The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Basil]

I really dislike the way they've replaced the 10-items-or-fewer checkouts.  It's a bit annoying to have to wait while people with huge trollies of shopping clog up the self-service tills, when I'm only buying a couple of things.

Depends.  Sometimes I find it quicker to queue behind a huge trolley because the n items or less queue tends to be quite long.
With decent check out staff, it's the final paying up that seems to take time, due to customers generally being a bit crap at it -or being one of those that suddenly realised that they'll need to look in all their bags for their purse/wallet only after the cashier has requested money.

[Littlesox]

Looked that up.  Never did like Yes so do not see any relevance, much preferred Nice. [/quote]

Spot-on. Bring on the Brandenburg Concerto !

[Arch]

I don't understand the self-service-till-rage.

They work ok for me. I get to pack my own shopping, rather than have some dozy prat drop a bottle of wine on top of the crisp/tomatoes/eggs. I can be antisocial while using them, and listen to my favourite tracks.

I get to pack my own shopping when I use a staffed checkout. If offered help, I decline.

I won't use the self service things - as a former checkout operator myself, I a) don't like the idea of a machine replacing them, and b) don't see why I should do it myself when I'm paying the supermarket to pay staff.

[CAMRAMan]

FOB?
Fuel on board. But perhaps not in this context.

It was a BFO mis-type in the context

[Jaded]

I don't understand the self-service-till-rage.

They work ok for me. I get to pack my own shopping, rather than have some dozy prat drop a bottle of wine on top of the crisp/tomatoes/eggs. I can be antisocial while using them, and listen to my favourite tracks.

I get to pack my own shopping when I use a staffed checkout. If offered help, I decline.

I won't use the self service things - as a former checkout operator myself, I a) don't like the idea of a machine replacing them, and b) don't see why I should do it myself when I'm paying the supermarket to pay staff.

However you are already selecting the goods and moving them around the store and packing your bags, so you are already doing a lot yourself that staff could do.

[Arch]

I don't understand the self-service-till-rage.

They work ok for me. I get to pack my own shopping, rather than have some dozy prat drop a bottle of wine on top of the crisp/tomatoes/eggs. I can be antisocial while using them, and listen to my favourite tracks.

I get to pack my own shopping when I use a staffed checkout. If offered help, I decline.

I won't use the self service things - as a former checkout operator myself, I a) don't like the idea of a machine replacing them, and b) don't see why I should do it myself when I'm paying the supermarket to pay staff.

However you are already selecting the goods and moving them around the store and packing your bags, so you are already doing a lot yourself that staff could do.

I choose to shop in a supermarket, I expect to do those things. If I expected to check stuff out myself, I'd shop at vending machines.

[Jaded]

But you have already chosen to shop in a shop where tasks previously done by staff are done by you.

[David Martin]

Maybe I should shop online and collect. Then the staff can collect all I want and pack it, and all I need to do is take it away.

[Arch]

But you have already chosen to shop in a shop where tasks previously done by staff are done by you.

Yes, because it's the sort of shop I can afford to shop in!

Assuming there are any shops left where staff do all the selecting and bringing to you, and packing, they'd be rather outside my budget. Also I like to select my own stuff.

What I don't want is some jumped up calculator saying "Unexpected item in the bagging area" at me until I have to beat it to pieces with a tin of Basics Baked Beans.

At my Sainsburys, there used to be a chap on the tills who had a very deep voice. One time, he sang a little bit of opera to each customer. Never seen a self service till do that.

[reddo]

Ah. BFO. Beat Frequency Oscillator. 

[clarion]

Is that anything to do with a certain Tattooed Beat Messiah OTP?

[Wombat]

TAAW is Time And A Word, so a bit of a niche one for prog fans.

Looked that up.  Never did like Yes so do not see any relevance, much preferred Nice.

Acksherly, in my world TAAW is Too Also As Well. It's a hangover from when I used to inhabit Ye Shedde, a newsgroup, m'lud, where people gather to talk pisip (pseudo intellectual self indulgent crap).  It just slipped out.  Sorry.

