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.
While I have a preference for using self-service tills, I consider it a good thing for stores to cater to everyone by giving their customers a choice and having manned tills as well.
I don't know if it still happens in the stores that have manned tills, but at busy times the cashier (or other member of staff) would help to pack customers' shopping bags, to free up space for the next customer waiting in the queue. Whilst I could understand the need for that if the queue of customers was obstructing the aisles, having someone else assist me in packing my shopping used to drive me potty.
Another gripe of mine regarding manned tills is when the customer who is first in the queue is known to the cashier, and they strike up a conversation. I'm not referring to a simple exchange of pleasantries (small talk), but an in-depth conversation that lasts for several minutes.
Because I do not drive, if I have more than one bag of shopping, I like to distribute the weight of my shopping. If I find myself struggling and physically unable to carry a bag of shopping because it contains too many heavy items, then it means I have to faff around reorganising the contents in my shopping bags. This is not a problem when using self-service tills.
However, the drawback to self-service tills is when one requires an assistant to verify the customer is old enough to be purchasing paracetamol, or to deal with an "unexpected item in bagging area" issue. As a customer, it can also be mildly frustrating if I have an item of clothing that I am unable to pack until an assistant has removed the security tag.
"Unexpected item in bagging area" That's the worst but as it feels like there's a large arrow pointing at me.
We should perhaps get that phrase printed onto t-shirts and have one day a year when ALL autistic people wear them?
Yes like that.
Now there's an idea. In addition to wearing such a T-shirt, I might even perch myself on the bagging area so that I can be the "unexpected item".