Check out the latest industry to leave us holding the bag

God bless you for being our cheerful cashier for minimum wage!!!!!!! Cheers, MGM

I find I am nicely treated by cashiers 99% of the time. But, by the same token, I am polite and friendly to them as I go through their lines. : -) Would this be an example of the golden rule, perhaps?

Personally, I love the self-checkout when I have a few items...but for a loaded cart, it's much quicker to have the assistance of a cashier and bagger.

I'm an "old fashioned" (as in real-live cashier) and for most of my shopping I really do like the self-check out. I know I know, it's potentially taking my job away, but let's face it, I'm not going to be a cashier forever and only doing it now because of school. But a little insight for you guys: as for quantity vs. quality of checkout, that's a pressure put on us by both management and the other customers behind you rolling their eyes wondering why that blockhead cashier is taking a whole 5 minutes to ring up 50 individual cans of cat food. I'm fairly quick regardless so I do my best to keep like things together and to seperate fragile items from each other while getting people through but you can't have both the absolute fastest ringers and a perfectly organized assortment of grocery bags. Be patient when you can tell we're trying and that's all I'm going to say.

ok folks, why is everything here so one sided? Being a cashier (and HATING IT! Not only because it is demeaning and people are exceptionally rude time and time again regardless if you're rude first or if you are polite, civil, and smile but because Ive been at the same job for over a year, work my ass off while others have fun, i haven't gotten a single raise [sorry i did because minimum wage went up] and yet im not only treated like crap by customers but by coworkers alike that have been there since centuries past.) No instead im being mistaken for yet another dumb high school kid who doesn't know what they're doing. NEWS FLASH!!! yes i know what im doing!!! most of us know what we're doing. The issue at hand here is not the self check out or the teenagers ringing you up, the problem is management. DING DING DING!!!! A lot of people are miserable about their shopping experience yet very few complain and mo

For those who don't like the self checkout, go to another store. Prices at the non self checkout are no better at the self checkout, even with data collection "loyalty cards". Lets say Kroger notices that their parking lot is empty and people are "circling the lots waiting for a space, those self checkout will be gone almost the next day. You can complain all you want, but until it hits the stores bottom line, nothing will change.

Vote for or against the self check out with your feet.

"You have a very valid point, and take your own point and look at the fact that those same stores will use the excuse of paying employees to stand around doing nothing on the midnight shift to raise prices even more."

I can understand the midnight shift, and wasn't even thinking about them, but chances are if they don't need cashiers at midnight, they probably don't need to even be open. Maybe they should close the store.....look how much money they could save then, but they still would not pass that savings to reduce prices.

If your experience is that annoying, why not engage the manager on duty? I certainly have no issue doing that. To be honest, I prefer the self-checkout lines. I can't stand waiting in a cashier line behind people who have baskets and carts full of stuff and waiting for nitwit high schoolers to figure out the machinery. I really wish Sams Club by my house would do that. It would make it so much easier to get in and get out...

You have a very valid point, and take your own point and look at the fact that those same stores will use the excuse of paying employees to stand around doing nothing on the midnight shift to raise prices even more.

I find that self-serve checkouts are more accurate because I am not talking with the bagger about last night's date, etc.(as I have encountered with some cashiers) I am focussed on my task (it's my money)- unlike some cashiers. I can bag my food as I want (which I frequently do even with cashiers) keeping cold food together, cleaning products together, etc. I do not mash my bread or tomatoes, etc.
And I prefer my own reusable bags to plastic. As a garden club member, we stress ecology & conservation as well as litter control. If everyone used their own bags we wouldn't see so many plactic bags along the roadways. And one local chain even deducts 5 cents per bag for using your own. Not much, but it adds up.

You really have to be kidding. Grocery prices have been going through the roof, and reportedly because of gas price increases. "If" gas prices should go back down, don't expect food prices to follow. That's simply not going to happen. Once people get use to higher prices, including gasoline, prices stay where they are regardless of any circumstance.