I LOL'd (and I didn't like Yes all that much either - more of a Rush fan)

That quite O.K., yours is no disgrace      (Actually, maybe it is, Rush  ) To each their own...

[Jacomus]

FOB?
Fuel on board. But perhaps not in this context.

Rants... had some massive ones at work. Cunningly turned into crew reports. Why waste rage?   

Forward Operating Base... again, not in this context!

[PaulF]

Seriously, FTW = For The Win.  Something young people say.

I'm young all of a sudden 

[clarion]

I suspect you are younger than me.

Mind you, today I feel about 107.

[PaulF]

I suspect you are younger than me.

Mind you, today I feel about 107.

I must have been looking good the time we met then or your profile is wrong!

[rafletcher]

FOB - Free On Board, natch

[clarion]

The former, Paul.

[Cudzoziemiec]

But you have already chosen to shop in a shop where tasks previously done by staff are done by you.

Yes, because it's the sort of shop I can afford to shop in!

Assuming there are any shops left where staff do all the selecting and bringing to you, and packing, they'd be rather outside my budget. Also I like to select my own stuff.

What I don't want is some jumped up calculator saying "Unexpected item in the bagging area" at me until I have to beat it to pieces with a tin of Basics Baked Beans.

At my Sainsburys, there used to be a chap on the tills who had a very deep voice. One time, he sang a little bit of opera to each customer. Never seen a self service till do that.

I'm with Arch on this. I prefer to use a staffed till because the staff don't bleep at me or tell me I've put the wrong item in my bag. I've never had one sing opera but they do often smile and chat. Also, but not usually so importantly for me, the queue for the self-service tills gets so long that the staffed ones are quicker.

[fuzzy]

Just about every self serice checkout I have used has an uncanny knack of giving me change where the multiples of 10p in my change are supplied as 5p pieces. How many pay and display machines round here take 5p pieces? None that I have found. I want 10p and 20p pieces

[rafletcher]

I avoid them like the plage too. I might one day try the scan-as-you-shop in one of the local Tescos (recently installed at my no-longer-regular one). Or lobby for my-now-local-one to have it installed - and given it's recently been refurbished I'm surprised it didn't have it done then.

[Arch]

An assistant once tried to get me to use the self service till, instead of waiting in a short queue. When I demurred, she said "It's nothing to be scared of..."

I'm not scared of the thing, I just prefer not to use it.  I don't mind a few minutes waiting, it's good down time, and I develop a Zen attitude to it.

Also, as Cudzo says, there's often a queue for the self serves anyway, and if anything goes wrong, you've got to wait while someone with no idea about till tries to figure it out, and then has to call for help anyway.

[interzen]

An assistant once tried to get me to use the self service till, instead of waiting in a short queue. When I demurred, she said "It's nothing to be scared of..."

I use the self-service tills in the Sainsburys near work because its often a lot quicker than using the regular tills. Probably also helps that when I go to that particular Sainsburys I'm not getting much more than a few pints of milk for work and/or some tea/coffee for myself.

The local Tesco is another matter entirely mainly because someone, in their infinite wisdom, decreed that all York College hipster twatsstudents be directed to the self-service tills to speed things up. It didn't work and, as a result, some of the queues are utterly horrendous.

Most of my own shopping is done at Aldi or Lidl, simply because I find a lot of their stuff better (and cheaper) than the competition - one thing that they have in common is that their checkout staff seem to be inhumanly quick ...

[clarion]

WH Smiths at Liverpool Street seems to have abandoned staffed tills entirely

[Bledlow]

Just about every self serice checkout I have used has an uncanny knack of giving me change where the multiples of 10p in my change are supplied as 5p pieces. How many pay and display machines round here take 5p pieces? None that I have found. I want 10p and 20p pieces

You have an uncanny knack of turning up just after someone has deposited a ton of 5p pieces into the machine (see previous posts on using 'em to dispose of surplus change), & its little electronic brain is telling it to re-balance its change supply.