Life of Reilly: The rise, fall and rise again

Lot of times, especially in the final hour of the evening, all the self-checkouts at my local Giant Eagle are shut down. Why? None of them can call off sick.

 

Most of that felt like he was describing the process to someone who has never been in a grocery store before, because anyone who has knows he's largely full of shit.

Eh. Never had much use for "I wish it was still 1975!" columns.

 

Maybe not a case of firing cashiers, but of not hiring more cashiers when there are openings. Fewer people to pay at union rates and yadda, yadda, yadda. Watching to see how this plays out over the next 14 months or so as the Kroger-Albertsons merger goes through all the regulatory hoops.

The store I work at is open 24/7. We shut off self check at 11 pm and reopen it at 7. Last cashier leaves a midnight, leaving 4-6 night stock people in the store. We do have one person attending self-check when they're open, to work out any problems that come up and, in the case of some medicine, check IDs. By law, no alcohol sales between 2-6 am anyway, and booze can't be sold through self-check.

 

I will say the Kroger self-checkout system is the worst, which I am assuming he is referring to. You better not move something, even barely, before or after scanning it because it will shut down thinking you are stealing or something. No other store, at least around here, does that. My kids don't go shopping with me anymore, but when they did they wanted to help and I bet we had to have the store employee unlock the dumb thing 27 times a trip.

My favorite technology is Sam's scan and go (scan items with the app as you put them in the cart, check out with the app at the end). Everywhere should do that. Of course, they'd have to have receipt checkers at the door or some other way to monitor that you are actually buying everything, but it is amazingly simple and convenient.

 

I'm at Safeway, part of Albertsons. Just got skycams on the self-check units that will freeze transactions if they detect something wrong, and I can call up video to review the order.

 

Complaining about self checkout has always been stupid but now is terribly cliche.

It's not about being able to hire employees. It's about being cheaper. What gets me is people complain about companies cutting costs, but never think it's a problem for them.

 

I don't know how much longer self checkout will be a thing. My wife and I went to an Amazon Fresh in Northern Virginia. We just walked our basket out the door and somehow the scanners read it and charged us. The scanner missed one of about 40 items.

 

I rarely use the self-checkout, but I'm a guy who might not know the difference between lettuce and cabbage, or, definitely, the different kinds of apples. I didn't even like the conveyor belt. I spend a bunch of time putting things in a basket, then I have to take them out of the basket. I got over that one.

We've been to Amazon Fresh twice. They have two kinds of baskets, one regular and one with sensors to scan what you put in the basket. I didn't use that, while wondering what happens if you change your mind and don't want something you already put in the basket. Oh well .....

 

The failure of technology to make a difference in daily life is a humor evergreen.

Takes just as long to check out of a grocery store now as it did in 1960.

In the meantime, we've helped grocers improve inventory control, lower costs, lower head count and short-circuit the unions.

Presumably those savings were passed on to us (or we bore them elsewhere, like keeping all those WalMart employees on public assistance), but I don't get out of the store any faster, and now I'm the cashier. Grumble grumble grumble.

Evergreen.

The smart basket and the employee-less store will change all that.

Or not.

 

Coming next week: I used to be able to work on my own car!

 

I spend about 30 to 45 minutes grocery shopping a week now, because HEB has curbside pick-up for just about everything. Their error rate is about once per five or six orders - or, roughly the same chances of my forgetting to put something on the list.