Day 6 of the 5 Days of Consumer Pet Peeves - Self Serve Checkout

Posted on June 17, 2007
Filed Under Things That P*** Me Off |

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Okay, this is your bonus day of the 5 days, 5 Consumer Pet Peeves. If you missed them, here are Day 1-Crappy Weathermen, Day 2 - Pushy Car Hops, Day 3 - Tow Truck Drivers, Day 4 - Texas Home Builders and Texas Real Estate Agents and Day 5 - TxDot and DPS Troopers.

It seems like it has been about a year or so since our local Kroger store started using those self checkout kiosk. Right away the whole thing smelled like rotten eggs.

Here I am with a cart full of groceries and I have to check and sack my own groceries. Yet, I’m paying higher prices already just to shop there (in our area, my wife says Wal-Mart is cheaper, but I don’t much care for their meat.) And now they want me to check myself out and sack my own groceries all the way paying them more for…..what?….the privilage of shopping at their store?

Sorry Kroger, there are other stores that still sack my groceries and check me out. But I am curious, do you pay the remaining Cashiers more? I thought so.

So now I do not shop at stores that require you to go through that stupid self checkout. It’s just absurb and a stupid decision by any stores management. If you’re going to have them in place, you should at least have 1 or 2 lanes open that have real live Cashiers at them.

So about a month ago I was at our local Home Depot and got ready to check out. Looked for the lighted pole that indicates a Cashier is on duty, but only saw one. As I got close to the “checkout” I saw they had put in those stupid self checkout kiosk!

Man, I was hot! Here i was with lumber and some hardware for a project I was doing. I did not look forward to checking myself out with all that stuff. A little ole Cashier must have seen me looking around…or looking P***ed Off and come over and asked if there was somehthing I needed.

“Why yes there is” I told her

“I need a Cashier to check me out”

“Well, we now have these self checkout kiosk so you can check yourself out. It’s easier and faster” she told me.

“No offense” I said “If I’d wanted to be a Cashier at Home Depot, I would have applied for the job”. 

“Either someone checks me out or I leave all this stuff here and go to Lowes where they still have Cashiers who check people out”

She kindly pulled my flat over and started checking me out, took my money and gave me a receipt.  Before I left, I told her that she should be telling management that some people do not like checking their self out.

She said “All of us here have, but it’s a corporate decision”

“Too bad” I said “I bet Lowes is loving that Corporate decision”.

She said I wasn’t the only one complaining about it. She said in fact the vast majority of people hated it but that management said “Once they use it a while they’ll come to deal with it”

No, I won’t. I won’t shop there any longer just like I don’t shop at my local Kroger any longer. I go where I can get service.

Corporate America seems to think they can push whatever they want on us and we’ll accept it. I guess for most Sheeple, that’s correct because many will just bitch and moan about it and keep on shopping the same old place.

Well, I don’t. I have choices and if I have to choose, I’ll choose convienance and service over a low price any day of the week!

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