Just back from Tesco

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1339678]

Comments

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Eek--I fail. I have just skewed your figures, I meant to tick the first one. But anyway, I dig the self-service checkouts because they make me feel like I am living in teh future, however, the future is largely broken because I almost invariably have problems with the machines. I don't mind talking to people usually, but using the self-service checkouts still give me a thrill, but only when they work.

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Agreed here. Not only are the self-service machines buggy, but they're buggy for the four people in front of you too, so they're actually slower in my experience than using the normal tills. Plus I like talking to people!

[andrewducker]

You've been using LJ for 6 years, but haven't worked out that you can change your poll answers???

I pretty much never have problems with the machines. I do avoid using them when I have things that need to be weighed.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I use self-service checkouts because I like the way they go "beep".

[andabusers.livejournal.com]

Not so much complicated, but I usually shop in one big batch and the machines go apeshit when you want to fill more than one bag. And I buy lots of produce, which the staff are much quicker at doing.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

I genrally don't use them because they don't work as well as they should. I generally cycle to the Stirling Tescos and stick all my shopping in my rucksack.

The self service checkouts bleat and complain if I use my rucksack in the bagging area.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

You aren't supposed to use self-serve machines for big shops, and some supermarkets label them as a '10 items or fewer' aisle. Surely that means that people who do big shops and therefore tick the first box are skewing your data? You should have included a way of telling how big the voter's average shop is.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

[x] I use Tesco Direct, and my local Co-Op has no self-serve checkouts.

[andrewducker]

Tesco direct do rock - I live next to a Sainsburies, so normal shopping trips are to there though. I prefer picking up small lots of veg the day I'm going to use them. Sainsburies also have no self-service tills - the times I do use it are when picking things up at the Tesco Metro near my work.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I'm applying my usual policy regarding new technology: let other people spend a few years finding the bugs, and then start using it when it works properly.

[andrewducker]

That's what I did for the first three years :->

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I dislike the self-service checkouts, because they are just another way for the supermarket to cut their costs. The supermarkets have long wanted to remove checkouts because they account for a considerable percentage of their wage bill. They have tried various schemes to do so, from customer hand-scanners to RFID tags, none of which have proven viable for one reason or another.

It may be called progress, but do we really want a society in which everything is automated and such jobs do not exist?

[andrewducker]

A society in which boring, repetitive jobs have been eliminated through the use of automation?

Um, yes. With every fibre of my being.

[headinclouds.livejournal.com]

red_phil seems to have lots of problems with them, as he's said (and I've seen it many times), but strangely I rarely have any, even using the same tills at the same supermarket. I'll use whichever happens to have the shortest queue at the time.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

When I used to regularly buy lunch from Tesco the self-service where always much faster than the normal tills despite the fact at least two of the self-service were always broken. However, when the self-service does go wrong it really goes wrong. It's like Rawls's political philosophy oyster problem or something.

They always used to require approval for bags of crisps as well which would be really irritating when the one member of staff was dealing with someone else's problem and you were stood there unable to pay. Presumably this is something to do with the fact the scales can't detect some that only weighs that much but God knows what because why would they care or, indeed, why you can't put the stuff you've swiped into your pockets rather than the pressure plate.

The self-service are also got for getting rid of change without irritating anyone. They don't do cash back though.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, the change thing is handy. I've stood there emptying my wallet of change before.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I think they've worked out the bugs now and people are stuck remembering the early models. Generally, my local Tesco Metro has a queue for the one staffed till and two empy self-serve ones.

[aitkendrum.livejournal.com]

Love self service and only wish we had more of it. I don't mind speaking to people though but the terminals work fine for me.

Quicker, don't have to deal with people cracking up at the queues or suddenly finding they forgot to get Tesco's Finest Burgers and not the normal ones so held up the queue for 15mins while the ran around trying to find them!

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Actually it's I head for self-service checkouts, they're WAY faster!

