Rant #3,183: Check It Out

Here is a completely innocuous question I have for you on this Friday morning:

Do you use the self-checkout lanes in your supermarket?

I certainly do, and I use them for a variety of reasons, including speed of exit, meaning that since I do all the scanning and bagging myself, it is simply quicker for me to do it all than wait for a cashier to do it.

That is, if a self-checkout register is open, but if I have to wait on a line to check out my groceries, I would rather wait for a self-checkout to be open than wait for a regular register to be open.

Look, I know I am buying into the philosophy that the supermarket chains have, that if people use the self-checkout lanes, why have as many cashiers on your staff if fewer people are using the traditional checkout lanes?

It is anti-employee, anti-union, anti-human being to use the self-checkout lanes, but honestly, I don’t think about the poor guy or gal sitting home without a job—or with less hours—because he or she is not needed as a cashier because of the existence of this mechanism.

I just want to get out of the store as quick as possible, and that is why I use them.

It almost makes the checkout situation a more “fun” one, because I am not only scanning the items, but placing them in the proper bags as I check out … I personally like to put all the heavier stuff—the soda, the juice and the milk—in one bag, boxes—like for cereal—in another, etc.

I can do that on the regular checkout line, but it is harder to do when the cashier is simply doing his or her job and scanning the groceries and passing them to you in no particular order.

And in New York, we have to use our own bags, so it makes it easier for me to have a plan at checkout, getting me out of the store as quickly as possible.

I write about military stores, and these stores are usually several years behind their outside-the-gate counterparts when it comes to grocery innovations.

Military stores—commissaries, which are supermarkets, and exchanges, which are department stores—have for just the past few years integrated self-checkout lanes into their stores, and hundreds of stores around the world still don’t have them, or will be getting them over the next several months.

I assume that the supermarket chains consider these lanes a success, because it helps them manage and cut payroll while they claim that they are providing a convenience to shoppers by offering them to their customers.

Certainly, if all you want to do is to buy a piece of gum, then the self-checkout lanes are the way to go—unless you have someone like me with a full grocery haul on the conveyor belt, which, obviously, is going to hold up the gum buyer for a considerable time.

(I often let people with just a few items go ahead of me, although I do remember that one time I got burned, and the one item the guy was holding ended up being many times, as he waved his family to come to the checkout, and he had numerous items to scan—and he did it without an apology yet!)

The store that I regularly do my food shopping in has about eight self-checkout lanes, so it is easier for me to make my choice about what lane I am going to.

Each one takes either cash or credit/debit cards, so I can pay however I like.

And with the eight self-checkout lanes are about six regular checkout lanes, only one of which is usually open, and sometimes two at best … again proving my point about the self-checkout lanes saving supermarkets money in personnel costs.

However, there are definitely frauds—both on purpose and not on purpose—at the self checkouts, where people do not scan items either purposely or absentmindedly, so when you add everything up, what are the self checkouts actually saving the stores when people purposely, or not on purpose, forget to scan certain items?

Anyway, do you prefer the self-checkouts or do you prefer to go to the traditional checkout lines with a human being helping you check out your groceries?

I did my food shopping yesterday morning, I went right onto a self-checkout lane, and everything was hunky dory, but the innocuous question of whether these things are worthy or not just crept into my already overloaded brain.

I like them, but do you?

Something to ponder as we go into the weekend.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.