Self service tills.

I think Lidl is the only large shop I've been in in recent times that has yet to introduce the self-service option. In a way it's good that that forces me to exercise my sociability muscle with a stranger. However, with most supermarkets I confess that I scurry to the self-service whenever possible. It's not even so much a sense of 'I don't want to people right now' as 'I don't have to inflict my awfulness on anyone this way' (I feel much less monstrous than I used to though, so it's no longer a traumatising thought, just reflexive habit I need to keep in check) and 'I don't have to put anyone to any trouble' (which is silly I know, as it's customers who keep the till staff in gainful employment, and I'm as interchangable with anyone else in that regard - not intrinsically less worthy).

One other reason I quite like the self-service (in supermarkets at least, less so in petrol stations for some reason): my little collection of items and its component ratios isn't subjected to the scrutiny of at least two people - one at the till and one over my shoulder in the queue. That sense of discomfort so well summed up by Richard Herring one time when he talked about the 'oh, *someone* likes yoghurt...' factor. There are worse things too (toilet roll - shock horror!) that I just prefer to surreptitiously get scanned observed by me and me alone. Total irrational madness of course, as what cuold be more of a great leveller than that? And yet maybe that's it. The awfulness of the universality of 'functions', and the unspoken shame of it all that passes between two people - customer and worker- in a wordless understanding about our baser nature. Self-service at least feels like it puts one fewer such moment into the collective cringe that probably only a minority experiences... for good or ill. 

I think Lidl is the only large shop I've been in in recent times that has yet to introduce the self-service option. In a way it's good that that forces me to exercise my sociability muscle with a stranger. However, with most supermarkets I confess that I scurry to the self-service whenever possible. It's not even so much a sense of 'I don't want to people right now' as 'I don't have to inflict my awfulness on anyone this way' (I feel much less monstrous than I used to though, so it's no longer a traumatising thought, just reflexive habit I need to keep in check) and 'I don't have to put anyone to any trouble' (which is silly I know, as it's customers who keep the till staff in gainful employment, and I'm as interchangable with anyone else in that regard - not intrinsically less worthy).

One other reason I quite like the self-service (in supermarkets at least, less so in petrol stations for some reason): my little collection of items and its component ratios isn't subjected to the scrutiny of at least two people - one at the till and one over my shoulder in the queue. That sense of discomfort so well summed up by Richard Herring one time when he talked about the 'oh, *someone* likes yoghurt...' factor. There are worse things too (toilet roll - shock horror!) that I just prefer to surreptitiously get scanned observed by me and me alone. Total irrational madness of course, as what cuold be more of a great leveller than that? And yet maybe that's it. The awfulness of the universality of 'functions', and the unspoken shame of it all that passes between two people - customer and worker- in a wordless understanding about our baser nature. Self-service at least feels like it puts one fewer such moment into the collective cringe that probably only a minority experiences... for good or ill. 

I like to have a nosey on the conveyor belt at what people in front of me are buying when at the manned tills. And I think there's a scene from the Fast Show on similar lines. 

Edit m.youtube.com/watch fast show

The self service tills in aldi are the worst for noise and telling you what to do. Completely unnecessary.