The Book Of THoTH

A farce, a sham, a, a, a farce, stupid, waste of time, totally useless!

Okay, so I pick up a basket full of stuff from M&S, see a lot of check outs with queues upon queues, for you foreigners, UK is famous for its queues so don't come if you hate queuing in queues.

See empty self service check out, proceed along.

Wayhey, easy peasy.

Scan the first item, get "are you using a bag", hit "NO", then it says "hang on while we get an authority figure to confirm". Sheesh, wait a bit, a woman comes, scans her ticket and confirms I'm not using their plastic bag, scan the 2nd item, and the 3rd, another "hang on while we get.....", woman comes, scans and confirms, I carry on, scanning the 4th barcode, then the 5th, on the 6th, the same message "hang on while we get............." by then I've lost it, I huff and puff and tell the woman what is the whole point of "quick" when I have to wait a bit for anyone to come to my aid after every 3rd purchase, and as for self service? Don't make me laugh.

Tesco has self service check out too, thinking they may have better technologies than M&S, go there. buy a couple of things, bear in mind, just a COUPLE, which means only TWO things. Scan the first, get "something on the belt please wait for assistance" of course there is something on the belt, the product I have just scanned!!!!! Get someone to deal, scan the second, the belt comes back as there is aproblem with the weight (computer recognises bar code for such and such, so knows the weight) the reason why it was heavier than usual was because my youngest saw fit to lean on the belt to get a better view thus putting more weight on the belt. Yep, gotta wait for someone to confirm I'm not putting in more than one stuff I had scanned!!!

I'm telling you, technologies have come a long way since the days of clubbing dinosaurs for tea, but by god, clubbing dinos was a lot easier than those stupid self service checkouts!

there, feel better!

Batty

Hey Batty

Sorry to hear your experience was no good.. I love the self serve thingy's.. cause I don't have to stand in line and watch my teller talk on the phone, or to a fellow co-worker and ignore my repeated attemptes to pay..

The machine does as its told..otherwise I stuff my money in its hole... lol

ah good joke..

Simple, don't use them. I never do. it's a way for them to cut down costs of employees, which means less jobs etc...

Any new tech thing that cuts the human out of the equation I leave alone. Well, try to if possible.

Anytime you agree to use the new inventions like that you are playing the game they want you to play.

Lines suck, but it's the principle of it all. Try to shop when it's not so busy?

Agree with Kira. Don't use 'em. Hate 'em. I like real, breathing, walking, talking sales clerks. The self check outs are like the automated phone systems. Push 1 for english, push 2 to speak with a representative, push 3 for dept.....etc. etc., There should be a push something on those things that you can push that will give you the time and weather. At least you would learn something.

My opinion: HAL is here and taking over the world. "What are you doing, Dave?"

I'd take self service over stroppy teenagers who are forced to work for minimum wages and show it! Being deaf, the idle chatter doesn't appeal to me, especially when I'm trying to pack everything in a bag and can't lip read at the same time.

Anyhow, hadn't really realised about them cutting down cost of employees that way, to think I thought it was for my benefit!! I get my fruits, vegs and eggs through a box scheme, but still have to go shopping for basics - flours, lentils and such. Besides, I'm not going to use them again, if my past experience with it was anything to go by, stupid things.

Batty