Is there a worse invention in recent years than the self-scanning checkout line at grocery stores? I don’t think so. They don’t speed things up. They aren’t convenient. They expect you to be every bit as skilled as the trained checkout person — and not just when scanning the item originally, but also in fixing something if it scans the wrong way. (And do I even need to mention that they take jobs away from the economy?)
The first time I tried one of these lines, I had about six items with me — “Sure, this can’t take too long.” Well, the tomatoes didn’t have a scan code on them. The bread scanned at the wrong price. The gal assigned to monitor us daring self-scanners was, of course, busy with other customers having the same problems I was. And in the end, it took about 8 minutes more than it would’ve taken in a regular line.
And this a step in the right direction?
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