Canada

Peach!

Edit: that was supposed to say "preach" but autocorrect ducked me. Leaving the way it is because that's better.

Always making a big deal out of theft for pennies or dollars from individual customers .... but seldom highlighting the theft of thousands and millions by corporate heads at the top

Ya anyone with an ounce of brain cells predicted that theft would be an issue with self-checkputs but stores were blindsided by the savings they saw with getting rid of cashiers.

Also sometimes the machines a super finicky. It hasn't happened very recently for me, but the amount of times you need an employee to reset the machine or enter a code is too damn high.

I will happily use self checkouts if it gets me out of the store faster/ lets me interact with the least amount of people possible. I work retail, I need that energy for my job.

I feel the same way, but sometimes I show up and the lines for actual cashiers is so long and there's no one at self checkout. I can wait for ten minutes or I can scan my twizzlers and gtfo.

I was waiting to self checkout at a Walmart where there are 4 of around a dozen self-checkouts working. I asked about the ones that were not working and the employee told me that they can only open 4 units for every employee present. In order to have all 12 open they need 3 people there.

Because cashiers are a different cost-centre, and thusly a different budget on the company's financial statements. The VP or senior director that controls the cashiers' services would end up looking bad if they had to retrench on that decision, and "looking bad" is death at that level.

A lot of what happens inside a company makes more sense when you realize it's a power struggle between a bunch of narcissists and their lackeys, and that VPs and CEOs aren't really as powerful as you'd think. Companies can be as inefficient and cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face as any non-profit or public sector employer is, but we often don't see it because we've been trained to assume that "private sector == well-oiled machine" and "public sector == clusterfuck".

You're kinda wrong.

Even Costco can't "force" you. What they can do is ban you, which any store can do. It's harder to enforce without someone at the door checking, but totally possible.

The design is very human

I never have a problem bagging my own groceries at the cashier. It's the best of both worlds: highly skilled checkout operator and a fairly skilled bagger.

I think the dedicated baggers they used to have were better at it than I am, though. They somehow managed to Tetris everything into appropriate bags that were of similar weight and were almost as stable as using a box.

I think the throughput of a cashier and a skilled bagger is much better than a bagging cashier and definitely better than self-checkouts.

Yeah I just walk by and say "no thanks!"

Our interaction is done once I pay for my items. Don't like it? Call the cops I guess I'm done dealing with the store for the day. Don't trust me? Hire a cashier, not really my problem.

I'm still pissed all these self-checkouts haven't lowered any prices. Seems like if you got rid of 30 cashiers the price of my bread should've gone down a little.

Yep, Costco is fine we all knew the deal when we signed up. But the Walmart greeter stopping me? No way.

You wanna see if I'm stealing? Check the damn cameras.