Panasonic Youth rob sanheim writes about software, business, ruby, music, stuff and things

The wonderful invention that is self-checkout

….and some wonderful rules for its usage, from Mindsack. My favorites:

• Are You an Idiot? If so, please don’t use the self-check line. A real human being will be happy to help you, right over there.
• Fresh Fruit and Other Produce is Right Out. The key to the self-check line’s efficiency is that marvelous bar code scanner. Unless you’re purchasing one of those newfangled Pringle’s eggplants that has the bar code genetically tattooed on, you’re going to have to go through the arduous process of looking the damn thing up in the store database.
• The Bag is Not the Bagging Area. Key Zen-like distinction here: you don’t have to actually put that twelve-pack of toilet paper into a bag before continuing. Just put it into the bagging area, or (even better!) hit the Skip Bagging button and put it back in your cart.

Genius.

Thanks, Rob. You might also like The Single Person’s Guide to Revenge Toys.

I wish the supermarkets here in Toronto had a “skip bagging” button. Instead, they force you to put everything in bags on a revolving bagging area that *weighs* the products you add, after each scan, to make sure you don’t try to steal another product. Really amazing, because it fails more than it works. And why would I go through all the bother of a self-checkout when I want to steal something?

On the plus side, picking produce is fairly easy with the system, just follow the nice pictures. It’d be perfect if the voice wasn’t so annoying - and they didn’t treat customers like thieves with bagging requirements.

Nice to hear there are alternative self checkout systems out there. Maybe some day we’ll see those around here, until then, I’m sticking to the express checkout, if it’s not that busy.