Comment by itake

3 days ago

I'm paid in shorter checkout times for working at self checkout.

I have yet to encounter a self-checkout system competent enough to actually speed up the experience.

  • They are individually slow but highly multithreaded. The single cashier that stores hire these days may have a 10% higher clock speed, but their queue length is high.

    • Sounds like the problem is that we aren't hiring enough cashiers.

      Using a Kroger self-checkout is tantamount to waterboarding. Hesitate for a quarter of a second before placing your item on the scale? Angry prompt. Put an item on the scanner (which itself is another scale) but it doesn't scan within half a second? Angry prompt. Get three angry prompts? Now you get a fourth angry prompt, except this one can only be dismissed by a staff member, and we've already established that they're few and far between.

      I've given up on actually bagging my items while checking out. I can't rearrange anything in the bags, or move the bags, without the checkout machine throwing a hissy fit. So no, it's not actually faster, because I have to bag everything after paying for it. It totally breaks the pipeline of the checkout.

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  • The ones without scales are the quickest and generally fast. One queue for 10-12 checkouts etc...its fast unless you get some luddite infront of you who seem to enjoy proving some point to no one about how they can't "work the machine" etc.

  • They're certainly faster than standing in line for 20 minutes for the only open register, tho.