Most people say they hate self-service checkouts. Psychologists warn against them because they remove the warm interpersonal contact from our everyday shopping. I would say that this is exactly the reason why I fell in love with them in the first place. Warm interpersonal contact with an exhausted and angry cashier is the last thing I want when shopping.
If you get it wrong, you’re a suspicious element who wanted to enrich himself by branding an avocado as a potato.
At the self-service checkout, I’m sure they don’t think anything of my purchase. They don’t judge me in any way. When I buy a bottle of wine, it doesn’t make me want to add plain yogurt, zucchini, and broccoli so I don’t look like I’m a lonely aging alcoholic. Self-service checkouts don’t care. He doesn’t raise an eyebrow when I buy a bottle of port and two milks on sale. (At least for now. Who knows what will start to happen until artificial intelligence enters its algorithms.) So when automatic cash registers penetrated our not-so-progressive Žižkov supermarket, I cheered.
Not for a long time. I soon found out that i the self-service cash register can give you a good scolding, moreover, loudly and in front of everyone. “Please place this item in the bag area.” “There’s an unexpected item in the bag area,” she barks at you when her reader misunderstands the barcode on the package. I tend to argue with her, but it’s futile, the automated teller ignores your arguments and rips you off pretty loud for everyone around to hear. At such moments, someone from the store staff enters the scene, whose task it is to settle conflicts between customers and technology. In no time, you are pigeonholed into one of these categories: 1) a senile senior who pressed something wrong; 2) a suspicious element who wanted to enrich himself by branding avocados as potatoes. And you are dealt with accordingly.
Another contact with the staff occurs if you buy some alcohol. At that point, the cash register will flash red as a warning, and the store employee must verify that you have already turned eighteen. If he’s in a jovial mood, it’s often not without a fresh joke about how I don’t look like it (and given the title of this column, it’s obvious that it’s no longer funny at all).
“Collect your purchase,” prompts the self-service cashier as you finally put your goods into your bags. And if you don’t do it fast enough, he’ll do it a few more times. Until recently (before they changed it) she always said goodbye with the condescending phrase, “Take your receipt and your purchase.” “Yours! My purchase!” I corrected her sloppy grammar, but it was fine. She always had the last word.
Tags: hate shopping supermarket