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

At my local Asda I try to use self service because it's faster - there is one queue for four service points so you get to the front faster. However, they have numerous annoyances. First, it won't let me put my backpack into the bagging area, it moans about an "unexpected item", then it won't let me put my stuff directly in the backpack, moaning that I should "place item in bagging area". I can hit a "skip bagging" option, which is an extra keypress, but I can only do it 3 times before it calls a staff member to allow me to carry on (presumably checking I'm not putting more items than claimed straight into my bag.

Then there's the problem of discounted items. I'm on a money saving effort at the mo, so I tend to buy things that are marked down heavily for being near their sell by date. These items don't always have barcodes on them, and often are restricted, again, alerting the staff if I try to buy more than about three of them.

The staff are, for the most part, dire. They're really slow in general but as there's only one watching over 4 tills it incurrs quite a wait sometimes when you call for assistance, but I also keep finding they wander off to help other staff with queries, and one one occasion a girl spend over five minutes chatting to another customer who had called her over for help while I stood there unable to proceed. You need them to authorise purchases of knives, alcohol or DVDs rated above PG, so it's often quicker to just go to a normal til.

I will happily use them if I think it's not going to be more bother than it's worth, but sadly it often is. Using staffed checkouts doesn't tend to involve talking.

One good thing about the self service things is I can pay with small change without having to count it as I go because the machine keeps track for me.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I dislike the self service machines in Tesco and Sainsburys because they weigh the bags to make sure you're not stealing anything; rearrange the contents of your bag, and it will complain enough that you need a supervisor to reset the damned thing.

I really like the Waitrose approach of giving you a hand scanner and randomly selecting you for a rescan. Keeps you honest, and is nice and quick (checkout normally takes about 15 seconds for me).

[andrewducker]

Waitrose method does sound great.

Shame the nearest one is miles away (and they're so expensive).

Re: self service checkouts

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

None of the above.
I -can- work self-service checkouts just fine. I just like talking to people when I do my check-out.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I find staffed are way quicker when I have a trolleyful. It's much more efficient to do batch picking, batch scanning, and batch bagging, than to do pick-scan-bag for each item individually - especially with the improved ergonomics for the scanning process that a checkout operator gets. And you can use dead time in the queue - you can load the belt while the previous customer is finishing. And you gain an extra processor and can (partially) parallelise: checkout person does the scanning while I do the bagging. If I get behind with the bagging, they'll often chip in and help.

(My queue selection has improved much since I started to include checkout operator capability in the decision metric as well as just raw size of queue.)

In the Old Days pre-kids, I'd go self-service if I just had a basketful and the queues looked a better bet. Now I usually have two kids in tow, it's staffed every time - it's one less job I don't have to do, it doesn't matter if the toddler picks stuff up after scanning, and you get much less grief from people behind you in the queue if you have to pause to attend to the kids (since the checkout operator carries on working regardless, so they're not getting held up).

Actually it's almost always Internet shopping now anyway - a fiver is a small price to pay for the reduced faff. You can mitigate it, but a supermarket visit is fundamentally not a fun activity for small children - for them, their carer, the staff, and the other punters.

[andrewducker]

Totally agree about going for the operators when there's a lot to do. My Tescos shop is usually less than 10 items, which is perfect for doing it myself.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I do indeed self-service checkouts - because they don't work for me AT ALL.

At the Tesco's I used to use, their system wouldn't work if you took your own bags; it wouldn't work if you were strongly left handed; it didn't work if you did something remotely out of the ordinary. Like put something into the bag you brought along with your left hand.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

I avoid self sevice checkouts because we will all rue the day all checkout staff are replaced by such devices...

[draconid.livejournal.com]

I'm happier to use either. If there's a staffed checkout with a small or no queue I'd rather the staffed checkout because I often buy things that need weighing or are fresh and have no labels and using the self-service checkout is either impossible or a pain in a butt. That said, if I'm in a hurry, there are big queues, and I'm only after one or two items, I'll use self-service. I also tend to use self-service rather than staffed checkouts in Wilkinsons where you don't have problems with weighing, etc. And sometimes it depends on just how I'm feeling. So yeah, no preference really.