Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Self torture machines

I got really excited when stores like Superstore, WalMart and Zeller's put self serve checkouts in. Colour me strange, but I like self serve and was looking forward to using these checkouts whenever the opportunity presented itself. What a freaking disappointment! They rarely work properly! A partial list of what can go wrong:
  • Item can't / doesn't scan - you're totally screwed in this case until a helper comes along and even then you might still be screwed if they don't know what to do.
  • Price is not what you saw marked on the shelf - ditto.......... screwed.... or eat the cost difference.
  • Item doesn't weigh what it should - if the computer's idea of what the item should weigh differs from its actual weight - you're going to get a hard time when you put it in the bag on the weigh scale.
  • Item doesn't fit in the bag - if the system doesn't allow for 'skipping bagging' for large items, you're not going to get past that item until you cram that mother into the bag - totally useless.
  • When you get to paying for the order, the money input and output slots don't seem organized in a way that makes finding them intuitive - the coins, bills and receipts often don't come out anywhere near each other.
  • Machine is stuck in mid-transaction from the last customer who gave up and walked away.
  • Machine is just out of order, period.
  • God help you if each self checkout is being used by any one of the following: technically illiterate person who can't even operate a bank machine or cell phone; technophobic who acts like the checkout machine is possessed or trying to cheat them; a lone parent accompanied by 3 or more children; anyone who should know in advance that they have too many items.
If it ends up taking 4 times as long to process a 6 item order through a self checkout than using a human operated till, that says ineffective use of technology to me...........

2 comments:

Goddess of Madness said...

My last 3 trips to Walmart (small trips mind you) I've used these. And I do agree they have flaws, but I've never had a problem with them yet... I stress yet cause I know the day is coming. I've used them at Zellers too without a hitch. I know they are putting them in more Calgary retailers because they can't get the bodies to be cashiers. I saw that the other Friday night at Walmart, they had two regular tills open and 6 self check outs and the lines were NOT moving.

Pet

Anonymous said...

Just wait another month or so when Christmas shopping begins! HeHe!

Nancy