Wal Mart self check outs suck!

[greensinestro]

I really am not sure what's worse at Wal Mart. The patrons, or the employees. I ask because this thread kind of intertwines with both groups of people.

For the past two weekends, I have gone into the big Wal Mart in Boynton Beach. Both times, I went to check out at the self check out, thinking it would be easy to do. No way in Hell! I'll list both incidents below:

1. My son wanted to buy something with his own money, so I thought OK, sure, we can get it and check out. Nope. Old guy in front of us was checking out when the register ran out of receipt tape. It took, I kid you not, nearly twenty long, agonizing minutes before someone finally changed the tape. There was a young lady standing there, who normally is supposed to help customers when a problem arises. However, all she did was stand there and picked up her phone fifteen times to call someone. Turned out, she had receipt tape in her drawer, but was not trained on how to change it. Also, we did not move to another line being all other lines had at least ten people each with a zillion items in their carts, including the other self check out lines. In all, my son and I stood in line nearly thirty minutes before we could check out. My check out time was less than a minute.

2. Yesterday, I walked up to the self check out again being it didn't look busy. This woman was there, opening her checkbook, writing something in it, fumbling with her items, looking at her checkbook again, looking through her items in the cart again......she finally saw me and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't scanned any of my items yet, and I'm waiting for someone to help me." She took two minutes doing all of this fucking around at the self check out and had a line piling up behind her. And, needless to say, the other check out lines had customers waiting for someone to assist them (mainly because they didn't know what they were doing), and each one had a cart with zillions of unscanned items in them.

It isn't just Wal Mart this happens at. It's been a common thing lately where any store that has a self check out always has some moron who races to beat you there, then they have no idea what they're doing, or they screw up the machine and have to get someone to help them anyway. However, Wal Mart is the place where I see these things happen all the time.

Self check out doesn't mean a shit in the name!

[Aisling]

Self check-out is a hit-or-miss around here, too. Though I don't blame the girl in the first story--it's hardly her fault she wasn't trained. The management, however, definitely screwed up in not training her. As for the second, people who don't know how to use the machines shouldn't hold up the lines like that. She should have let you go through while she waited for an employee.

[Luna Baby]

I too, used the self check outs just because I could scan my items much faster than the regular clerks could. It amazed me time after time that I knew more about what needed to be keyed and how (produce mainly) than the clerks did. I finally hit my limit last Sunday when I spent and hour and 1/2 painstakingly choosing my cart full of groceries and the clerk made a smart remark to me all because she had to leave her post to scan a coupon for me! I only had a total of 4 coupons to use on $144 worth of groceries. It wasn't like she was going to have to spend 30 minutes checking out my groceries! Scan the freaking coupon (I always save my items with coupons to the last so that they can verify the product if need be!).

Needless to say, I'll still use the self checkouts at other stores, but not at Wally World. In fact, I liberated myself and have chosen not to visit their store here at all! And, yes, the manager of this store does know what happened.

[jedimaster91]

Having never done so, I have to ask: is changing receipt tape so difficult it requires training? I get some machines are finiky and if you don't do the dance just right it won't work, but still.

[surreal20]

those self check out things really are a hit and miss as Aisling said. Most of the time, it's a user error rather than a computer error. As all the IT personal will attest to.

There are, however, a few times that the computer or the store fuck up. I'm just glad you weren't the one to make the computer go crazy

[Sapphire Silk]

Having never done so, I have to ask: is changing receipt tape so difficult it requires training? I get some machines are finiky and if you don't do the dance just right it won't work, but still.

Changing receipt tape is similar to changing the recording strip tape in an EKG machine. One side is usually treated to react to the printer (a heat based process rather than one using ink, which would not be cost effective). If you put it in the wrong way, it either won't print or will get jammed and won't run.

And every flipping machine is different.

I usually avoid Wally World myself, but not because of the self checkout (which I generally prefer to use, when they are working--not often) nor because of the employees (generally polite and helpful) but because of the trailer trash that infests the place.

If I go there, I try to go during the week early in the morning or later in the evening when traffic is usually light. I do like their prices on some things.

[roothorick]

Changing receipt tape is similar to changing the recording strip tape in an EKG machine. One side is usually treated to react to the printer (a heat based process rather than one using ink, which would not be cost effective). If you put it in the wrong way, it either won't print or will get jammed and won't run.

And every flipping machine is different.

Worse, even if you do have the right side down, but you don't have the paper fed through correctly, it'll print, but off-center, the first few times, then go off-track and jam up inside the printer. And many of these receipt printers aren't made to be taken apart. It's bad enough that only four people out of our entire facility is allowed to change the paper in our photobooth (which uses high-quality thermal printers to print monochrome photos on glossy thermal paper).

