egafd.com

I like them! I think I'm opposite to you guys though in that I don't want the checkout woman waffling to me n taking twice as long to scan my shopping, just get on with it!

Whenever I'm in sainsburys I always make a point of going to the self service checkout. I think it's mainly because I'm ffilling my 4 yr old dream of scanning the items lol.

All good points made here, but one point I'd like to make is that 4 self service checkouts take up the space of only 2 'normal' checkouts, which probably wouldn't even usually be open anyway due to them being shirt staffed!

max_tranmere wrote:

>... but there is not as much annoyance over this as there
> apparently was a few decades ago when supermarkets became
> self-service. A while back there was always an assistant in a
> tie and apron getting the stuff for you from behind a large
> counter and bagging it. The first time you touched the items
> were after you had paid and been handed them. The concept of
> lanes with rows of items left and right of you started - and
> you had to get them yourself. We accept this as the norm now,
> but when it first began it irritated lots of people and
> apparently led to many complaints.

Apparently, Max is revealing here his age to us...

Because I'm getting on a bit in years myself, but specialists grocers shops aside (bakers, butchers, etc. - I even vaguely recall a shop where grandma bought fresh milk that was filled into a canister) I do not recall being in shops like that. In my early childhood the norm were the kind of shops we would now call convenience stores.

Glad you've said that. I don't mind them either. A machine can't be overly inquisitive about your weekend where you wish it'd shut the fuck up, nor can it appear rude and miserable because it hasn't said a dickie bird.

And the sooner Google get round to releasing those self-driving vehicles the sooner we can replace nattering taxi drivers.

They're okay for a handful of items, and from a marketing perspective I can see the appeal.

Plus, we're now in the age of internet shopping, which may well be part of the cause. Whingeing about them seems, dunno - a bit pointless?

lol. I wont tell you my exact age, but I was a little kid in the 1970s and a teen in the 1980s. All this stuff about shops in the old days I heard from others. It sounds like quite a nice touch to have someone do it all for you, although there would probably have been long queues.

I went in to Tescos the other day just to buy a couple of things and when i got to the checkout and asked for a carrier bag the girl said that they had run out and didnt have any in the store and a quick look along the checkouts i could see she was right, except i was told the next day that they had loads of bags but were just doing a survey to find out the customers reaction if they withdrawl free carrier bags, so you know what to expect in the future bring your own bags...

"Whingeing about them seems, dunno - a bit pointless?"

Wrong.

I do anyway.
nd when I use the self scan I always say I have used some of their bags.You get green points for that!

Years ago you always took a bag with you went you went shopping and i dont just mean the misses, looks like we will have to get in to the habbit of doing it again...

beutelwolf wrote:


>
> Apparently, Max is revealing here his age to us...
>
> Because I'm getting on a bit in years myself, but specialists
> grocers shops aside (bakers, butchers, etc. - I even vaguely
> recall a shop where grandma bought fresh milk that was filled
> into a canister) I do not recall being in shops like that. In
> my early childhood the norm were the kind of shops we would now
> call convenience stores.

Maybe showing my age too, but I remember being taken shopping with my mum as a nipper to Sainsburys in Surbiton and that was a case of asking for items and the man behind the counter getting them off a shelf behind him.