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Admittedly, my cashier job at the Whole was cushy - nice, fast menu driven NCR registers. Not touch screen, but they did have menus and were generally really easy to use. I had a VGA LCD display on my side, plus a VGA display for the customer.
Now that I'm at the store of flatpacks (ikea), I'm getting a reality check. Seems a lot of companies invested a lot of money in IBM point of sale equipment, and damnit, they want to get every last penny out of it. Same registers that Kroger and Tom Thumb/Randall's use, anyway, but without the big LCD for the customer. The cashier "interface" is a tiny little 2x30 LCD built into the keyboard. I'm used to menus and stuff, not having to memorize key sequences.
I'm going to start training on the registers tomorrow. I did self checkout today - actually wasn't that bad, just had to memorize my 8 digit ID really quick since there's always somebody needing an override for something, and I didn't yet have a barcode on my badge.
Any tips/tricks on these IBM relics? I realize that the IBM backend for the registers is insanely powerful and can do all kinds of crazy stuff (which is probably why I see more IBM registers than any others), but holy crap do they have a steep learning curve. I'm not used to having to use a clear button for anything other than, well, clearing stuff - but I'm finding I'm having to hit it to say yes to some prompts.
Now that I'm at the store of flatpacks (ikea), I'm getting a reality check. Seems a lot of companies invested a lot of money in IBM point of sale equipment, and damnit, they want to get every last penny out of it. Same registers that Kroger and Tom Thumb/Randall's use, anyway, but without the big LCD for the customer. The cashier "interface" is a tiny little 2x30 LCD built into the keyboard. I'm used to menus and stuff, not having to memorize key sequences.
I'm going to start training on the registers tomorrow. I did self checkout today - actually wasn't that bad, just had to memorize my 8 digit ID really quick since there's always somebody needing an override for something, and I didn't yet have a barcode on my badge.
Any tips/tricks on these IBM relics? I realize that the IBM backend for the registers is insanely powerful and can do all kinds of crazy stuff (which is probably why I see more IBM registers than any others), but holy crap do they have a steep learning curve. I'm not used to having to use a clear button for anything other than, well, clearing stuff - but I'm finding I'm having to hit it to say yes to some prompts.
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