Self checkout: love or hate!?

Big breakup in the Nashville scene. I have officially decided to end it with Self Checkout!
Here's the inside scoop:


At first, I was drawn to the whole concept. Short lines, no employees shooting you that fake "How are you?" to me as they check me out, and it was like I finally got the opportunity to live my childhood fantasy of playing "store" (You know that game: fake money, sometimes fake food or canned goods, old grocery bags, and siblings or friends play the customers... what can I say, i was an imaginative child! haha) but in REAL life. I finally had the opportunity to swipe real items across the scanner, bag my own stuff, pay the machine and get change back. Such gratification, but the luster of this process has officially grown old.

I decided to go to Wal-Mart today. I don't like going to Wal-Mart normally so I have NO idea why I ever thought going to Wal-Mart 6 days before Christmas was ever a good idea. During this trip, I decided Self Checkout and I are just not going to work out. The whole "it's me not you", is definitely not an excuse that is going to work for this relationship failure. Self Checkout needs to get its act together or it will never have another shot with me. End of story.

First of all, it needs to work on patience. I need more than 1 millisecond to put an item in the bag before it screams at me "Place the item in the bag". And if i didn't hear it the first time, it still keeps screaming at me "place the item in the bag biotch, i got other people to check out"... well that is what I hear anyways.

Self Checkout also needs to learn to listen and pay better attention. Many times it completely ignores me... I get my arm work out in swiping back and forth for five minutes just to figure out it is never going to scan my item. Or it adds too many of the same item to my cart. Then we get in a big fight because it screams at me the weight in the bags don't match my purchases and I say can't get the extra taken off because your telling me I need the manager's approval to fix the credit. Talk about one big mess...

Also, Self Checkout needs to trust. Depending on what I buy, Self Checkout will go behind my back and send someone to check up on me mid way through the process. Talk about trust issues. It should know I am always loyal but without fail, Self Checkout always plays the card "Please wait for assistance" just to be on the safe side. Then 15 minutes later, someone comes and rummages through my bag, checks my id, or types in some weird code into the computer. Worthless.

Ugh, these issues are just the tip of the iceberg but I think I made my point. Too bad this relationship didn't work out like I planned. It could have been great. But I will keep on dreaming the dream of of short lines, with quick, stress free checkouts. Never give up hope right?