Do you use auto checkout at the store?

Any store that has a self-checkout I will use. Right now this is one grocery store chain, Loblaws, and some Home Depots. None of the Wal-marts I’ve been to save one in Ogdensburg, New York have self-checkouts.

Our libraries have them. It’s really handy.

Dear god yes. Whenever I can. I despise human interaction. :-)

Yes. I can race through that thing like nobody’s business.

dynamicduo, the Super-Wal*Mart in Glenmont, NY also has them.

I can’t stand when people who don’t know how to use the damn things use them. And then even worse – occasionally they’ll buy alcohol or cigarettes or something else that requires the clerk to do something manual. Grrr. Do you not get the point of these things?!

I love them here in Wichita. Everyone feels like they need to talk for 5 min before they can begin to check them out. Don’t get me wrong, i like human interaction, but i gotta go.

I hate them. I feel stupid using them I have no clue how to work them so I stay away.

@MrItty: I still use ‘em for booze all the time because all our cashiers are youngsters anyway. Regardless of line or machine, they have to get someone to come type in your age for them. It just so happens the above 21 age checker works the self-checkout oversight booth.

Self-checkout is one of the best things about shopping. Especially since some cashiers are less friendly than the machines.

If the checkout counters have long lines then I’ll go to the auto checkout in those cases. The only other time I use auto checkout is when I go by the store after work at six in the morning. At that time, there are no cashiers on duty and you’re only choice is to use auto checkout anyway.

Empress, the difference is that people at the self-checkout have the right to expect speedier-than-normal checkout, whereas people who go to the manual checkouts tend to expect the normal “ugh this takes forever”.

Kinda like people who write a check in the 10-items-or-less line. That boils my blood too. :-)

BlueFreedom, that’s odd. Exactly the opposite where I am. If you go off-hours, there’ll be one normal checkout lane open, and the self-checkouts are turned off, because they don’t have the clerk there to monitor or help the schmoes who use them without understanding how.

@MrItty. I think it’s a litte strange too. It’s rare to see someone on duty at 6 a.m. at the grocery store I go to and if they are, it is always lane number 6 that is open and I have no idea why they only choose that one.

Other than that, it is usually 4 different auto checkout terminals that are open. There is a cashier nearby to assist the patrons but no one on registers.

Never. Self checkout is installed in stores to do one thing, reduce the workforce. I refuse to help any corporation do anything that costs people jobs.

Weird. Could someone flag one of those answers for me (I can’t as I’m on an iPhone). I don’t know why my edited response showed up as a separate answer.

AstroChuck, do you go to a teller or an ATM for quick cash? If you use the former, you’re truly a man of your word.

I don’t usually carry go to an ATM unless I really need cash and I’m nowhere near my credit union or it’s after hours. I hardly ever carry cash as I use credit almost exclusively. When I go to my CU I generally take out all the $ I’ll need until the next time I’m there.
BTW, my credit union is nearly 20 minutes away from where I live. A register with a paid employee is just one checkout over.

AstroChuck, you’ve got my vote.

Astro, do you also only go to gas stations that have attendants rather than self-pump? Always go to the box office window instead of using Ticketmaster? Go to the movie theatre ticket desk instead of the automated machines?

I’m by no means criticizing. On the contrary, I find it remarkable that someone would go to those lengths to help protect jobs that clearly do not need to be done by a human being.

I use them only if it’s convenient for me – if I have a few items and the express lane is backed up.

@MrItty- No. I pump my own gas.
Yes. I do buy movie tickets from a person in the ticket booth.

Yes, they’re awesome. There’s a Pathmark near me that has them.

I never use the damn things. I hate them. Besides, I enjoy the chatter with the clerks. I’m really a people person & I’d rather enteract with a person than a machine.

AstroChuck raises an interesting point that I hadn’t really considered, so I shall consider it now. Yes, these machines overall reduce the number of staff needed to check out the customers. But I don’t think this is truly a bad thing. These automated checkouts enable the store to do the following two things.

