I'm an old biddy . I like to go to the shop with tartan trolley and talk to the nice lady's on the check out as no other fecker will talk to me I hope it doesn't all go like that . I did a stint on check out for Gateways years back while at school and there where lots of old folk who'd come in and have a shop and a chat . Sadly sometimes I was one of the only people they speak to all week .. Poor them
There great for putting people on the dole...... !!! How long before it's all self service, take it or leave it.
Seems a perception of most people. The store has an amount of hours, checkouts are given their allocation which includes self scan. No-one has lost their jobs the hours taken from checkouts are invested in store in the right places. Those store colleagues are checkout trained and should always respond to a checkout support call. There will always be main checkouts to go through. Many checkout colleagues have an option to take overtime in other parts of the store as we are all multi skilled. Self checkouts are just another option for the customer who may want a quick sale or who may not want to speak to someone that day. I am a colleague council member and would gladly stand up for my colleagues if I thought for one minute they would be redundant
We don't have them here in Switzerland (yet). When in the UK, I have used them, but not enough to get proficient. I'm amused by all the people enjoying having a natter with the check-out staff. A few years ago I was in Sainsbury's Victoria in the late evening. I got to the till and and the yoof on it says "£4.79, yeah?". That's all he said. Not "Good evening, £4.79 please" or anything of that ilk. It wasn't even said in a friendly voice, more sort of "You looking at my mate's pint, yeah?" There was a good programme on the radio a few weeks ago with someone who has written a book about how companies are all using strategies to get their customers to do their work for them in order to increase profits. You scan your own shopping, they sack check-out staff. You do your own internet banking, they sack telling staff. Check yourself in on-line, airport staff sacked. Of course, they sacked all petrol pump attendants in the early 80s. I can see that many of these jobs aren't very interesting, but then probably sitting about in your terraced house on the dole isn't great either, as you worry about not paying the gas bill. "Oh but we all find more suitable things to do". Yes, that must be why there is rampant unemployment throughout Europe.
I wonder how long it will be before some cleaver marketing type gets shoppers to stack shelves themselves too?
Unfortunately the drive for profits coupled together for all of us wanting everything for the lowest possible price will ensure that every cost saving opportunity will be implemented in every business. The supermarkets are particularly paranoid about being "perceived" as the best value for money. How many of us are now doing the work of former colleagues who have left and not been replaced. And doing it for the same money.
self serve check out don't like them and refuse to use them savings the companies make are not reflected in lower prices, but are reflected in higher stealth taxes to pay for the unemployment benefits for those that have lost employment in the relentless drive for management bonuses the management tactic of making queues at the old fashioned till longer to force people to use the self scan checkout also tends to back fire as people like myself go elsewhere I avoid supermarkets wherever possible, prices there are not as cheap as people are lead to believe, I buy meat at a local butcher that comes without polystyrene packaging and vegetables at a local green grocers - in both cases you can buy quantities that you want rather than quantitities determined by some logistics packaging expert / and or some marketing graduate looking to maximise sales and margins
Totally right, and not gone unnoticed certainly by me - several of my family have worked/still work in the 'civil service' and have ended up being thoroughly taken for granted and left buckling under the strain of additional work at the same wage. I admire anyone with the temperament to continue in such an environment (and we'd be stuffed without them) but I partly wish some had the confidence to move on to something better.
Couldn't agree more. Most fruit and veg comes from the garden (will admit to being the lucky owner of a very sizeable garden - though it's quite a bit of work). All meat from various local butchers. Bread, croissants and the like from the bread shop (they are everywhere here). Cheese from the diary shop. Wine from local growers. Bog roll, toothpaste from supermarket. I don't have to go that often.
I used to use the one in the Henley Tescos quite a bit. Gone off them these days. Best Regards. Antony Worrall Thompson. (You know... from such televisual extravaganzas as Ready Steady Cook Me I'm A Celebrity and The Hobbit).
I'm going to be a coach on self scan Which means I will train up newbies that watch it Today I had a guy trying to put two large bags of charcoal in the bagging area but it kept saying unknown item because one was hanging over the edge so I explained or tried too he didn't want to listen so I put them on the floor only to be told not to treat him like an imbecile because he knew what he was doing Then scanned and put the item on the floor and started to moan again ooo I had the pleasure of saying put the item in the bagging area much to his disgust Not a happy bunny
