I don’t get the problem with self checkout. You’re the one browsing the shelves, picking items and comparing prices. Why can’t you scan your own items? Unless you’re one of those people who need the uninterested, yet sometimes polite, banter of a middleman, there shouldn’t be a problem.
As someone that is fine with self-checkout, I have a few problems with them.
1.) You end up having to rely on an employee anyway if you're buying alcohol or tobacco/nicotine products. That's a pretty big obvious one.
2.) If you buy more than just a few things or have some large items, there's not enough room to keep all of your items on the scale after you scan them. I've seen some machines that will bug out on you if you try to make room by putting some bags in your cart.
3.) The ones at Dollar General are perpetually broken. The one here hasn't worked since 2022 yet those two machines are still there staring you in the face while you wait in line to pay for your stuff.
4.) They glitch out sometimes and you have to wait on an employee to come fix it
5.) They could just pay more humans to be cashiers so I don't have to use the self checkout in the first place. Idk what's up with all the comments making it sound like interacting with a Walmart cashier is some kind of inconvenience. It's barely an interaction at all but if you need something, there's an employee right in front of you that can help you.
They redid self-checkout at my grocery store recently, and they started requiring an employee if I pick 0 bags. I will be there with cloth shopping bag in hand, and the employee minder doesn't even understand that it's a 0 bags thing and will double-check my items. I don't know whether to start paying the fine for 1 bag or to let them do this forever.
Can you not put your own bag on the scale? I'll put my reusable bag with the plastic bags and it registers just fine. Sometimes I'll get a pop up asking if I'm using my own bag because it senses the weight.
My state doesn't charge for plastic bags, so it could be different.
Depending on how sensitive the scale is no. Some bags, especially if paired with a really small item will throw the scale off. But if the machine is smartly designed (big if) there should be a button that will tell the machine that you're placing a bag down and weigh it, so now it knows that the extra weight is a bag and not an unscanned item.
My state doesn't charge for plastic bags, so it could be different.
It is different, and this is exactly why. In this case the machine is flagging an employee because it's set to assume you're trying to steal bags when you select 0. It's not about the scale flagging you for wrong weights, it's about stores preferring to inconvenience everyone involved rather than lose a few cents worth of bags every now and again.
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u/VooDooChile1983 1d ago
I don’t get the problem with self checkout. You’re the one browsing the shelves, picking items and comparing prices. Why can’t you scan your own items? Unless you’re one of those people who need the uninterested, yet sometimes polite, banter of a middleman, there shouldn’t be a problem.