I suppose it’s no secret that I hate everybody. Well, except for maybe five people. Just kidding. Really, it’s more like ten people. Plus my family. Well, some of them. Let’s say there are 50 people in the world I don’t despise. Plus Victoria’s Secret models, so that’s like 10 more. Because some of them are too skinny. By the way, VS needs to either slow down on the catalogs or take some new pictures. The reruns are becoming tedious.
So this blog is about the self checkout at Albertson’s (which in Oklahoma is now called Food Pyramid, which makes me think of Amway, like if I get some people under me buying groceries, I’ll earn a few bucks every time they shop there, until I am Double Diamond and living a life of self-employed luxury.)
See, somewhere, someone designed this worthless piece of shit. Someone designed the menus and the infrared scanner section and the scale and the bagging area and the place where you insert credit cards and cash. And from the outside it looks rather intuitive, but don’t be fooled.
The first thing you notice is that the volume is turned up way too loud. The Geritol crowd doesn’t check their own groceries, so turn the goddamn thing down. There are four self checkout lines, and it sounds like a staggered version of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in here.
Then, after I scan my first item, the stupid Silicon Sally always interrupts me by asking if I have scanned my Albertson’s card yet. It’s gotten to the point where I scan my second item only nanoseconds after the first, which confuses her, and sometimes I think I hear tears falling in the bowels of the machine.
The next problem is that if even one stray atom of a grocery product touches the surface of the scanner (which doubles as a scale), the machine will stop and ask me to look up the item in a list. Because it assumes I am trying to weigh produce. But I’m not. I barely touched the goddamn thing. Couldn’t they build a timer inside this fucking machine that waits at least 1 second after you put an item on the scale? Please?
But by far the worst design element is the “unexpected item in bagging area” feature. First of all, how the hell does the machine know WHAT is in the bagging area? And how does it define “unexpected?” The electronic bitch will then command me to “Remove item before continuing,” but what can I take out? There’s no way for the machine to even KNOW what’s in the bagging area. So you just have to sit there and wait for the johnny checkout observer at the helm of the Starship Enterprise to push a button. (Edit: I’ve since learned about the scale that measures the weight of all checked items and cries foul if the figures don’t match up.) And half the time he’s off helping some dimwit scan his bread or else he’s flirting with the new checkout girl with the stringy blonde hair and peach-shaped boobies.
And when I push the button to pay, stop asking me to look in my basket for any additional items. If I had any additional items I would have SCANNED THEM ALREADY, YOU SILICON SHITHEAD.
What I want to know is how, after all the focus group testing that must have gone into the design of this hunk of dumbass junk, how THIS is the setup that emerged. Really? Who’s in quality control at the self checkout company? The Miss Teen South Carolina selection committee?
So there you go. Have fun at Food Pyramid (formerly Albertson’s.) And I was just kidding about hating everybody. I like all you people. Well, except maybe five of you….
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