Nice computers don’t need to go to the toilet, says Barclays Ever been invited to a party only to discover they gave you the wrong address? This doesn’t happen to me often but then I’m not the sort of person whom people invite to parties. Anyway, this wasn’t a party, it was a user group meetup. There I am, having made an attempt to smarten up a bit, travelled across town and …
Pah. An abomination unto Nuggan; the designers should have been strangled at birth.
"Wouldn't you like to use the automated system, sir?"
"No thank you, I'd rather talk to a human, and incidentally, provide some suggestion that he/she ought to be kept in a job."
On the other hand, it's kinda fun when you're forced onto one to see how far you can deviate from its programming and still get out of the shop without the security bod chasing you. Got the Tesco one down to exactly zero button presses, if I have sufficient coins.
I was just back in the UK for a short trip and twice had the "pleasure" of dealing with automated checkouts at WH Smith - first in the station in Manchester and then at Heathrow. In both cases the single assistant was in the back stocking shelves.
I truly felt like stealing the newspaper and stuff just to prove a point. Has the UK really become so honest and trustworthy in the past couple of years? Or are Smith's banking on the fact that anyone walking out with a newspaper will be tracked by CCTV all the way home and can be arrested forthwith?
I can see self checkout as an option, but to have no cashiers at all seems like madness.
The Tesco ones have a curious flaw that means you can get any "reduced" item for any arbitrary price you care to key in. That got me some pretty cheap meals when I was at uni, but 8 years later it still seems to work!
I won't go into the full details here, but if you look at the structure of the barcode on a few of the yellow "reduced" stickers it's pretty easy to figure it out...
Anon, because while I consider the conversation between me and the checkout-bot to be an Invitation to Treat under UK law, the rozzers might not agree...
Call me crazy if you must but personally I am rather fond of them, they eliminate so many annoying encounters with obnoxious, nosey, stupid or otherwise difficult to deal with retail staff.
You don't get the checkout operator looking over your purchases, giving you funny looks or making "witty" comments because you happen to purchasing certain items together.
You don't have to wait for the checkout operator to scan each individual item instead of scanning the same one repeatedly or pressing the multiply button, when you have 10 of the same thing and they won't just take your word for it.
You don't have to wait for the checkout operator to get on with doing their job instead of chatting to their colleague on the next till.
You don't have to wait for an older staff member to come over and allow the person actually serving you to sell you alcohol because the spotty oik on the checkout isn't 18 themselves yet.
You don't have to wait for the checkout operator to press the button to fire up the card machine for your contactless transaction, after explaining to them that no infact you don't want to put your card in the machine before they press the button, defeating the whole point of the speed and ease of NFC payments.
Maybe it's just me? Maybe it's because in former employment lives I've worked both in retail as a checkout operator and in IT installing EPOS systems? Maybe it's just because I don't like people?
I agree, I can usually belt through one of these in about 1/10 the time I can a normal checkout.
Here are two top tips.
One, if it's light, life a birthday card, slam it onto the weighing machine.
Two: If you get "unexpected item..blah, blah", just hit using my own bags. 9/10 times it fixes it.
Plus the upside is you can actually use the amount of bags you need as opposed to the amount they want you to use.
There is a Tesco's in West London that is open 24hrs a day.
Why is it then that the staff decide that with no 'human' till open at 06:30 it is time to cashup the Self-service checkouts? They take 4 of the 6 out of action letting a queue or people build up just when they are on their way to work.
Queue much gnashing of teeth from the masses trying to pay for their goods.
total and abject failure. Is it little wonder that Tesco's is the least fav store (apart from ASDA that is, who decide the need to see ID whenever I buy booze despite being in my 60's).
>apart from ASDA that is, who decide the need to see ID whenever I buy booze despite being in my 60's
Thanks to the draconian alcohol laws here in the US (Virginia to be more precise) I am asked for proof of age for ANY age-restricted product even though I'm well into my 50's. This includes non-alcoholic "beer". Go figure...
Personally in the shops where I use them (Sainsburys, Tesco, Boots, B&Q) I've never had one fail on me during use. I've only ever had to interact with staff for one of two reasons:
1. Buying an age restricted product (knives, alcohol and solvents etc)
2. I've bought something that is either too light/heavy for the scale. Light items, as suggested above can be whacked down onto the scale with some force which usually convinces it that the item is there.
However the B&Q self service checkout kept telling me to "Please put the item on the scale" when buying a number of 20+KG bags of sand and cement.
However that was still a human error, as someone had obviously flagged the product incorrectly on the system as needing to be put on the scale. Other heavy items I've bought there prompt a "please leave it in the trolley" announcement.
