Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Unexpected item in bagging area

Many years ago, well about five, I worked in ASDA on the tills. Oh, the times I had. But, like all good things, it came to an end. And, as I walked off into the sunset, waving once more to my green clothed colleagues and kicked my heels I thought, "Well, there's the obligatory supermarket job done, no more for me the scanning and packing of items..."

But, the supermarkets, not content with near world wide domination of our eating habits, have decided they can get us to do our own scanning and packing too. The self-service machines are the new choice of payment for today's fast-paced, latte drinking, 24/7, news junkies, as they are quicker and faster, and importantly involve no human interaction whatsoever.

What has happened to us? Why are we so keen to embrace this? We are slaves to the supermarkets already but now we're doing what is paid work for free. Up with this, we should not put.

I would suggest one of the two following options.

1) For using self-service you should get 1% off your bill. This won't be much each time you go, but over a year could add up to several pounds - about the same as an hour of work at the supermarket - which leads on to idea two...

2) They could time you from the moment you place an item down to the moment payment is made. They then work out what they would have paid you for this pro rata and this should come off the next bill.

On another, but relevant, point: Why do they say 'Unexpected item in bagging area". It's always something you've picked up in store so why is it so unexpected?

2 comments:

hayjane said...

Can I be controversial and say that I quite like self-serve checkouts? Maybe it's because I was never a checkout girl, so scanning the items and hearing the 'beep' stil feels like a novelty. However, the vast majority of times I use a self-service checkout I am forced to summon assistance as I am normally buying something with a reduced sticker on it and it still scans as full price. So kind of defeating the object I guess.

Dan W said...

You see! You started off defending them, ended up conceding they are defeating. Although...I do use them too, they are quicker I will concede that.

Widgets