Aside from the staffing issue, the self serve checkouts themselves are impractical. There is no space to park your trolley properly or unload your goods and then pack them into your bags. It takes far longer than a manned checkout and is an ergonomic nightmare, especially for someone with a toddler or two in tow or physically unable to manage.

But the supermarkets don't give a rats. All about saving money in the guise of making things better for the customer. 

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 17^th, 2022 at 5:10pm:


I think my point was that you don't. And when they increase their prices, customers shop at places that are cheaper. And when customers shop at places that are cheaper, the supermarkets make less money to spend on labour to work those checkouts. And when they have less customers shopping at those better-manned checkouts, there is not much point having someone stand at the registers waiting for non-existent customers to come through their idle checkouts. And then there is the profit-cost ratios coming into play -- even though this is the main issue.

Here, I will give you an example of a place that I did work at over 20 years ago. I worked at a pizza store (one of the 5 main delivery places in town at the time). Back then, I would walk in at 5pm and see a front counter person answering phone call after phone call from a constantly ringing phone. We would jump on the phones to help out with the backlog of calls coming through. In the meantime, we would have a cut person and a dispatcher working to send out pick up and delivery orders. I worked as a delivery driver. I would deliver 10 deliveries per night on average. I would have to carry around $20 in change + whatever I would bring back from the customer. Sometimes I could not cash in whatever excess I would have on me and would walk around with more than $50 on me. That would make me a mugging risk and escalate the chances of other driver getting mugged. I recall having to stay back until 2 or 3am on a Saturday or Sunday morning doing washing up and floor cleaning as a close driver. I quit that job in 2001.

Cut to 2020, I know of someone who works a franchise in the pizza industry. He has greater sales from one store in terms of customer numbers than I had to contend with in 2001. The difference being that the phone is ringing about a third of the time I recall in my own work experience -- given that I have been in the store on a Friday night and watched this happen. The front counter people are helping dispatch a lot more. This is because of the online ordering and payment system. Customers order online, pay and then pick up at their convenience. In and out like it is nothing. Delivery drivers don't have to get payment off the customers as much as they would. That would lead to fewer issues about having too much money on them. The best thing is that he would have time to wash up have the store cleaned not long after closing time. And the kicker is that the customers could get a discount on their orders. AND the franchisee would still make a decent profit to pay his bills and labour.

So, you would be kind of a moron not to save a few hundred dollars a day to have better service in whatever industry you employ people.

UnSubRocky wrote on Mar 17^th, 2022 at 6:36pm:


Okay, champ   

I have a policy of showering everytime I am considerably dirty/sweaty. But, if I followed your line of thinking, I would never get out of the shower.

Lisa Jones wrote on Mar 17^th, 2022 at 9:55pm:


That is interesting. I have two towels on the towel rack. One for drying the hands. The other to towel off after a shower. But, after toweling off after a shower, I swap the towels over so that I have a dry towel for 12 hours later. Then I wash the towels with my clothes once or twice a week.

Back in year 6, our teacher told us that we should shower in the morning before school. Arguments started that if we had a shower the night before, we should be clean enough before school. Now, it is a matter of rinsing over in the morning. Then showering before we go out to public places. Then scrubbing over before bed. I have also noticed that I cannot sleep if I have not brushed my teeth before bed. Mum has us baulked about not going to bed before brushing our teeth.

It was like 20 years ago that I learned not to use hot water for my washing. Not only does it cost electricity, but the clothes also shrink. Cold Power washing for me.

It does not matter if I mix up the washing with towels and socks. It is only me. The black socks I wear for work (el cheapo from Big W) have about a year's life. I have to replace the Tradies brand. I bought King Gee socks from Lowes. They look like they will last for a long time. And I use my old white socks for my walks in my running shoes during rucking. Slowly but surely, the socks are getting recycled for a couple uses as my wash cloth for my car washing.

I do, however, put new shirts as separate washes. I think I have had the misfortune of running colours into other shirts, before.

Towels separate - my socks and shorts and stuff all go together... who cares? I don't wear cheap red dyed things....

UnSubRocky wrote on Mar 17^th, 2022 at 11:49pm:

The customer is always wrong - this is progress.