CycleChat Investigates - Self Service Tills

What do you think of self service checkouts?

  • I love them. They speed me swifty onwards with my purchases.

    Votes: 29 34.5%
  • I can't stand them. They're not actually any quicker and take jobs from real humans.

    Votes: 38 45.2%
  • Meh. Don't care so long as I get my shopping.

    Votes: 12 14.3%
  • I don't have a TV.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I'm a shoplifter.

    Votes: 5 6.0%

  • Total voters
    84
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MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
Works fine on a bunch of 3 or 4 bananas

that's because it knows the average weight of three or four bananas.
 

presta

Legendary Member
You know all you're achieving with that is annoying other customers and leaving some underpaid employee with the headache of your tantrum, and those customers, right?

There was a till in Tesco that was what you might call 'slow':

Put an onion on the scale & press 'o'.
Nothing happens
Wait
Press o again
Nothing happens
Press again
Wait
"ooo, sorry, we haven't got any of those"
Press delete
Nothing happens
Wait
Wait some more
Press delete again, and just as your finger touches the screen, the page changes, and you end up with cream cakes.
Press delete
Nothing happens
Wait
Wait a lot more
Screen saver blanks screen
Wait
Wait....
"Well, do you want to continue with transaction or not?"

It wasn't just the once, it had been like it for weeks, and I'd spoken to staff about it before: "Uh yeah, that one is a bit dodgy"

After weeks of no repair I walked out, and told them to get the checkout fixed as I went past. Then it got fixed.

I wonder how many other people have been patient enough with a checkout to find out how long it takes the screen saver to come on.
 

Mike_P

Guru
Location
Harrogate
Best ones that I have come across were the first lot the local Asda had, you could empty a pocket of change into it and it would count the coins promptly. They then replaced them with ones that took each coin in turn very slowly. Sure it was deliberate to make you use a card.
 

Mike_P

Guru
Location
Harrogate
Just had a problem with a M&S one. It scanned a gift card on my mobile okay but there was still 4.45 to pay tried scanning another but the display greyed out. An assistant tried and at the third attempt it worked.
 

presta

Legendary Member
Works fine on a bunch of 3 or 4 bananas
If a scale measures 500g it doesn't know whether that's four 125g, or five 100g bananas, or three 166g apples. If you put a pineapple on and tell it it's a kiwi fruit it will know that even the largest kiwi doesn't weigh 1100g, but if you put eleven kiwi on it won't know it's not a pineapple.
 

Mike_P

Guru
Location
Harrogate
If a scale measures 500g it doesn't know whether that's four 125g, or five 100g bananas, or three 166g apples. If you put a pineapple on and tell it it's a kiwi fruit it will know that even the largest kiwi doesn't weigh 1100g, but if you put eleven kiwi on it won't know it's not a pineapple.

Pretty sure the ones I am talking about are a bit more than just the weight as there is a sensor so it's taking an image of the fruit/veg
 
WIth fruit I always use the scales near the fruit section and get a proper scanable label from them

That one seems to work better - assuming the printer has some labels anyway

Also good to teach the grandkis about numbers and stuff and makes the till "experience" quicker
 
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