I FNHate Self Service Checkouts

Posted by Kelly on March 25th, 2010

GRRR!! I can’t express fully in words how much those poxy things do my head in! I mean, I’ve had some pretty shocking customer service in supermarkets – every single employee in the Sainsburys round the corner to me looks like they’re about to hang themselves -  but  I would still much rather be served by a person. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would think that self service checkouts were a good invention. If you went on Dragon’s Den and said “Hello Dragons…I’d like some money so I can build machines that will make human contact unnecessary!” I like to think that you would be told to fuck off. No cash for you, you anti-social freak! Supermarkets get to stay open because they have customers! I do not feel valued, therefore, when I go into a supermarket and they try and encourage me not to talk to the staff who represent the company. Oh, what, so you can take my money, but you’re too good to talk to me now?!  Is that it?!

And I don’t care what anyone says, they are not more convenient. I don’t work in a supermarket. Therefore, I do not want to have to type in codes and look up items and tap in quantities every sodding time I want to buy a pastry! Plus, the bastard things always go wrong. It doesn’t register something  has gone into the bagging area, so it throws a little bitch fit and you have to stand there waiting for assistance, while the long line of people behind you get pissy, convinced that you’re some sort of simple-minded technophobe who has broken the machine. You have to wait around for someone to come and tell the stupid thing that you’re not a ten year-old trying to buy a bottle of wine. They always go wrong when you’re buying sanitary towels or condoms or something else embarrassing, so some spotty creep, who looks about fifteen but is actually the manager, gets to come up to you and leer at you while fiddling about with the machine.

And the voice! Oh my GOD, the voice. “Unexpected item in bagging area.” FUCK. OFF! “Please take your change. Notes are dispenced below the scanner.” Oh good, oh blee! “Please take your items!” Why don’t they just program it to say “Thank you for your cash, now piss off!”? It’s basically the same principle as those helplines, where you have to push buttons and listen to a mechanical voice for hours on end. The voice says things like “Thank you for your call. Your custom is important to us.” But they don’t mean it. IT. IS. A. LIIIIE!  No one enjoys those things! They’re one of the major irritants of the technological age. So why WHY plague the public further by adding these monsterous, impersonal, souless metal things to shops? Monsterous, souless people I can handle, at least that way the thing serving me has a face. I just don’t get it. I end up having a row with the smug female voice every time I use one, and then I get to look like an escaped mental patient, when usually all I want is some chocolate and a pint of milk. Is that asking so much? Really?!