Tesco. Will we be stacking their shelves for them next?

[frosty the snowman]

For some time our local Tesco has had a self sevice checkout aisle. Using it is invariably slower than waiting in a queue behind the Newton Abbot over 80s formation zimmer frame team behind whom and without fail I get stuck as they attempt to pay for their 'value' cat litter using either their bus pass or a bag of sixpence coins from 1953.

The self service aisle is slow because the bar code scanner fails to recognise 75% of my items and if I wish to buy alcohol, the 17 student year old who is 'there to help' needs to go away and ask one of the grown ups who is having a cigarette behind the warehouse to allow me to purchase that which I've been legally entitled to purchase since long before the said student was concieved.

So, based on the lesser of two evils principle, I use the 'assisted' checkout but now, not only do I have to swipe my credit card myself, but I have to remove my own receipt from the till as the staff are 'not allowed'. It's not difficult to do but it annoys me intensely that some manager has decided to remove yet another act of courtesy and personal interaction from the shopping experience. Why should I have to do in tesco what I have done for me in every other shop?

And their 'fresh' herbs are crap.

[GRJ]

Reassuring to read - thought I was the only one who found it annoying....

Fortunately I have thriving local shops near by where I can get most things - I wonder how rare that is.

[john.bryant]

The best one is when you get the family of 4 with a trolley full, and the kids thinking its great fun to play "checkout", and they clog up a till for 20 mins.

[JasonP]

Ooo, rant time. My local Tesco is in New Malden, which is presumably too pikey to have the self service machines installed. However, I had used the M&S ones. They're also slower than an assistant because they take forever to authorise your card and keep stopping at random intervals to inform you that there's an unexpected item in the bagging area.

However. all this pales into insignificance compared with Boots. Every time I go in there, there's several people stacking shelves, pharmacists not particularly doing anything but not about to serve you either, and one person manning the till with a big queue.

Jason

[Richard Mason]

Interesting. We had a Big W Store open in my home town earlier this year, it too has self serrvice checkouts and they work like a dream; really quick, never had a problem with em. I reckon they're the ducks guts personally.

[Kirstie]

I went to my local Tesco Metro this morning and a nice assistant kindly put my purchases through the self-service checkout.

Helpful, but does rather defeat the object I would have thought.

[Woz]

Asda ones are brilliant. Tescos ones are crap.

Asda's full of chavs, though.

[frosty the snowman]

Originally Posted by Woz

Asda ones are brilliant. Tescos ones are crap.

Asda's full of chavs, though.

That's worth knowing. I believe self service checkouts have their place. If, for instance, one wished to purchase items of a more sensitive nature such as a copy of gay times or a tube of water based lubricant (the one in the purple tube, not the blue and white one), it may be prudent not to do so at the checkout which is invariably staffed by ones next door neighbours seventeen year old daughter...

[Marky Mark]

Tesco are utter charlatans, they will not be happy until we are all living in Tescoville buying their cheap rubbish from the sweatshops of the world while decent skilled craftspeople end up collecting trollies, having been sent bankrupt by their scheming money making means. Vote with your feet folks.

Ironically a few years ago we all thought Asda/WallMart were out for world domination.

MM

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by frosty the snowman

If, for instance, one wished to purchase items of a more sensitive nature such ...... a tube of water based lubricant (the one in the purple tube, not the blue and white one), it may be prudent not to do so at the checkout which is invariably staffed by ones next door neighbours seventeen year old daughter...

Spoils the surprise?

Jason