this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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Such a weird hatred against a fundamentally useful tool that means fewer people need to do an objectively shitty, monotonous job (=cashiers).
Here in Europe, we have enough people manning the registers that you can always opt to go to a human if you have a huge cart (and potentially wait a few minutes, or more during rush hour), or if you have less than ten items (quite often really, I buy dinner bread practically daily), you go to a self-checkout, and you're out in less than a minute.
It helps queue times when you need speed and are buying a few things only, and is literally irrelevant when you have a full cart, as you're better off going through a proper cash register anyway.
Note that the fact that hypercapitalist american supermarkets take this as an invitation to permanently understaff manned registers is not a fault of the machines themselves
I liked my teenage job as a cashier back in the day, it was relatively easy, got to talk to customers, literally no stress to take home, and you could quietly judge people based on what they bought
This is the reason it’s worth it. No other industry, except delivery, allows nosy people to judge so many others, safety, and without comment
I mean, you also acknowledge that cashiers are human beings and let them do wild things like have a stool or chair to sit on, or drink water as needed. As a country, the US has already shown itself to lack the necessary consideration and decency to let us leave these companies to their own devices with something like self-checkout. They will unfailingly select to most inhumane, awful way of implementing something that maximizes their profits at the cost of dehumanizing their employees and customers, while degrading the service they offer.