this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech::When Walmart's anti-theft self-checkout tech alerts an employee of a missed scan, it can cause some uncomfortable situations.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Normalize leaving your groceries in the cart and leaving the store, and finding another store that doesnt make you bend over backwards to pay for your shit.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

and finding another store that doesnt make you bend over backwards to pay for your shit.

Not so easy in a small town where the big box stores have killed local business.

[–] DJDarren 10 points 1 year ago

The only real outcome from that is to make underpaid employees have to put all your shit back.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

When their AI is well trained on social behaviours, they'll start sending Minority reports

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (19 children)

I don't understand people that get upset and hostile at employees in these situations. When I go through self checkout I go in with expectations already set that it's very likely that at some point during the checkout process the machine is going to trigger an alarm and an employee will need to come over and override the alarm. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does my first reaction isn't to get all pissy and throw things at the cashier.

If you have no patience for this sort of thing, then go through the regular checkout. See if it takes longer going that route.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

I think a lot of it has to do with that last part of your comment. The amount of times I've gone to the grocery store to find there's no register open other than the self checks or that there's 1-2 open at a huge grocery store with a 6-8 people in line for them and no self check line... People are being forced into self checking when they don't want to. These people are obviously going to be more easily upset by issues with the self check machines. Walmart in my limited experience (try to never buy anything there if I can avoid it) is the worst offender I've seen.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Ohh man i fucking hate self checkouts with a passion the soulless passive agress voice. The voice annoynecemnts to scan rewards card to take groceries to take recipt the 3 different "would u like to dobate to x" that constantly swap wheres the yes and no button is. Then sometimes it just fucking freezes and cos the bloody product isnt heavy enough to detect and it wont give me the ability to scan something till the other thing has been put down. I have no multiply button so if im buying 30 of something then i have to get a godamn employee to go into the employee section and hit the multiply button or my inabiloty to remove something once scanned. It all pisses me ofd so much. I do however have to say aldi has figured it out and i hope they dont go down the route of everyone else.

It almost pisses me off as much as ordering food via a qrcode and then being asked for a fucking tip. Im in australia we dont tip cos we have a fucking decebt minimum wage. But why does the fucking robot need a tip it disnt have exemplary service its a fucking machine.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Seems like i have a complete different experience of self checkout here in Germany. But why? Are our devices newer?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No we just care less about theft. The German ones are build to maximace speed and therefore usability. This theoretically makes it rather easy to steal.

If this would become to much of a problem they would also reduce comfort to increase security

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In Finland, we've been getting handheld scanners in a few shops where you scan and pack while you shop, and then pay everything at once. The "theft prevention" is very infrequent random checks where they ask to rescan three items to see if you paid for them.
It feels like stealing would become really common, but it's been a few years and they are just installing more of em, so I guess not.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Same Czech Republic and Slovakia. All the stores have now majority of sell checkout registers. People prefer them. No issues with them.

There is usually one person assigned to 6-8 of these that is watching and making the corrections.

It cut the waiting time significantly.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Is this an American thing? We had these things in Europe for years, and I never heard of anyone having problems.

Older people still prefer regular checkout, scary computers and that sort of deal.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (9 children)

This post has reminded me that I should go steal from Walmart soon.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In Sweden we usually have a self-checkout alternative where you acquire a wireless scanner when walking in, scanning when picking from shelves and put it directly in shopping bags.

At checkout, you just pay and walk out. There is random controls, where an employee will check like 5 randomly chosen things from the bags. This is seldom though, like once every three/four months or something.

Makes for very quick checkout.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I'm cool with checking myself out I actually prefer to but the anti theft nonsense is to much. Nearly everyone triggers it and last time I had to wait an extra five minutes for an employee to clear it and then they had to count 20+ small items all because I waved my arms over the machine fixing the cuff of my shirt.... I don't blame the employees that's their job

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

LET ME AT LEAST MUTE IT

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