Spent 45 minutes wrestling with a self-checkout kiosk that wouldn't scan a single lime

It kept saying 'unexpected item in bagging area' and I had to wait for a teenager to come override it. If a human cashier had been there it would have taken 10 seconds. Has anyone else noticed these things are actually slower than talking to a person?

3 comments

3 Comments

paulw5314d ago

I get what you're saying about the lime thing being frustrating, but I actually find self-checkout faster most of the time. When a cashier is human, I'm stuck waiting for them to finish chatting with the person ahead of me, scanning their 50 items. A quick hiccup with a lime is annoying, but overall I'm out of the store faster using the machine.

annajenkins14d ago

The trick I figured out (after way too many lime incidents) is to just put the lime directly on the scale before you even try to scan it. That way the stupid machine already knows something's there and doesn't freak out when you add it to the bagging area. Saved me a lot of headache once I started doing that, though I still miss when cashiers just handled it all.

fiona_kim13d ago

Does anyone else get annoyed when people say the machine is faster, because my experience has been the exact opposite? I feel like half the time I use self-checkout, something goes wrong (and it's never just one lime, it's like a bag of onions that won't register). Then I'm standing there waving my arms like a lunatic while a cashier could've just handed me the receipt in 10 seconds. Plus, I kinda miss the human interaction, even if it's just a quick "have a good day" from someone who's not a blinking screen. Maybe it's just me, but those machines feel like they're designed to test your patience instead of help you.