Self Service Tills
When these things first came out I avoided them like the plague, dump the contents of the basket on the conveyer belt, let the checkout girl do her job, pay her and get to hell out of there was my policy, then when standing in a long checkout queue one day with only one or two items and a numpty on the till taking ages I decided to give them a go, now it depends on how many items I have/queue length etc as to how I pay.
But the reason for the thread, weekend I was jumping train up to my mates, had a couple of letters to post but had run out of stamps, decided to take letters with me, get stamps at station and post them. Station in question was Manchester Piccadilly, in to W H Smiths I go for stamps, this is a very busy station/shop, they had obviously recently changed the till system, on previous visits to the shop there were two manned tills, which were not enough as you always had to queue to pay, these tills have been replaced with three self service tills and one manned till which had a big notice next to it saying “This till only for cigarettes, lottery and phone cards”. I take my place in the queue for the manned till as I suspect that is where I will get my stamps although stamps were not stated on notice. The till is manned by an overweight bearded male student type who is explaining in depth to a woman who has obviously just bought a phone card which would not work and had returned to complain that he could do nothing about it and that she must complain to the phone card company direct, she’s not having this,,, behind the woman is a guy with a chocolate bar in his hand, I suspect he may have wanted cigarettes or something else being in the queue, then me, then three or more behind me. The three self service tills, one is out of order, at another is an old codger with three or four newspapers making no headway in attempting to scan in the barcodes, at the other working self service till is a woman with a large quantity of items, who after taking ages to scan them in continued to have difficulty in getting the machine to accept payment, not two yards from this mayhem were two members of staff oblivious to what was going on and happily chatting away while stacking shelf’s... The guy in front of me was obviously getting agitated and called out to the staff about the customers having difficulty with the tills, the female who was stacking shelf’s looks at him with disgust, goes over to the woman having difficulty paying, assists her, totally ignores the old codger then goes over and stands beside the guy on the manned till and starts to listen in to the argument about the phone card... The guy in front of me goes to the now free self service till and pays for his chocolate bar, so I am now next in the queue at the manned till, eventulay the woman accepts she is going to have to buy another phone card and complain direct to the phone card company, she pays and leaves, I aproach the till, the girl shop assistant makes to start discusssing the incident with the guy on the till, I abruptly butt in saying “A book of stamps please”, I am looked at in disgust by both of them, I say “I have a train to catch”,,, I get served, as I am moving away from the till the woman behind me aproches, she has two or three items in her hands, the guy on the till points to the notice saying “This till only for cigarettes, lottery and phone cards”, the woman says but I also want cigarettes, he says you can get your cigarettes here but you have to pay for the other goods at the self service till...........
Boy is that shop going to lose business, there are several shops on the approach to and within the station selling the same as W H Smiths, will be interesting to see how long the new till set up stays...
When these things first came out I avoided them like the plague, dump the contents of the basket on the conveyer belt, let the checkout girl do her job, pay her and get to hell out of there was my policy, then when standing in a long checkout queue one day with only one or two items and a numpty on the till taking ages I decided to give them a go, now it depends on how many items I have/queue length etc as to how I pay.
But the reason for the thread, weekend I was jumping train up to my mates, had a couple of letters to post but had run out of stamps, decided to take letters with me, get stamps at station and post them. Station in question was Manchester Piccadilly, in to W H Smiths I go for stamps, this is a very busy station/shop, they had obviously recently changed the till system, on previous visits to the shop there were two manned tills, which were not enough as you always had to queue to pay, these tills have been replaced with three self service tills and one manned till which had a big notice next to it saying “This till only for cigarettes, lottery and phone cards”. I take my place in the queue for the manned till as I suspect that is where I will get my stamps although stamps were not stated on notice. The till is manned by an overweight bearded male student type who is explaining in depth to a woman who has obviously just bought a phone card which would not work and had returned to complain that he could do nothing about it and that she must complain to the phone card company direct, she’s not having this,,, behind the woman is a guy with a chocolate bar in his hand, I suspect he may have wanted cigarettes or something else being in the queue, then me, then three or more behind me. The three self service tills, one is out of order, at another is an old codger with three or four newspapers making no headway in attempting to scan in the barcodes, at the other working self service till is a woman with a large quantity of items, who after taking ages to scan them in continued to have difficulty in getting the machine to accept payment, not two yards from this mayhem were two members of staff oblivious to what was going on and happily chatting away while stacking shelf’s... The guy in front of me was obviously getting agitated and called out to the staff about the customers having difficulty with the tills, the female who was stacking shelf’s looks at him with disgust, goes over to the woman having difficulty paying, assists her, totally ignores the old codger then goes over and stands beside the guy on the manned till and starts to listen in to the argument about the phone card... The guy in front of me goes to the now free self service till and pays for his chocolate bar, so I am now next in the queue at the manned till, eventulay the woman accepts she is going to have to buy another phone card and complain direct to the phone card company, she pays and leaves, I aproach the till, the girl shop assistant makes to start discusssing the incident with the guy on the till, I abruptly butt in saying “A book of stamps please”, I am looked at in disgust by both of them, I say “I have a train to catch”,,, I get served, as I am moving away from the till the woman behind me aproches, she has two or three items in her hands, the guy on the till points to the notice saying “This till only for cigarettes, lottery and phone cards”, the woman says but I also want cigarettes, he says you can get your cigarettes here but you have to pay for the other goods at the self service till...........
Boy is that shop going to lose business, there are several shops on the approach to and within the station selling the same as W H Smiths, will be interesting to see how long the new till set up stays...
I thought WTF is that all about 
I gave 6 year old Lexie the job of paying, also i use one in sainsburys every morning for the paper and milk, i think they are open to abuse tho, because knowbody is watching, i mean you could just scan the paper and nash with the milk,
mistakes can happen
