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In reply to the discussion: No cashiers, please: Futuristic supermarket opens in Mideast [View all]Sympthsical
(9,028 posts)I pop into Safeway pretty often. It's next to gym, so I always go in for some little thing I need maybe every other day. Today was tea bags and red curry paste.
Place is jammed. There are two cashiers. Lines stretching into the aisles.
Yeah, there's no way I'm standing there for 15 minutes or more. If you go more towards opening or just vaguely later in the evening, it's always only ever one cashier. Again, newp. I swipe in self checkout and wander off in under two minutes.
When Costco got self checkout, it was my favorite day in personal shopping in history. Whenever I was trying to decide if I could do a Costco run, I always factored in a 20 minute wait at checkout. And if I only needed a few things, like butter and eggs, then I really had to decide if the wait was worth it. "Do I want to get behind this person with 42 items . . ."
Nope. Wander over, beep beep, leave.
They're doing it on purpose. They don't want to pay cashiers. They sure as shit know I'm not going to stand there if I don't have to. So they funnel us more and more towards automation.
I seriously do not understand why Safeway has like 8 check out aisles. Even on the absolute busiest days, I don't think I've ever seen more than three operating.
It's like they're taunting us.