Published on 12, July, 2020
I love self service tills in shops. They are much more hygienic than manned tills. The only unhygienic part is pressing the button asking how I'm making the payment and if I want a receipt.
On manned tills the operator touches every item of food I buy and on a recent visit I saw an operator sneeze all over herself and her hands and food items.
Now some shops are going into reverse, Booths are ripping out their self service tills, and my local branch of Iceland has gone back to manned tills only.
All opinions are welcome.
I like being able to have a short interaction with a human at a till or pay point, even if it is just an exchange of smiles and a P & T Y. As a predominantly "alone" human, I find these short and purposeful interactions with other humans quite important. It is important for me (at times) to be forced to interact with others, and these small and short interactions are being sliced away from my world.
Moreover, self-service tills hate me. The majority of times that I use them, something goes wrong.....and not just once....repeatedly. They are not good for my soul nor my blood pressure! I'm not a fan of the ever increasing computerisation of my interactions with the world.
Having worked in supermarkets for 30 years and at age 53, I quite agree Number, as I too have had the same experiences - as a world, we are becoming way too dependent on tech advances, mobile phones, etc and it’s a bad thing - even though I’d embraced tech advances in my teens in the 80’s, over the decades I’ve come to realise that we are losing the essential component of human interaction, which is slowly strangling our society and we are becoming prisoners of tech advances
At ASDA, if you want to pay in cash at a self-service till, a staff member has to swipe her card; just to activate the ability to use cash.
Sainsbury's self-service till is more cash-friendly. Having used it in Manchester Nine months ago, and Dungannon five months ago. But Sainsbury's is run by a Donor of Blair.
Number said: The majority of times that I use them, something goes wrong.
Yup. Over the years since they've been introduced, the machines haven't exactly become more reliable either. They constantly break on you, like a 70% hit rate and it gets very annoying.