...sometimes you have to do it yourself. My wife goes to the grocery store once a week. Over half of her visits result in having to get refunds on items that rang up over the shelf price or money back because some of her coupons weren't credited (as for items ringing up lower than shelf-price, that’s VERY rare – how odd). She does catch many errors while in line, but it seems many cashiers seem to only care about getting people through - quantity vs. quality. It's not the check-out person who is losing money, so why care? We will always use the self-checkout when possible, but that doesn't happen often as stores limit self-checkout to 20 items or less. Doing it ourselves means we're more careful with scanning, applying coupons, and bagging.

Well, I shop at 3 different grocery stores in Virginia Beach and only one has the self checkout lines and the employees happen to be union. I think the high pay might have something to do with it? Besides, automation is the way that society progresses. Do you think all those circuit boards in all your electronics are put together by hand? At one time they were, but cost a lot of money. How about the auto industry? Do you want to pay twice as much for a car that was put together by hand? It is already in the works to have smart shopping carts that will recognize what is in there and you will not even have to scan the items. Get used to it.

And if you went back to cashiers at all those checkout counters and multiply them by tens of thousands, and combine those salaries with fuel price increases, that adds up to grocery prices that thousands cannot afford to pay to feed their families. I believe that if you go to most stores, they have several staffed registers which employ an ample amount of employees....during the day. If, however, you do your shopping at midnight like Miss Dougherty here, why would you hire cashiers to work a full overnight shift to serve about 2 or 3 customers (or "chumps") an hour, when you can pass those savings on in lower food prices?

Self checkout is one less job, but multiply that by the thousands of stores that are doing it and you are looking at an increase in unemployment across the country.

As someone once told me, a self checkout is one less job for Americans. It is a blatant attempt by stores to reduce customer service and save a buck. Go into a Walmart and see 2 clerks working in a line of 20 checkouts, with 4 self checkouts open with 30 people standing in line. I have not ever saved one minute by using a self checkout and usually have the barcode not found error or some other stupid thing that prevents me from checking out ("weight of item in bagging area does not match scanned item" is my favorite) until the clerk manages to find time to assist between the other four customers having the same problem. Just refuse to use them. We need to start holding businesses accountable for customer service (How about the declining customer service experience for another column?).

Self service gasoline came with a discount. Full service is still around today but it costs more money to get it. Why don't retailers follow the same model? Use the self checkout, get a discount! As far as I'm concerned, the prices at the store pay the salary of the cashier. When self checkout was introduced, they didn't lower prices to compensate for the cashiers they weren't paying, so why should I give up a service I'm paying for?

If they insist on making us do the work, then we should be getting lower prices. The ONLY people benefitting from self-checkout is corporate HQ. I went to a local hardware store and bought some trim for my kitchen. It was 16 feet long and priced by the foot. The only lane open was the self-checkout. I told them that it wasn't going to work, that there was no way for me to enter how much I wanted. They tried anyway, and after about 10 minutes, they had to open and ring it up and at a manned register. Normally, I would have left, but I wanted them to do their job for a change. I should have walked out with my things, came back in a returned it, just for principal. If I go to a grocery store with no regular lanes open I will request one or leave the basket full of perishables just sitting there if they refuse.

fedup with corporate America

I love the self check out lines. I really dislike telling the bagger how to do their job. They either stuff the bags so full that it all falls out in the trunk or they are putting raw sausage and chicken in with the bread. I think it would be funny, though if someone reprogrammed the voice to say "It puts the item in the bag or else it gets the hose again"

By the way, it is illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey, maybe you should move there.

I do my grocery shopping at Walmart, and normally use the self-checkout. It's faster, and I can bag my groceries as I want them.

In addition, you avoid cashiers like the one Kerry comments on. Last trip to Walmart I had to use a manned lane and got someone with a "I don't really care" attitude.