Post by Pez on Nov 14, 2008 22:50:29 GMT -6
...the self-checkout lanes at grocery stores.
"Please scan an item and place it in the bag."
Is this that hard to follow? Scan an item. Place said item in one of the 13,000 bags provided to you in the designated bagging area. But no, people will put the item pretty much anywhere but in the bags. They put them in their pocket, throw them back in their cart, dropkick their bacon at a security guard -- just put the item in a goddamn bag! This is a very simple instruction. Two step process. Scan. Bag. Repeat.
Or they think they're going to scan five items and drop them all in the bags. So they scan their can of Campbell's soup and then they stand there trying to scan some tampons while still holding the soup in their other hand. PUT IT IN A BAG! The machine said scan an item and put it in a bag. Just do what the thing says. You can't scan the next item until you follow the first instruction. Eventually after staring angrily at the machine for 15 seconds because they think it's broken, the machine chimes in:
"Please place the item in the bag."
They then promptly put the first item in the bag and proceed to repeat this mistake over and over, because somehow this isn't sufficient to make them understand that the machine knows when you put an item in a bag.
Then, of course, for some reason, they need to start moving bags into their cart before they're done scanning everything and paying. Or they need to rescan an item. Or any of a million other completely stupid reasons that people come up with for removing items from the bags. Then they get the old:
"Please place your item back in the bag."
I think this is downright cordial of the machine. If I were in the machine's place, I'd say something like, "It took me fifteen goddamn minutes to get you to put your damn soup in the bag, and now you're moving the soup OUT of the bag? Someone had better be heating up that soup right ****ing here in this checkout lane, otherwise I'm gonna have to ask why you're moving the goddamn soup around."
Right about here is where people start to figure out that the machine magically knows when the items are in the bag area. This usually hits them like a ton of bricks -- suddenly the machine is a sentient being! How does it know? They place the bag back on the machine, but in the wrong place. Then the machine barks the order at them again and they get flustered because the people in line behind them are sharpening the steak knives they got in aisle nine because this dumbass is too incompetent to buy a can of soup without taking 15 hours.
Back in the bag! Put it back! Don't stand there and hold it. There's a reason the lane says "20 or less items." You shouldn't have so many items that you need more than the allotted bagging space, assuming you're following the rules and don't just have social anxiety disorder about interacting with human cashiers. The system doesn't work if you start loading your bags into your cart in the middle of checking out. The machine registers when you scan and item and then put it in the bag. That's how the whole goddamn system works. Otherwise you could steal as much crap as you want.
Sigh.
If I programmed these things, they would be a whole lot less patient:
"Please scan an item and place it in the bag."
*Customer scans item, three seconds pass, nothing in the bag.*
"Put the item in the bag. Did I stutter?"
*Still nothing. Three more seconds pass. The customer has taken this moment to inspect their ground beef for mold.*
"I'm sorry, maybe I misspoke. Scan the item and place the item in one of those bags over there. I don't remember telling you to pause to masturbate with the Cosmo. Hurry the **** up."
*One second passes.*
"PUT IT IN THE BAG, IDIOT! PUT IT IN THE BAG, IDIOT!" (repeat until item is placed in bag)
*Customer removes a bag before paying.*
"Hey! What the **** are you trying to pull? Put that back. You have to leave it there."
*Three seconds pass.*
"Unless you actually have no arms, there's no reason for you to be this incompetent with the simple mechanical task of moving a bag from point A to point B. Put the stuff back exactly where it was. Do it now."
*Three seconds pass.*
"That's it, you're too dumb to scan your own groceries. Your order is canceled. Grocery stores literally teenaged people to do this job, but you can't do it. Go over to one of the aisles with a person. You should probably tip them, because without their expertise, you would literally never leave this store. Get the **** outta here."
"Please scan an item and place it in the bag."
Is this that hard to follow? Scan an item. Place said item in one of the 13,000 bags provided to you in the designated bagging area. But no, people will put the item pretty much anywhere but in the bags. They put them in their pocket, throw them back in their cart, dropkick their bacon at a security guard -- just put the item in a goddamn bag! This is a very simple instruction. Two step process. Scan. Bag. Repeat.
Or they think they're going to scan five items and drop them all in the bags. So they scan their can of Campbell's soup and then they stand there trying to scan some tampons while still holding the soup in their other hand. PUT IT IN A BAG! The machine said scan an item and put it in a bag. Just do what the thing says. You can't scan the next item until you follow the first instruction. Eventually after staring angrily at the machine for 15 seconds because they think it's broken, the machine chimes in:
"Please place the item in the bag."
They then promptly put the first item in the bag and proceed to repeat this mistake over and over, because somehow this isn't sufficient to make them understand that the machine knows when you put an item in a bag.
Then, of course, for some reason, they need to start moving bags into their cart before they're done scanning everything and paying. Or they need to rescan an item. Or any of a million other completely stupid reasons that people come up with for removing items from the bags. Then they get the old:
"Please place your item back in the bag."
I think this is downright cordial of the machine. If I were in the machine's place, I'd say something like, "It took me fifteen goddamn minutes to get you to put your damn soup in the bag, and now you're moving the soup OUT of the bag? Someone had better be heating up that soup right ****ing here in this checkout lane, otherwise I'm gonna have to ask why you're moving the goddamn soup around."
Right about here is where people start to figure out that the machine magically knows when the items are in the bag area. This usually hits them like a ton of bricks -- suddenly the machine is a sentient being! How does it know? They place the bag back on the machine, but in the wrong place. Then the machine barks the order at them again and they get flustered because the people in line behind them are sharpening the steak knives they got in aisle nine because this dumbass is too incompetent to buy a can of soup without taking 15 hours.
Back in the bag! Put it back! Don't stand there and hold it. There's a reason the lane says "20 or less items." You shouldn't have so many items that you need more than the allotted bagging space, assuming you're following the rules and don't just have social anxiety disorder about interacting with human cashiers. The system doesn't work if you start loading your bags into your cart in the middle of checking out. The machine registers when you scan and item and then put it in the bag. That's how the whole goddamn system works. Otherwise you could steal as much crap as you want.
Sigh.
If I programmed these things, they would be a whole lot less patient:
"Please scan an item and place it in the bag."
*Customer scans item, three seconds pass, nothing in the bag.*
"Put the item in the bag. Did I stutter?"
*Still nothing. Three more seconds pass. The customer has taken this moment to inspect their ground beef for mold.*
"I'm sorry, maybe I misspoke. Scan the item and place the item in one of those bags over there. I don't remember telling you to pause to masturbate with the Cosmo. Hurry the **** up."
*One second passes.*
"PUT IT IN THE BAG, IDIOT! PUT IT IN THE BAG, IDIOT!" (repeat until item is placed in bag)
*Customer removes a bag before paying.*
"Hey! What the **** are you trying to pull? Put that back. You have to leave it there."
*Three seconds pass.*
"Unless you actually have no arms, there's no reason for you to be this incompetent with the simple mechanical task of moving a bag from point A to point B. Put the stuff back exactly where it was. Do it now."
*Three seconds pass.*
"That's it, you're too dumb to scan your own groceries. Your order is canceled. Grocery stores literally teenaged people to do this job, but you can't do it. Go over to one of the aisles with a person. You should probably tip them, because without their expertise, you would literally never leave this store. Get the **** outta here."