Outsourcing to the customer
Hoping to avoid another excursion to our over-crowded H-E-B this weekend, we flew through the staples aisles at Albertsons. What an unpleasant surprise it was to see that only one check-out register was active. It was marked “express lane, 15 items or less.” The alternative was the new cashierless self-checkout system. My fellow-shopper loudly announced to the world at large that this would be his last shopping trip at Albertsons. Someone, perhaps summoned by the sole visible checker, appeared and asked why. The answer: because Albertsons doesn’t pay me to be a checker. The whole system was crazy anyhow. The store was quite busy, despite the downpour, and most of the customers had full carts and were therefore ineligible for the express (and only) register. I didn’t inspect the self-check stations up close, but they appeared to be tiny. Many of the customers were elderly, probably trying to avoid the excitements of the H-E-B. They weren’t understanding the system at all and were having difficulty dealing with heavier items. From behind the scenes, an additional checker appeared and opened a register. We were the first of a long line of people to avail ourselves of this service. However many the flurries of congratulatory pieces in such publications as Progressive Grocer and on the Web, all based on Albertsons press releases, self-checkout does not make for happny shoppers. Perhaps Mr. Larry Johnston should know about this. The Albertsons slogan is “helping make life easier.”
I’ve used those self-check out thingees at the HEB at Hancock Center. I hate them on principle–like the perturbed Albertson’s customer, I ain’t paid to check out my own groceries. Just like I hate the self-service kiosk in the post office (and the guy who stands there trying to force me to use it), I still want a real interaction with a real live clerk when I go to the store (or the post office). But at HEB, I find myself using the self-checkouts when I only have a few items and there is are lines at the regular check-outs. Sigh.
Home Depot also.
Just once, everybody line up at the human check-out.
Remember to tell the cashier that machine will have his/her job, soon.
Cingular doesn’t employee humans anymore either, call em and you can talk to a machine. Can’t get past it either.
I suppose I’m the voice of the minority in this discussion. I like the self-check lanes most of the time because I don’t shop for a cart full of stuff, and I’d rather take care of business and get on with my life than wait in line for the opportunity to be sneered at by a sullen teenager.
that being said, i can see the shortcomings of the self-check system, particularly for those who are elderly or others who might have trouble getting their groceries from shelf to cart in the first place. i like the option for myself, but i still hope the ‘traditional checker’ doesn’t go the way of the dinosaur, even if the service is delivered with a sneer more often than a smile.
I suppose I’m the voice of the minority in this discussion. I like the self-check lanes most of the time because I don’t shop for a cart full of stuff, and I’d rather take care of business and get on with my life than wait in line for the opportunity to be sneered at by a sullen teenager.
that being said, i can see the shortcomings of the self-check system, particularly for those who are elderly or others who might have trouble getting their groceries from shelf to cart in the first place. i like the option for myself, but i still hope the ‘traditional checker’ doesn’t go the way of the dinosaur, even if the service is delivered with a sneer more often than a smile.
We like our customary checkers and want them to keep having jobs. Maybe we see them regularly because we tend to be at certain stores on certain days of the week during particular shifts. We head for any one of three or four regulars at our regular H-E-B, any one of two at the Albertsons (that day, perversely, live people were available, until complaints were raised, only for 15 items or fewer), and for anybody at Kash-Karry FreshPlus. There’s never attitude at Wheatsville, tends not to be at the south Central Market (can’t say the same for the original), and it’s kind of half and half at Whole Foods, which had some regular business from us during the all-too-short time it was stocking that astonishingly great New Zealand lamb, and still does get some business when nobody else has Pedersen’s jalapeno sausage or Spanish almonds in stock. Sometimes we see familiar faces at Fiesta. They’re never teenagers, just weary middle-aged people with long lines of big orders to check through. It’s been a long time since a visit to Sun Harvest. We see the same checker at La Hacienda most times, the same checkers at the eastside City Market, the same faces at Crestview MiniMax. Good heavens; we do get around! We forage sometimes at additional H-E-B stores and very occasionally at Randalls, because no two stores in Austin, even in the same chain, carry the same stock. And besides, just as we’re working on hitting every library branch, we’re also totting up H-E-B branches.