One, they can reduce the number of cashier employees they need. There will always need to be some cashiers on hand, either to troubleshoot the machine, to get smokes, or to help the occasional person who has a fear of self-checkout. By reducing the number of checkout clerks, the store’s overhead costs are reduced, thus they have the option to reduce their prices without influencing the bottom line in order to give them a competitive edge. And competition in all areas is something I desire to see, as it ultimately benefits me, the consumer.

Two, they can reallocate the cashiers to do other jobs, such as customer service, midday stocking, more food prep, etc. All of these things give the store an advantage in terms of reliability and customer care. It also allows these cashiers to better themselves (if they want to) and become trained on areas that are not only checking out someone’s purchases, resulting in an employee who has more skills, thus is more valuable and knowledgeable.

To me, the advancement of self-checkouts is a natural progression in our workforce evolution. It’s similar to the change that occurred in gas stations. Back in ye olde times (70s and 80s), at practically every gas station there was an attendant who washed your windows, pumped your gas, they even took your money and gave you back your change right there at the window. A full service gas station. I remember growing up when the change to self-service was about 80% complete – I still remember comparing gas stations to see which was was self-serve and which one wasn’t (it was the one that was 3 cents per litre cheaper). Nowadays though, full-serve stations are very rare, in fact the one in my hometown recently renovated itself into a maintenance garage. The gas station attendants gradually lost their jobs, but I didn’t see anyone shedding a tear for them. And nowadays we’ve progressed even further, thanks to the pay-at-the-pump method. Of course, this is not without consequences – gas stations make most of their money inside the store, as their profit on candy and coffee is much higher than their profit on gas, and with less people going inside the store, less high margin items are being sold. But they have chosen to embrace technology. While it means customers don’t come into the store, it also means customers are in and out of refueling much quicker, thus making the establishment more effective, and logically, more profitable.

dynamicduo,

Three, it means that while some minimum-wage grocery store clerk jobs are being eliminated, they are instead creating the jobs of automated-checkout-manufacturers, salesmen, repairmen, etc.

Great point MrItty.

You guys sound as if you’re in management, trying to justify “down-sizing”, and thus, eliminating union jobs.
And journeymen grocery clerk positions are not minimum wage jobs. They make a pretty good living salary.
Wal*Mart and WinCo clerks might be the exception to this.

@AstroChuck I’m sorry to say this, but progress and innovation sometimes mean that manual labor jobs are lost. The fact that there are summer breaks in school is a remnant of the fact that the students all had to be out in the fields harvesting crops in the summer. We no longer do that because there are giant machines run by one person that can do the work of hundreds of people. Is that progress? I say yes.

As the economy continues to drop, reflecting more and more corporate greed, you might see general strikes, such as the ones carried out in France, and a new age of unions and a more pro-labor mindset in this country. That’s something long overdue.

Astro, we obviously have very different philosophies when it comes to the workforce. You believe that everyone is entitled to have a job, regardless of what it is or how it’s needed. I believe that expecting anyone to pay someone for a job that doesn’t need doing is wrong. Paying a sales clerk to do the job of an automated machine makes as much sense to me as paying someone to dig a hole and then fill it back up. If you want to give someone money, do it. No need to shroud it in “a job”.

I thought the economy was dropping in part because both people and corporations are realizing that they can’t be greedy and buy things with money that they don’t have. And I’m not so sure about the union aspect – many people are seeing that unions don’t equal job security thanks in part to the United Auto Workers union and the resulting layoffs. If anything, maybe people will compare and contrast companies with and without unions and the company’s successes, such as the American versus Japanese car manufacturers.

@shilolo- With respect, using machines to harvest fields as a comparison isn’t a valid argument. This isn’t about modernization to make life easier, this is about shift some of the workload to the customer in order to eliminate jobs and increase profit margins. There is a reason you can’t pump your own gas in Oregon and New Jersey. These states have laws prohibiting this in order to protect the workerforce. This hasn’t resulted in a greater hardship in gas stations in these two states. I don’t see why we can’t have more labor protection laws such as these.

Astro, shouldn’t I, the consumer, be allowed to at least have a part in deciding what “services” I’m willing to pay more for, and which I can do myself?

