

sbh says

Ceffer says

Wells Fargo seems to hire bimbos with heaving cleavages to be tellers. They can see all your personal information and your bank account balance before

...shrieking to everyone in line behind you "Do you know how much money you have in this account? Don't you want to speak to one of our account advisers?" "Yes, and no, honey, just as I told you every last time I've been in here, so lower your voice and do exactly as I say, thank you very much."

If you are concerned about unwanted attention from the WF tellers yet for whatever reason want to continue to bank there the solution is simple: Make your WF account your secondary account with the absolute minimum balance you need. $2-5k should be plenty for most day to day needs but be well below the threshold of interest from even the most desperate teller.

sbh says

When I retired and closed my WF biz account it was easy to choose between them and BofA. BofA just says "of course" and "thank you".

I take it you haven't had to navigate their Byzantine phone tree system.

11   MisdemeanorRebel   2014 Aug 4, 4:51am  

Another great thing people can do is not police their trays at buffets or fast food.

All you're doing is depriving a mentally handicapped kid of a job.

A typical McDonald's easily sees at least several thousand in revenue per day. Paying $120 to a kid to wipe down the tables and dispose of garbage for 8 hours is hardly going to effect the price of a Big Mac. Corn Syrup costs going up or down a few pennies would be far more important.

12   MisdemeanorRebel   2014 Aug 4, 4:53am  

New Renter says

I take it you haven't had to navigate their Byzantine phone tree system.

Deliberate, by the way. If you abandon the call, it's not considered a Customer Service failure. Most companies assume you've "Self-served" via the website if you hang up mid-call.

13   Heraclitusstudent   2014 Aug 4, 5:46am  

epitaph says

self checkout

What about airlines 'self-checkins'?

14   bob2356   2014 Aug 4, 6:13am  

I love self checkout, atm's, and online banking. Why would anyone want to deal with the biologicals? I hate dealing with the room temp iq resister jockies and tellers.

I was in NC over the summer and was very impressed that sheetz has a touch screen to order food. What a great idea. I wish all the fast food places (that i go to about twice a year) had that.

The only time I go to a bank is to do a wire transfer. Thats only because US banks are so hopelessly behind the rest of the world. Overseas I can move funds to anyone's account with a few keystrokes, even if they are in another country. To move money to my us accounts from my overseas accounts is about 10 seconds while eating breakfast in my pajamas. Moving money from the US to my overseas accounts is an ordeal. Lots of paperwork and id's, and explanations. Then they always screw it up a couple times. Then they charge me for the screwed up ones so I have to go back and fight about that. It's usually 3-5 trips to the bank with a 10-30 minute wait for each on. And they charge an absurd premium that is triple what I pay everywhere else.

Even better I was in Vanatu last year and had dinner with a couple from Kenya. I learned that there are almost no banks in Kenya, everyone banks with their cell phone. I thought they were pulling my chain so I looked it up. Like madelain kahn says in blazing saddles "its twu, its twu" What a brillient ides. Text the amount to a phone and it's there. Depost or take out cash at the phone store. You can text the register in stores to pay for goods with no fee other than the cost of the text. Visa must love that. What a huge step this would be if it went over the entire continent or the world. When will this come to america? Probably long after zimbabwe. MC and Visa would pay billions to keep this kind of game changing tech out.

My preacher runs missions in Ethiopia and Uganda, I really want to take the kids over next year for a month. That would be so cool.

15   HydroCabron   2014 Aug 4, 6:24am  

If you ban business owners from having sex with underage kids, they'll just pass their criminal defense costs on to the customer, and I ain't payin'!

16   zzyzzx   2014 Aug 4, 11:23am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

I accidentally wandered into one once. Pick a steak, cook it, carry it.

Whatever happened to:
If you can't cook your own steak, then freedom has no meaning!!!

17   elliemae   2014 Aug 4, 11:32am  

I look at self-checkout at the grocery store like masturbation: I only do it if there's not someone there to take care of the issue for me, and I don't do it in the grocery store (any more).

18   Rin   2014 Aug 4, 12:53pm  

Ceffer says

They use their jobs as bimbo radar for asset dates. That is really what they want to know about you anyway, not that you are a good person.

Should that be called "ass for assets" or "asset rape"?, Rin beware.

Yes, I tend to bank in an adjacent town, just to avoid the bimbo-ski train at the tellers and public notaries.

19   komputodo   2014 Aug 4, 1:09pm  

errc says

What's next. They're going to open a restaraunt where they dupe you into cooking your own food? And then probably charge a premium cuz "its so effin cool"

I can already see a table of "feminists" giggling while their boyfriends cook and pay for their meal.

20   Y   2014 Aug 4, 2:44pm  

or...
'If you like your steak you can keep your steak!'

zzyzzx says

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

I accidentally wandered into one once. Pick a steak, cook it, carry it.

