Technology
Which posts fit here?
Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
Rules
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original link
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
[email protected]
[email protected]
Icon attribution | Banner attribution
view the rest of the comments
I’ve seen several of these articles over the past few months. Someone is pushing hard to make self checkout seem bad. If it wasn’t for self checkout I’d absolutely hate the grocery store. Lines fucking suck. Self checkout is a more efficient line because it usually feeds many machines, rather than being 1-1. Not only that but I can do self checkout in about half the time it takes any normal cashier to check me out. I know exactly the stuff I picked up, exactly the way I want it in bags, and exactly the order I need to do things in.
But you get lines with self checkout. Longer often because customers are slower than clerks.
But statistically, there will still be a shorter average wait. If there's a slow customer on one machine, the line only slows slightly as the other five machines are still moving along as usual. And people tend to use the self-checkout when they have fewer items (generally), which means less wait per person.
Even if you have lots of slow customers, the wait will generally not be any longer. If the wait is longer than the staffed checkout, some people will move over and the line self-regulates. And even if it doesn't, there are still lots of slow/chatty checkout staff (at least where I live), so I don't think they're any faster.
Unless you go to Aldi. Those people mean business.
Last time I was at a store there wasn't even a staffed checkout. Unsure what they do if someone needs one.
In my case they end up paying several employees to put the stuff back on the shelf from the cart I left behind and probably throw out some meat/frozen products.
That may be the case, but how often before self checkout became available did you go to the store and of the 15 check out lanes there were maybe one or two open.
That's the massive difference. With self checkout there will be as many as 12 machines running simultaneously which means that everybody gets out of there so much faster
you get shorter lines with self-checkout. 2 cashiers can checkout 2 people at a time, while 2 self-checkout attendants can oversee a dozen checkout stations
These are just my personal observations, but I hardly ever see staffed checkout without a line. I hardly ever see self checkout with a line.