Glitches allowed?
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Self checkouts are for ~~stealing~~ recovering what big corpos steal from us, not racing.
Iβm just annoyed that Iβve been using self checkout for thirty years, it was dead obvious how it worked the very first time I used it, but I still have to hear instructions like βplace your APPLES in the bagβ.
Yes. I know.
Itβs loss prevention. People enter the wrong products that cost less, so it alerts the one cashier what was supposed to be weighed. Not super likely theyβll catch it watching 9 registers, but it increases the risk to the thief.
Place your item in the bagging area.
Unexpected item in the bagging area.
Place your item in the bagging area.
Unexpected item in the bagging area.
Evidently they need it for people who can't seem to get the memo.
And it gets mad because you brought your own bags.
Huh, I have never used one with a single spoken instruction. Hopefully it stays that way
Be thankful you live in a culture of dignity
Amazon Go's ("just walk out") self checkout gives you an elapsed time on your receipt. There was one next door to my old pre-pandemic office. My coworkers and I would complete to see who could get in and out the fastest. My record was 6 seconds buying a single bottled tea.
Apparently those are being phased out now because they weren't really automatic, just outsourced to people in india
Yeah, it appears that the system was computer-assisted, not computer-controlled. Amazon tried to "fake it till you make it", but never made it.
Another L for AI.
Was it really AI powered? I've never used one (we've not had them in the UK) so I'm genuinely curious. I heard it just had chips in every product, so when you leave the shop through a gate, everything you bought got scanned, and you were charged automatically. But in my description there is no AI in the modern sense of pattern recognition based on vast training data.
we've not had them in the UK
I shopped at an automated Amazon Fresh in Bankside London yesterday...
Oh. Ok then, we don't have them in the UK in the city where I live.
Nothing wrong with AI, it's a tool that's very good at specific problems
Tech companies just don't know what is and isn't a good use case yet
Honestly "track this person's movements and figure out what they picked up using this huge amount of sensor and camera data" should be a pretty good ML use case, but Amazon doesn't really have the right technical talent to make that work.
True, you'd think Amazon would have the talent to do it though if they wanted to
The shop near me has handheld scanners so you scan as you pick stuff off the shelf. Then at the checkout scan a QR code on the screen and pay. Makes it super quick.
Sainsbury's has an app that lets you do that with your phone, I found it was slower faffing around with that than just going through the self checkout
Bearing in mind I also tend to buy 2-3 items at a time max and either way you've got to use the machine at the end
I try to be quick because I want to hurry and get out of there.
Its amazing to me how many people use them without a fucking clue what theyre doing and just hold up the line.
Clicking through 90 fucking prompts if I wanna donate to charity or learn about their credit card offerings or if I want to sign up for their rewards program or if I want to give them my email so they'll email me a receipt?
Nah, everyone deals with that.
I mean the people that cant figure out how to use the self checkouts at all. They forget to scan items, dont understand how to search for bulk items or produce that dont have codes, or people that cant figure out they need to scan stuff before bagging it, etc.
Fortunately there are usually loads of them
But yeah it's kinda annoying to see someone take 20 minutes with one
There's usually a wave when all the old people in my area all decide they want to go shopping at once, though fortunately they tend to ignore the self checkout
I'm one of the old people. I WAS a speed runner. About 40 years ago, I got a union job as a cashier. The customer put their items on the belt, the cashier scanned the items, and the bagger sorted the items and put them in paper or plastic bags. Cashiers were required to memorize the produce codes and process at MINIMUM 30 items per minute. The timer ran from the moment you unlocked your register to the moment you relocked it or opened the drawer. You would leave your register locked while the customer started putting things on the belt. You greet them and make a mental note of what sort of items are where while the belt brings the load to you. Once the belt is at least half full, you'd unlock the register and start grabbing and scanning items in a fluid motion that passed them over the scanner and on towards the bagger -- sorting as best you could as you went. As soon as you were done, you'd hit 'total' and lock the register until the customer was ready to pay. You'd help the bagger and chat while this happened. Then the customer would hand over cash or check (they were just starting to do credit and debit in grocercy stores so those weren't common), so you'd unlock the register, take their payment, open the register and get change. Your best speeds were always going to be for express checkout (10 items or less), but there is a cruel loop in that because managers schedule fast people for express, but you won't be as fast unless you get scheduled there.
As I recall, we didn't get to see our items-per-minute until the end of the day -- not per-transaction, but it was still fun to see who had the best scores.
As a customer, I NEVER use self-checkout because: 1) I'm not working if you aren't paying me, and 2) every time I've tried to use self-checkout, the machines could never, ever keep up with me. Sometimes the issue was the bagging area was trying to weigh things, sometimes the scanners themselves were bad/slow, and sometimes ... I don't know, the dang machines are just barely working? Anyway, it is never worth it for me. Additionally, I find it better to do my own bagging than to allow anyone else to do it.
Side note: The typical bagger can not bag as fast as a cashier can scan because they have to wait for: cans on the bottom/bread on the top, frozen in one bag/lettuce no where near frozen, detergents and chemicals by themselves/pet foods also by themselves.
But conversely, would you be OK with having the attendant at a fuel station pumping your gas, like in Oregon and New Jersey? Or would you rather pump your own gas?
It depends on the weather and the cost. I remember when gas stations offered "full service" or "self service". Full service cost more per gallon, but in addiction to pumping gas, they cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and wiper fluid levels, and might even put air in your tires if they were obviously low. If you wanted it done for you, you paid more. Seemed fair. These days, gas is cheaper in New Jersey than surrounding states, so you pay LESS to have someone else take care of you.
Fair enough if you've had to do it as a job and don't want to, personally I value my time higher than effort expended and in general self checkout is much faster than normal checkout
It depends on the machine, though for me usually I'm just trying to get it to go as fast as the machine can do
That's a great idea. Imagine how much money the store could save gamifying checkout so that they need less checkout machines. Let's all do our part to make the rich richer!
Man the post is a joke not everything needs to be about how fucked the world is
That would stress me out too much. I shop for people for a living and I'm constantly timed. The bosses are obsessed with my metrics. Even if I have to stop to tell a customer or to guard a spill per company policy, all they care about is that I'm not getting 100 items per hour.
If I was being timed for my personal shopping, I'd just start screaming and never stop.
Don't know about how it is in the US, but in the UK the idea of people rushing to finish their transaction fills me with dread. I've worked in a supermarket with self service and the general public really struggles with them.
I'm in the UK, young people don't tend to struggle with them as far as I've seen. Mostly late gen Xers and older that seem to struggle
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