Whatever happened to:

If you can't cook your own steak, then freedom has no meaning!!!

21   curious2   2014 Aug 4, 3:54pm  

At supermarkets that use gimmicky pricing and offers, self checkout is the only way to go slowly enough that you can see you're getting the price they advertised. The pricing gimmicks tend to apply to specific "selected varieties" of each product, so a slightly different "variety" can have a radically higher price. As the saying goes, "That's how they get you."

bob2356 says

My preacher runs missions in Ethiopia and Uganda, I really want to take the kids over next year for a month. That would be so cool.

No, it wouldn't. The heat in Uganda can be lethal, and countless other problems and hazards abound. In central Africa, "Christian" missions have done a mostly horrible job in recent decades making it an increasingly grim place, including religious violence and political problems in one country after another. I know people who have traveled thousands of miles at great expense to do volunteer work in Uganda, and I can only wonder why they don't volunteer someplace nearer to home. If you want to volunteer in sub-Saharan Africa, then by far the best place to go is South Africa.

22   Ceffer   2014 Aug 4, 4:30pm  

The day will come when the auto checkout makes you watch three to five minutes of advertising before you check yourself out.

23   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Aug 4, 11:16pm  

You mean like gas stations now, that pumps .01 per second, while they blast you advertisement to try their Roller Grill Hot Dogs.

I've actually stopped pumping at less than a dollar because of that. Now when I pull up to a pump and see a LED screen on the pump, I will keep going.

24   Y   2014 Aug 4, 11:35pm  

Payback is putting your left hand over the barcode as your right hand presses your pocket beeper.
who needs coupons?

Ceffer says

The day will come when the auto checkout makes you watch three to five minutes of advertising before you check yourself out.

25   bob2356   2014 Aug 5, 7:22am  

curious2 says

No, it wouldn't. The heat in Uganda can be lethal, and countless other problems and hazards abound. In central Africa, "Christian" missions have done a mostly horrible job in recent decades making it an increasingly grim place, including religious violence and political problems in one country after another. I know people who have traveled thousands of miles at great expense to do volunteer work in Uganda, and I can only wonder why they don't volunteer someplace nearer to home. If you want to volunteer in sub-Saharan Africa, then by far the best place to go is South Africa.

You have no clue what you are talking about, either the climate or christian missions..

Altitude in africa is everything. Other than a few low area's along the rift valley ugunda is mostly high plateau with a very mild climate and not many tropical diseases. I'm looking at southern ugunda by rwanda. It's perpetual spring there, like medellín or lake victoria. There are over 600 heat deaths a year in the US, I guess I should really avoid going there.

I've stopped in tanzania for a couple weeks years ago and travelled around some, so I know some of east africa already. I thought the people in and around arusha were great people. I camped in arusha national park (where hatari was filmed) in May after the monsoon and it was 70's every day and around 50 at night. I would have zero qualms about taking my 5 year old if I went back. The part of ethiopia I'm looking at visiting is at 8000 feet and you need a jacket at night most of the year.

The people I'm talking with have been in southern ugunda for 20 years without knowing of any trouble at all anywhere near them. The problems with militia groups are in northern ugunda on the south sudan border. That's over 1000 miles away. You sound like my geographically challenged family when I told them I was going to dubia for a month. Oh my god you'll be killed there's a war there. Dubai, Damascas, Detroit whatever, its all furrin.

If (when) I ever go to south africa it will be to kitesurf, not to teach kids about wifi. I have a standing invitation from a couple I knew in NZ that live in capetown now. Damn it's a long trip though. I would have to tie it into something else.

As every international traveller knows, if you don't want crime or trouble then stay away from it. If you are hanging with businessmen, moms, kids and grandparents in the middle of the day its probably pretty safe. If you are hanging with drug dealers and hookers at 3 am then it's probably not. Stay out of bad areas, especially at night. Don't go into active conflict area's. If troops armed with tanks and machine guns say they don't think it's safe ahead I give them the benefit of the doubt and turn back. It's not rocket science.

Parts of africa are grim. Many parts aren't. It's a huge continent. The colonizers killed huge numbers of natives, pillaged the resources, drew random lines over tribal areas, then cut and ran without a qualm. To be fair the french tried to set up their former colonies with working governments at least. When the belgiums took off from the congo there were something like 10 college graduates left in the entire country.

I don't believe for a second you know anyone who has actually been to east africa, much less ugunda. What organization did they volunteer with and in what town?

26   anonymous   2014 Aug 5, 7:38am  

drew_eckhardt says

errc says

What's next. They're going to open a restaraunt where they dupe you into cooking your own food?

Yup.

Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale

And then probably charge a premium cuz "its so effin cool"

Nope. I paid $12 for my last steak at the Rok versus $36 when I had my local brew pub cook one for me.

If the goal is to save money, why not head to the last day expiry rack at the super market, and cook it at home for $5

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