This guest post was written by Simon
I general, I abhor shopping in supermarkets. It is a fairly dull, dreary task, that doesn’t get anymore exciting the more you do it. Shopping when they are busy is even more upsetting. To avoid this scenario, I tend to go into supermarkets, specifically Tesco’s in Congleton, before I get to work, around 7 – 7.20 am. Unsurprisingly, the store is very quiet at this time in the morning, which is exactly how I like it.
However, it is still open for business, at least that was the impression I got from the fact that the store has “24 hour opening”. So I was rather disappointed to find when I got the checkouts this morning, they were all closed. This wasn’t due to the lack of staff available, just an unwillingness to do any work. I was then directed to the “self serve” checkouts by what looked like a checkout supervisor (the supermarket equivalent of a Russian mafia boss).
I hate the self-service checkouts. My objection to self-service checkouts is pretty straightforward. I work a considerable number of hours a week, so I do not want to put in another 10 minutes at Tesco’s grappling with a machine that doesn’t know what a banana is. What annoyed me even more is that there was a checkout assistant on an actual checkout. Instead of being available for customers, she was wiping it down with a cloth, presumably on the off chance that she might have the ingenuity to open it and serve customers in the store.
As if this wasn’t enough, whilst using the self-service checkout, I had another (slightly obese) member of staff point out that my “satsuma’s were not oranges”. Thanks for that information you moron! She then carefully watched me toil with the self-service checkout until the transaction was complete. Instead of watching customers process their own shopping, would it not be more courteous to open a checkout?