I’m perfectly able and willing to pump my own gas, rather than pay a higher-priced station to have an employee do it for me. I’m perfectly able and willing to bag my own groceries. I fail to understand why we should have laws to “protect” jobs that aren’t necessary.

@AstroChuck I disagree. For the same reason that globalization has brought us extremely low prices for all types of items, modernization of various functions has increased all of our productivity and efficiency. To use your example, I would much rather pump my own gas and save $2 than pay someone else to do it. Also, I would much rather go 50 feet to the ATM than have to seek out a branch of my bank to get money. Many companies function on a very narrow profit margin (they can’t all be Chevron), and so, eeking out a little extra profit by eliminating extraneous work is, in my opinion, appropriate and fair. They have to consider their bottom line, and the jobs of all their employees. If they can’t make a profit, and start dipping into the red, then they would be forced into layoffs anyway.

I don’t find these things efficient. Checkers are fast and can think. Machines are fastish but they can’t think. You can count on them getting tangled up in their own rigidity.

And Astro is right, checkers make a pretty good wage, and they deserve it.

I’m kinda surprised at the strong leaning on here towards efficiency versus protection, considering everyone thinks Flutherists are so lefty.

Then I’d have to bag myself? NO WAY!

They’re wonderfully efficient if you actually know how to use them. Far more efficient than waiting in a checkout line behind 10 other people with a cartful of items, while the checkout clerk has to flash his little light to call over the manager because Joe Sixpack is buying a sixpack….

(that being said – the few times there is an actual line to wait in for the automated checkouts, I’ll take the normal human-involved checkout line any day)

In truth, I almost always patron a regular checker, mainly because, with a growing family, we usually have a cart full of stuff, which would take me far too long to swipe and bag myself, all while trying to keep my two year old from running straight out of the store.

And I prefer a machine for the exact reason of not wanting to wait behind shilolo’s family for the checker to slowly process the huge stack of groceries. Especially when I only have 15 items or so. shilolo’s family benefits too, because when I checkout my groceries on a machine, he doesn’t have to wait behind me in the person checkout line :)

@shilolo- That $2 you are saving is the result of service stations jacking up the price of full service, just as when my father worked at a Standard Oil station in the early 50s and they charged 50 cents extra to lube Cadillacs (which were the easiest to lube, according to my dad) because it was assumed those owners had the money to spend.
The fact of the matter is employees’ salaries generally only add only 3 to 4% to the overall price of goods and services; more in the automobile industry (about 10%). I have no problem paying an extra 10 cents for my coffee if it is going to result in the employee getting another $1.50 an hour. Higher wages means more spending. More spending means a better economy. A better economy means more workers with living wages. I believe in trickle up economics.

I agree with AstroChuck about the installation of the automated checkout, which is why I won’t use them. I know what it is like to have your hours cut at work due to slow productivity so having them in the supermarket allows people to not use the real humans that need jobs. To answer the other questions, I do pump my own gas and get tickets from the box office as well as when I do need money it is usually from the teller since I do most of my banking inside all at once. I never use an atm for deposits, I didn’t even know you could do that until recently.

@blondie411- Welcome to my island. Now i’m not so lonely here.

woohoo for the island!!

Tropical drinks, too!

I also agree with AstroChuck. If I go to a store I expect to have the store personnel check my stuff out (AND bag my groceries). They haven’t cut prices enough for me to want to work for them for free.

BTW, in our town cashiers make $7 to $9 an hour, which may be considered good wages in some places, but try raising a family on that. They are also at the mercy of the supervisors, who can assign each cashier more or fewer hours as they please, thus greatly affecting each employee’s income.

I also use full-serve gas stations where I can find them (it’s so nice not to have to get out of the car in cold and rainy weather to pump my own gas and check the oil).

I refuse to have to go to the mall and face the hordes of footloose teenagers to go to Ticketmaster to pay them $6.00 extra for the inconvenience. If I have to go buy tickets somewhere I will go to the box-office. Additionally, since we frequently need “handicap accessible” seating I have found that only the people actually at the facility really understand what is required and what seats will work.