I don't tend to shop in supermarkets - one of the advantages of working from home is that I have time to go round the local shops and buy there. (Incidentally, credit crunch followers, if you shop for fruit and veg in greengrocers it's miles cheaper than in the supermarket, and you get that warm glow of satisfaction of supporting your local businesses. But I digress.) However, from time to time, such as today, I do pop into Tesco when I have a list of things that can't easily be supplied locally. The queues at the checkout were massive so I went to the self-service check-out instead. Now, Tesco has these signs all over the place encouraging you to bring your own carrier bags, which I always do (am I insufferably smug yet?) This is all well and good - unless you happen to be shopping via the self-service check-out. For those of you unfamiliar with the method, you place your unscanned shopping to one side of the scanner, scan it across item by item, and then put it in bags in the bagging area. If you put something in the bagging area that hasn't been scanned, a voice says WARNING. UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. PLEASE REMOVE IT BEFORE YOU PROCEED. And carries on repeating this and refusing to let you scan anything else until you remove your unexpected item. Your unexpected item, such as a bag, say. Your shopping bag that you brought with you. According to Tesco, this is a highly unexpected item to have in the bagging area. Now, if you keep the unexpected bag very still, sometimes the machine will forget that it's there, so you can carry on shopping. Unfortunately, the moment you move it, say, by placing an item into it, the machine will notice its unexpected presence again and start telling you to remove it again. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: why don't you just put your unexpected bag somewhere else, outside the bagging area? But Tesco have anticipated this. If you scan your item and don't put it in the bagging area, the same voice (annoying woman, like the annoying satnav woman and the annoying voicemail woman and all the rest of the annoying voice women - why are they *always* women?) will warn you PLEASE PLACE YOUR ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA BEFORE PROCEEDING. And then, when you do, of course: WARNING: UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. Apparently, reasoning with the machine that there is no unexpected item in the bagging area, that all there is is a BAG, that you are BAGGING INTO, does not help, nor does shouting at it. Apparently reasoning / shouting at the machine doesn't help appease the gigantic queue that has formed behind you, planet-killers all, who have not brought their own bags. Apparently people in Tesco just won't like you very much at all. Unlike my nice local shopkeepers who like me loads and never act all UNEXPECTED when I produce my own bags. So I don't EXPECT I'm going to go back to Tesco in a hurry.
Employee gets laid off due to extreme body odor: ‘I genuinely felt bad for
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To pass the smell test
I felt really identified with this story because I've had to deal with this
issue multiple times in my life. I don't mean with my bo...
2 hours ago
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9 comments:
All self-serves are weighted. My trick is to keep it my bags on the side with all the stuff I'm buying, then when I go to scan something - put it in the bag and place it in the bagging area. Then I'm free to fill it up without worries. It seems to work but it is a total nuissance.
Ah. Yes. That happens to me *every time*. You just need to ask the person manning the computer thingy at the end of the tills to press a secret button - it then accepts your shopping bag quite happily. I agree, it's a little daft.
I had exactly the same experience this weekend. I removed my unexpected bag from the bagging area, then piled everything up there until I was done before moving it all into my bag. From now on I'm going to try Evil Pixie's cunning ruse.
I like the idea of self-service but it's always a massive pain. I go to my tiny local supermarket which is pretty much the worst of both worlds, where the vegetables are tinged with traffic fumes.
I can't stand these stupid self-service tills. My local Boots has just installed them. Before, at lunchtime, I would get served either by a glamorous bosomy older lady or a lanky bloke with a ponytail whose shirt never seemed to fit him properly. Now the lady has disappeared and the lanky bloke walks self-consciously up and down the self-service queue, sadly showing people which way to insert their advantage cards. How is this an improvement?
I avoid this problem by going to ones without a weighed bagging area. Although I do get a "Unexpected item on belt" but at least i dont get the bagging issue.
Ah, yes. The unexpected item in the bagging area vortex, designed to maximise shopper fury. And stop me going to see the insane dark glasses shouting lady on the far till in Moorgate M&S. But I always thought it must be some kind of meta plan by Tesco to reinvigorate our blitz spirit by giving us something to deal with in a stoically British fashion. Your experience suggest otherwise. Yikes.
One of the comics I saw at the Fringe did a routine about this :D It would be helpful if I could remember which one..... x
I *hate* self-service. Same reason: last time I tried to use it, I had my backpack with me for the very good reason that I had biked to the store and wanted to use it. Nope. it was UNEXPECTED and computer can't cope with the UNEXPECTED.
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