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I usually don't use the self-check out at Wallyworld, as they're either closed or a gang of people are gathered around them with a zillion items in their carts. Usually I'll go to either of the two right at the exit beside them that are designated 20 items or less (because 9 out of 10 times I'm in there by myself I'm only picking up a handful of items.)

Thursday I went in for only two things: French bread and a container of their garlic spread from the bakery dept. I lucked up and saw an empty self-checkout and grabbed it quick before somebody else could get to it. Got my items scanned and ran my debit card through and was out within a minute or two.

Of course, after I'd scanned the bread and put it into the bag, the machine prompted for it to be placed back on the scanner. Luckily, the lady overseeing the self-checkouts came over rather quickly and pressed a button and I was able to scan the garlic spread and finish up.

Overall, at least at my Wallyworld, they're fairly decent most of the time. I just hate getting stuck behind someone who has no idea what they're doing, nor the patience for it.

[bainsidhe]

I worked for WM 3-1/2 years and never learned how to change the SCO register tape. The SCO was backwards and more complicated compared to regular registers, but that's not why I never learned. You had to have a manager's key to open the register. Once the register was opened to access the printer, you had access to other register "guts", such as the bank. Every store is different, but I suspect the cashier was waiting on a key, more than the tape itself.

That doesn't excuse the wait, however, and management bears a lot of blame in this. Also, why didn't the cashier ring out your sale at her podium? You don't mention if you had weighed items (like fruits/veg), but anything non-weighed could be rung through. Though I'll be honest and say I hated doing sales at the podium. Not only is it a distraction when I should be aiding the remaining 3 registers & focusing on potential shoplifters, but suddenly everyone under the sun sees special treatment and think they're too precious to wait in line like everyone else.

[Javarod]

Having never done so, I have to ask: is changing receipt tape so difficult it requires training? I get some machines are finiky and if you don't do the dance just right it won't work, but still.

In Walmart, it depends on the unit. Some use the standard printer, and any cashier can do that. But, there's at least one other unit that requires a key for anything, and they use a unique printer. Really a rather stupid thing, and at least at my we sent our worst cashiers over there, after all, they don't need to do as much in that post, so they can't screw up too badly... until you throw typical WalMart customers into the mix.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Yep, only CSMs carried a key for the SCO lanes at my store. Of course, we ripped the stupid things out during remodel and there are no plans to bring them back, which most people, customers and employees alike are happy about. I mean, if you knew what you were doing they were a great way to check out quickly when the lines were long because the SCOs were usually empty, but they weren't worth the hassle of the theft we had going out through them.

I have to ask though, why not just head for an express lane or any lane with a cashier instead of waiting 30 minutes for the tape to get changed?

bainsidhe is right though, the cashier should have just checked out out at her podium instead of just standing there.

[Mytical]

[offtopic]As an ex wally world employee..I have to say that when I worked at Wally World most of the employees were great..just had to do a lot with very little. Most of the customers (99%) were pretty great also..but see it is the volume we are talking.

If 1% of the world's population were EW's or SC's (it's probably a lot more then that lol) then roughly 70 million would be EW's or SC's. Now think of the millions of people that use wally world..and put take that same 1%. Of course just like in the rest of life, its the bad ones that get all the attention..making it seem that ALL of them are that way.

Now, it is probably closer to 10% because people see others getting free stuff for raising a ruckus, etc..and it catches on. So 10% of the millions is a LOT of people.

As for Employees. Overworked, unappreciated, dealing with constant sc's and ew's...eventually anybody can become a bit bitter. Now factor in that there are some who start out clueless, ew's or sc's themselves and well...[/offtopic]

Now as for the self scans..they can be evil incarnate. I do not like them at all. Yes I understand HOW to use them, but I avoid them like the plague

[Geek King]

I have to ask though, why not just head for an express lane or any lane with a cashier instead of waiting 30 minutes for the tape to get changed?

I might have the answer to this one:

Because there are too many SCs at Wally-world that think it is their God-given right to use any lane that has a shorter line no matter what the size of thier order.

I agree with the earlier poster: WalMart would be fine without the usual stock of customers. If I go there, I try to hit the store at O-dark-thirty.

[LadyAndreca]

I'm starting to realize that either the SCOs at our store are unusually easy for the cashiers to use/do overrides with, or we have a customer base unusually more intelligent than the average store about using them.

[Andara Bledin]

I have to ask though, why not just head for an express lane or any lane with a cashier instead of waiting 30 minutes for the tape to get changed?

Well, they didn't know it would be 20 minutes for the tape to be changed until afterward. It should have been done right away.

Of course, they were thinking in people terms, and the manager must have been working on a more glacial scale.

Then again, there's also the possibility that there was some raging SC somewhere out of sight and hearing that was making the manager's life a nightmare and would not be gotten rid of without a complex ritual involving components that couldn't be found on the shelves.

^-.-^