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Things I Learn While Shopping at the Grocery Store: An Ongoing Struggle — Self-Checkout

Most grocery stores that have leaped into the 21st century have what’s called self-checkout, a marvelous new technology wherein you check yourself out, scanning the items, weighing the fruits and vegetables, inserting the credit cards, et cetera. Since it’s a new, imperfect technology, most stores also have a human monitor for the self-checkout, sitting in this raised desk that looks over the entire self-checkout area, not unlike a lifeguard station.

I’ve used the self-checkout at grocery stores in Chicago, and it’s very easy-to-use and handy because usually when I go to the grocery store, I buy a pack of gum and some coffee. I’m not buying dinner for ten, and in my experience, Chicagoans are terrified of the self-checkouts and avoid them like the plague. You never have to wait for the self-checkout, which is why I use them.

And then there’s Ralphs, with their U-Chek-Out. I don’t know what they did, but they’ve managed to take all the simplicity and fun out of the self-checkout. It has crazy sensors that make sure you’re bagging and/or leaving your items on the shelf next to the scanner, because putting it back on your cart is madness. And it’s very sensitive. At one point I held two items, one in each hand, and the scanner kept coming up wrong. The ivory-tower lady looked down upon me and said, “It’s ‘cause you got something in your hand.” What in the name of God is sensing that I have a completely separate object, held at a safe distance, in my opposite hand?

Now I know why people from Chicago hate the self-checkout: paranoia. We’re by no means backward rubes (well, most of us…), but in that area there’s a general sense that if a machine knows you are putting items in your cart or holding them in your hand without scanning them, perhaps this technology should be buried under 30 feet of steel and never seen again by human eyes. Nobody seems to be bothered by it here, but I was pretty freaked out.

Perhaps waiting in line is worth the effort.

Posted by Stan on May 4, 2005 5:26 PM  | Permalink | Random Musings | Digg It