25 Reasons Self Checkout Sucks and Should be Gotten Rid Of

(At least at Safeway)

1. They freeze, coins jam, they reboot on their own, basically malfunction in some manner WAY TOO OFTEN.
2. After having ours for 6+ years customers STILL don't know how to use them.
3. The SCO attendant is forced to do price checks (lack of courtesy), open the liquor cabinet, or get a replacement item TOO OFTEN, leaving people unable to get help and possibly able to get away with paying for something.
4. People use SCO to scrutinize every price and take up the attendant's time
5. Food stamps still don't work well with SCO.  You need to pay partially with EBT?  Too bad, you're fucked.
6. They aren't updated enough and have too many design/tech flaws
7. People STILL are coming to SCO and expecting help with all/most of their entire order
8. People who choose to go through SCO sometimes have to wait for assistance because the SCO attendant is ringing up the order of someone they brought from the end of a line at the checkstands.  Not exactly fair.
9. There are no rules for waiting lines at SCO.  Sometimes there's two, and sometimes there's one.  And sometimes people cut, leading to arguments.
10. There are no clear rules for which produce items scan and which don't.  Obviously weighed items (bags of cherries, grapes) don't, but large watermelons and stalks of celery don't scan while iceberg lettuce and small watermelons do.
11. We aren't able to check if the machines are low on bills unless we use the round key and physically check, so we can't refill them while it's slow before they run out (when it's busy).
12. Also, refilling machines with money is sometimes impossible (if the customer service person is busy) or at the very least takes several minutes.
13. For stores with a plastic bag ban, the machines are not set up to use only paper bags.  The only thing that was changed was adding the "How Many Bags" after hitting "Finish and Pay".  Customers still don't know how to use paper bags at SCO.
14. Because SCO attendants couldn't be more responsible, SCO attendants now have to ask people for their birthdays if they are purchasing age-restricted items (mainly alcohol).  This is a slight invasion of personal information and can lead to arguments.
15. People do not clean up after themselves, leaving behind bags, coupons, and receipts.  If their food spills they don't often notify the SCO attendant and it is a mess for the next customer.
16. Customers often need help all at once, and there's never someone around to help the SCO attendant.
17. Customers still cannot tell if certain stations are open, and will stand waiting like an idiot.
18. People forget their cash back all the time!  The machines should warn the customer that they have cash coming, but they don't, leading to customers forgetting their cash basically on a daily basis.
19. Because there's usually a line during peak hours, this makes customers more impatient and forgetful when they finally get to an open station.  This leads to them asking for assistance when the SCO attendant is clearly busy, or making a mistake (forgetting to scan an item).
20. People miss out on valuable coupons because they don't see them print out of the Catalina machine and don't know to grab them.
21. If the machine or customer makes an error, it's not really worth it for the SCO attendant to go over EVERY single time, so unless the error is obvious, the attendant will just clear the weight mismatch, which often results in the store losing money.
22. There is no item limit, so if a customer comes over with a huge cart full, this can result in them needing a lot of help, holding up the line, or both.
23. People question prices constantly, holding up the line and only wasting everyone's time.  On the screen that asks them to bag their item, it often doesn't display sale prices (especially for produce items), resulting in the customer questioning the price before bagging it.
24. Rules differ for SCO everywhere you go.  Some states you can't buy alcohol through SCO, some you can.  Some stores allow you to scan your own coupons, while others make the attendant do it.  And people can't keep track of the rules.
25. And finally, the SCO machines are the devil and require more care than they're worth.  We lose the most money through the checkout process through SCO, so it doesn't in the long run save the store much money by having SCO instead of extra checkers.