This Ordinary Life

There is a new craze sweeping across London again, self-scancheck-outs. This is where you, the customer, do all the work from scanning your items to bagging your groceries. This leads not only to a reduction in how long you have to stand in the queue, but also in how the number of staff and the level of education that the supermarket has to employ.

I have come across them in both Marks and Spencers on Bishopsgate and the Tesco at Liverpool St Station and have mixed feelings about them.

When I attempted to use the system at the Marks and Spencers it turned out to be horrendously cumbersome with the system constantly accusing me of putting things into my bag with out scanning them. It was the closest I have come to to being accused of shoplifting in years. The system kept saying "Unexpected item in bagging area, please remove". Luckily, it was just a glitch and my record as a law abiding citizen was preserved. Payment was, however, quick and secure with Chip and PIN in place.

Now my experience at Tesco was much better. The system recognised my "Law Abiding Citizen" status and allowed me to process my items without a hitch. However, it was at the payment stage that I discovered that the system did have one fundamental flaw. When paying by card, it doesn't ask for neither a signature nor PIN. This made for an extremely quick payment process, but also a fraudsters "wet dream". I hope that Tesco rectify this security flaw soon or there may be droves of overweight fraudsters filing class action suits against Tesco because they made stealing food too easy.

So based on these experiences, how do I feel about these self-service check-outs. I must admit that they do make for a quick and relatively easy shopping experience. However, I do miss that banter that you have with the people working at the check-out. Plus it would be a shame if people were no longer subjected to the "Pricecheck on Condoms, Vagasile, etc" embarassment. Finally and on a more serious note, it won't do much for the level of education of those working in Supermarkets as they will no longer even be required to speak (there is a computer that tells you which check-out till to go to) or count money.

That's progress, I guess...