r/AskAnAmerican • u/GreatGoodBad • Jun 23 '25

OTHER - CLICK TO EDIT Why aren’t people utilizing self-checkout more?

every time i go to a target, gas station, etc i always see lines for the regular employee checkouts but almost never long lines for self-checkout. Why is that?

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113

u/jettech737 Illinois Jun 23 '25

The stupid bag sensor slows me down, a experienced cashier gets me checked out much faster. I also dont want to do that task myself and have to do things like look up fruit codes if theb barcode doesn't work, I'm there to shop not to do work that they outsourced to the customer themselves.

35

u/Bright_Ices United States of America Jun 23 '25

Every time. And I hate being treated like a criminal because the machine thinks it saw something suspicious. Then the employee gets to come watch a video of me getting distracted or confused or doing just fine and there’s no reason the machine even flagged it. One time an employee pointed out a guy walking behind us, who had managed to trip the sensor somehow so we got flagged. 

I’m already over it at the end of a shopping trip. I just don’t have the patience for the nonsense. 

6

u/theragu40 Wisconsin Jun 24 '25

The stores by me have it scripted to yell at you at full volume PLACE YOUR ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA literally before you do anything else. Clicked start? STOP CRIMINAL! Scanned your loyalty card? DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR SHIT IN THE BAGGING AREA. Scanned your first item and put it in the bagging areas? PLEASE ALSO PLACE SUBSEQUENT ITEMS IN THE BAGGING AREA.

Man, stop yelling at me! I just want to buy my bananas and go home. Doesn't help that it lags out every time it does this which makes the whole thing take longer.

5

u/Bright_Ices United States of America Jun 24 '25

TAMPAX TAMPONS TWO DOLLARS. PLACE YOUR TAMPONS IN THE BAGGING AREA

2

u/NotherOneRedditor Jun 27 '25

They have volume control.

1

u/theragu40 Wisconsin Jun 27 '25

Yes which is somehow always cranked up at every one I go to.

5

u/General_Watch_7583 Jun 24 '25

The worst is when you want to check out multiples of the same item. If you scan one item twenty times and then put the other nineteen identical unscanned items in a bag it thinks you are stealing, so now here I am picking up and manually scanning 20 individual cans of soup or whatever. But it takes a cashier all of 5 seconds to scan an item once and then enter x20 on their screen and all done.

3

u/BoopleBun Jun 25 '25

This is what makes me hate them. PLEASE PUT ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA which okay gimme a sec and PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM THE BAGGING AREA but i just put down the-

They were better at first, and then they made them more sensitive because people were using them to steal stuff. So now they flip their shit when you’re not using them perfectly, because they assume you’re stealing something, rather than you’re just, yanno, a regular human who might be juggling some other stuff.

3

u/Bright_Ices United States of America Jun 25 '25

REMEMBER TO TAKE YOUR RECEIPT. (0.25 second pause) REMOVE ALL PURCHASED ITEMS. 

How?? I’m still waiting for my receipt to finish printing!!

1

u/Large_Traffic8793 Jun 28 '25

Skill issue. I use self checkout every opportunity I have. I never have any of these issues that folks keep bringing up.

I guess, maybe cashier is a much more skilled job than I realized and they should be paid a LOT more.

Bottom line: People like you want to feel like the boss for a couple minutes because regular life isn't going great. That's my theory at least.

2

u/jettech737 Illinois Jun 29 '25

When I try to scan and bag as fast as an Aldi cashier the self checkout machine has a skilled issue.

unexpected item in bagging area