"You don't have to wait for an older staff member to come over and allow the person actually serving you to sell you alcohol because the spotty oik on the checkout isn't 18 themselves yet."
Yes you do. If there is an 18-plus item in there then the flashing lights will come on and sirens will sound and they will send someone over. Otherwise all the 14 year olds would be buying their cider via this route.
This isn't just a problem at self-service. On occasion I've tried to buy a bottle of alcohol with a head-scarfed till attendant at the supermarket. This is followed by an annoying wait until the store can find an Unbeliever who will actually handle the bottle.
Goes back to Alistair's comment about dealing with non-native customer service ...
"You don't have to wait for an older staff member to come over and allow the person actually serving you to sell you alcohol because the spotty oik on the checkout isn't 18 themselves yet."
I think you'll find that automated machines have to also have that done by a human. Sometimes its done at the remote console or at the same machine you're using, but it is ALWAYS done.
Because if it wasn't, a 16 year old buying beer would just press the "yes I am over 18" button and be off.
Indeed you still need a member of staff to approve the purchase, but my point was that the person who actually comes to do that is always of sufficient age to do so. You don't hear the automated checkout say "approval needed" then have a member of staff come over who then has to run off and find yet another member of staff to approve it.
What's the point in having a checkout operator who isn't able to sell you a number of items in the store because of their age. Leave them stacking shelves until they're 18.
So you have the choice of a person serving you who *may* need approval versus a machine that would *always* need approval.
I'm a big fan a technology, but I'll always choose the person over the machine. Especially if that person is particularly appealing to look at.
Simple solution there of course is to use common sense. If you're buying a basket full of booze, knives and glue go to a manned checkout (and get a "what the hell are you up to this weekend?" look).
If you're buying a few pints of milk and a newspaper go self service and get out much faster.
Also it may be my imagination (combined with the fact my alcohol purchases are mostly single malt scotch, not the first choice of your average underage drinker), but I seem to get asked to prove my age less often by the staff at the self service checkout.
"I'm a big fan a technology, but I'll always choose the person over the machine. Especially if that person is particularly appealing to look at."
And it's possible to have a conversation with the person. Have you ever tried to do that with an automated system? It just gets you funny looks from other customers.
As my mother said to a bank clerk urging her to use a machine instead of the cashier, "Why, do n't you want a job?". The cashier looked puzzled, confused and then abashed. She had never thought just how one would earn the money to extract from the machine.
For those averse to dealing with people, are you unser interface designers? It would explain a lot.
Ah yes but a Self Service machine can't be impressed, nay, amazed at my awesome combination of ingredients and marvel at the culinary genius required to come up with the audacious idea of buying *both* sliced and unsliced Chorizo and the doubtless masterchef-winning quality of the dinner I'm about to cook up.
That said, nor has any human checkout staff apart from in my head right up until I get to the checkout and see the perma-glazed "Meh" expression on the poor soul's face.
a Self Service machine can't be impressed, nay, amazed at my awesome combination of ingredients ... That said, nor has any human checkout staff
Except for the nice lady in Asda who, upon seeing that my entire shopping was a bottle of vodka and a tin of cat food, asked "is the vodka to wash away the taste love?".
Last time this subject popped up someone pointed out that most self service checkouts have a volume icon, that allows you to turn off the damn voice.
I'd just like to thank that person for making my life better for the last few months, every time I use one it gets muted.
"You don't get the checkout operator looking over your purchases, giving you funny looks or making "witty" comments because you happen to purchasing certain items together."
I don't know about that, when I was a youngling I was amused by one tilltender wishing me a pleasant evening as I exited the shop with a bottle of champagne and a box of condoms.
I usually don't dislike exchanging a word or 10 with fellow humans. I see enough automatons at work as it is.
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I hate the self checkout machines, simply because I will have an issue with "unexpected item in bagging area" (yeah, the item I just swiped), and if I buy anything like a beer, I have to get someone to approve me.
Sadly, because Tesco are the worst supermarket ever, and cost-cutting their staffing levels to the operators of the self-checkout tills, you are forced to queue for ten minutes before you can use them whilst looking wistfully at the ten empty cashier tills.
Half of them have the red flashing light on indicating a fault too. Don't break, my arse.
Not quicker either, a cashier till has someone to pack the bags - you. A self checkout takes longer because it's scan then bag, scan then bag. No parallelism.
There is one drugstore within walking distance of the office that has no self-service checkout. I attribute this to the demanding ways of the White House and World Bank staff, who I imagine to be too self-important to fuss with punching buttons and bagging their own stuff. The drawback seems to be that the gents are all metrosexuals who wouldn't dream of buying shaving soap, but purchase canned cream or gels instead. So it's back to the self-service checkout today.
