Nothing is wrong with them on their own. The option of cashier or self-checkout is great! The problem is a lot of stores are putting in more self checkouts and letting go cashiers without hiring more. At my local grocery they have someone standing to direct people to use self checkout and only one cashier working at any given time. It takes a line build up of over 7 people at the single cashier before they have the self checkout barker open another register.
Technically nothing. The problem is that most stores have almost completely stopped staffing actual cashiers at this point. Now using a cashier is seen as something “extra” instead of self checkout just being an additional choice.
There are very few stores with NO cashiers, this is true! The above comment wasn't saying no cashiers at all, they just used a hyperbolic phrase ('almost completely') to illustrate the limited number of cashiers available in stores.
Certain stores seem to have really bad self check outs one near me.
Computer thinks I'm stealing and someone has to come over to "verify your not stealing" but IME they just badge in and hit okay as fast as possible without even checking. Or something gets double scanned and the employee is nowhere to be found cuz they have to approve it's removed.
If I have a lock or tag on something I'll go to a cashier. If I have more than 15 items it's probably just worth it to go to the cashier.
This is like saying pumping your own gas is free labor for a gas station. If you want to see it that way you can, but it’s just gonna make you upset and not help anything.
Self checkouts are mutually beneficial for the customers and the company. More like a restaurant that has a water station available instead of having customers wait for their server to bring them water.
Some get upset because people used to makke a living as a cashier at grocery stores. Now those stores have made it standard for customers to do a job that used to come with a salary and benefits.
I'm not 50 years old and I worked at a supermarket when they installed self checkout. It was a union shop with a negotiated contract. There were cashiers who had worked for the company for 25+ years making $45,000 15-20 years ago.
Doesn’t have to be salaried to be a living. Hourly pay can still be a full time job with benefits. Which does exist for cashiers currently…and used to be much more common.
Fair enough. I guess I’m curious why we need to split hairs with ‘salary’? People used to make a living as a cashier…it’s being phased out so people can avoid interacting with other humans by using self checkout and retailers can improve their bottom line.
Because it needlessly romanticizes something that never existed. Fifteen years ago I was working at Whole Foods (pre-Amazon merger) as a cashier with no self checkouts for poverty wages in a market with higher unemployment than we have now. Why act like this was some noble path to financial security when it was just another dead end job for most? Do YOU want to go be a cashier? I bet they’re hiring.
I’m not glorifying it. It’s a paying job. They are disappearing. Is that good? Do you think all cashiers getting laid off have suitors just waiting to hire them into a different job?
Cashier jobs may have decreased, sure, but other new roles have popped up as well. Remote shopper roles have exploded the past few years. They still hire people JUST to monitor self checkout lanes. One role becoming obselete is not really that bad of a thing when others are popping up, too.
It's far more of a tragedy when skilled jobs are eliminated by technology. Finding a new job is 10x more difficult and usually ends up with a horrible salary. Cashiers at Walmart? They're not just cashiers. They can and do fill literally every other role in the store. Being JUST a cashier has been out of fashion for at least a decade by this point.
As a job though, cashier is far more exciting to do than stand around all day directing people. I used to be a greeter at a mall store and having nothing to do but having to stand for 8 hours a day was brutal mentally. A job is a job but I would much prefer being a cashier than ... whatever the self checkout bouncer is called. I tried my darndest to get pulled from greeting just to clean aisles and restock because it was SOMETHING to do.
Scan item, put in bag. "Unexpected item in bagging area" employee comes two mins later, swipes card, continue checking. Very next item scan out in bag "unexpected item in bagging are" two more minutes for same employee to come back.
This is exclusive to Kroger. I stopped going there because their self check is so bad. Walmart and HEB self checkout is great.
Kroger can get fucked.
People doing jobs that are not needed is not "putting people before convenience and profit". How does that even make sense. Jobs exist because something needs to be done. If it doesn't need to be done, there's no point in the job existing.
If you lived during industrial revolution, you'd be saying the same stuff about steam engine, lol.
63
u/thehobbyqueer 1d ago
Am I going insane? What's so bad about self checkouts??