MrsPage and I have have been using these fold-up crates to pack our shopping into. Get to the checkout, unload on belt, get to other end, and pack crate (in trolley) faster than the checkout operator can scan them. Really flummoxes the twunts[1] who like to make customers scrabble by not turning on the output belt, as I can take the item from their hand.
Added bonus is box can then be stacked nicely in boot, and not fall over like a collection of bags.
As to scanning items individually, it's the trained procedure. There are numerous lines where items look identical, but aren't ... not only is there the risk of a pricing difference, but also stock control and special offers need to know.
[1]You might think you invented the idea of jerking around with customers, with your youth, haircut, and facial ironmongery, but you don't realise this 45+ duffer used to work in Sainsburys on Saturdays, just like you ...
So tell me, what's life like in your alternative dimension?
I understand that a lot of techies have problems communicating with homo sapiens in person, but in the world I inhabit, London minimum-wage staff are no worse than most.
Conversely, self -service checkouts don't keep you waiting while they natter with other people, nor do they short change you, and the simple failures they indulge in are easily resolved by human intervention, unlike their human counterparts.
But through the Looking Glass, you seem to have a different world...
Self service checkouts in Waitrose have far better manners than ones in plebian stores such as Tesco or Sainsburys: after you pay, and it detects your items are still on the platform, it doesn't repeatedly tell you to shove off, which is obnoxious and unnecessary, because you're no doubt trying to get a hold of your items.
For 18 months I have been travelling down once a week from ipswich to heathrow.
I get a return ticket (£116 a week !!!!!)
On getting to the automated barriers at liverpool st, it refuses the ticket.
After 2 or 3 weeks of this, I realised it was not just a shit ticket - but an inherent problem - so started queuing up with the season pass holders for the one human at one side of the 10 barriers right away rather than wasting my time trying the fucker in the machine, and have to show that to him every week.
Around 1 time in 3 he still insists that I try it - which of course I have to do even after telling him it won't work... and it doesn't work.
ah... you are thinking - why don't you sort this at the source!
well... after about 6 months, I remembered one monday morning while getting my ticket.
"Er.. see these tickets you give me. I get them every week. They never work in the automatic barrier at liverpool street"
train grunt: "Oh"
"Yeh.. I mean I'm not talking about now and again, I mean every week for 6 months. I'm assuming since they work for most folk, that your system has some sort of bug in it and is screwing up tickets which end in heathrow somehow"
<pause> i am silently stared at.
"er... I just though maybe you'd like to know the details... maybe you could pass them on to someone. you know - it's probably affecting other people and other routes going by the number of other people I see having their tickets refused by the barriers"
<pause> I am still silently stared at.
"right then... er... goodbye"
that was 12 months ago.
they still don't work.
To be fair the train ticket grunt is still about 4x quicker at issuing a ticket than the asthmatic automatic ticketing machine - which seems to have cornered the market in 1980s dot matrix printers and takes around 1 minute (which is a loooong fucking time when you are waiting there) to print out 3 ticket parts.
I have an unfortunate tendency to kick the barriers if they're playing up. A man in a hi-viz jacket tried to admonish me on one such occasion, but when I began ranting about how I pay X-hundreds of pounds a month for my travel pass only to have the fucking thing slam in my face, he sort of hummed and nodded as he let me through.
On the London Underground, the barriers frequently open for you and then almost immediately close as you're about halfway through. One of these slammed with such unexpected force that it caught my hand carrying my Oyster card and snapped the card in two. They had to drag me away from kicking the shit out of the thing.
Ah yes... the underground...
I soon realised I had to wait for the person infront of me to actually GO THROUGH the barrier...
since By default you swipe as you are already walking into the gate.
So of course, there oyster card has expired, but muggins behind swipes his ticket.
voila, they scoot through on your ticket.. leaving you then wondering for a second why your ticket isn't working before realising what's happened.
it look a few times for the penny to drop. I'm pretty sure this is an accepted way of using the underground without paying...
So now I wait until punter in front has actually got gate to open and has departed before my ticket is fed into the thing.
I still often wonder how foreigners manage not to get lost on platforms with more than one line - as LU still seem to expect that simply specifying that the next train is for 'BARKING' will endow the perspective passenger with the magical knowledge that it is on the hamersmith and city line, and that they need to memorise every single stop on the circle line and wait for a train with one of those on the front to get on the circle line....is it so fucking difficult to put: "H&C: BARKING' or "CIRCLE:EMBANKMENT"
poor bastards
The pleasure and delight of a Greater Anglia experience.
I think everyone should have the pleasure.
Recently I was shouted at by a chap who told be not to vault the staff entrance barrier at Norwich. He melted down when I suggested that he didn't have a sign saying I couldn't vault the barrier. I don't think they like me much on their notwork.
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