Rants, Raves, and Praise → [Rant] Stop and Shop

let me jump in on this one real quick since I worked at stations for years.

if we've only got 1 island open it's mostly because either we've had a hardware failure on a control or we are having to do everything manually, It has nothing to do with sucky customer service, we're not all versed in repairing or fixing gas pumps or controllers for the pumps and before you say "why did you just not replace it" I've never seen that equipment unlocked or opened by anybody BUT the people who do the work, so just stop trying to do this entitlement bullshit, it's not ever going to pay off. in the end you look like a dick.

I probably wouldn't have walked out myself, but these days it is poor form for a store of any reasonably large size to have no self-service lanes, and even poorer form for those lanes to exist but be non-operational. (I would say "Kind of like gas stations that have no working self-service pumps." - but since we are talking about NJ I can't really go there.) I may even go out of my way to avoid no-self-service situations, so those stores lose my business.

But, the very same guy who insists on using these (me) will also grumble incessantly if they misbehave in any way and require a human to step in, which in grocery stores is almost always the case with me for some reason. And, no, I'm never trying to get away with anything; I'm usually just in a hurry and pissed-off that I had to walk all over a huge store to get only a couple of items. Which is why these days I may very well stop at a convenience store to buy those things, and pay convenience store prices for them. And these stores almost never have self-service check-outs, although most everything else is self-service.

I prefer to shop at Big Y as the clerks are friendlier and the prices are better. I find Stop and Shop to have higher prices and rude clerks.

I feel your pain. I cant believe there are posters against you.
Any regular cashier can work a register and monitor the self checkout at the same time. I really dont get why stores dont leave them on 24/7. It never makes sense to turn off the self checkout lines.
I went into walmart one night to buy one damn item. They had no self checkout, two registers with a line of 10 carts each. 1)I could not believe how many jackasses do a cart load of shopping on a friday night at 11pm when just every checkout line is closed. 2) I was so damn annoyed at how slow the cashier was going. It was pathetic.
I did wait over 20 minutes for 1 damn item.

I used to work at walgreens. I could check out 10 people in the same time it takes other cashiers to do 3.
I dont understand most cashiers. They move soooo damn slow for no damn reason. Its not hard to move quickly and make no mistakes. You just have to think how to bag and scan as fast as the register will allow you to. It all about being efficient.

Sometimes I have taken a huge cart full to self checkout since all 4 self checkouts were empty and every cashier had a line of carts. I can check out my full ass cart with like 10 bags piled on the scale in half the time a normal casher can do it which is sad since the normal registers scan like 4 times as fast as self checkout registers.

I dont understand why those who work at registers dont check people out quickly when if they were in line waiting they would want the cashier to check them out quickly.

Oh yeah, and screw all you damn lottery ticket people who hold up the line for 5 minutes at the gas station while you buy a zillion lottery tickets and also smokers who hold up the line requesting some weird special pack that the clerk has to call out a search party for.

Around here, there's no such thing as a grocery store that has self-checkout. What a crime against humanity that is.

OP, get a grip and try to find something worthwhile to complain about. I know this is the whiner forum, but that doesn't mean you have to force it.

The OP has a valid rant.
Everyone here pretending like it is no big deal the self checkouts were closed will be the first to get frustrated if they were in the same situation.

2012-07-12 08:12:20

Assuming the OP went to a grocery store before work, what did you expect? Peak efficiency?

It sucks but is it really that big a deal? No, not really. Just either leave or wait it out.

You are wrong. There is only ONE store here with those horrible self check lanes and what I rant about it that there are lines for those awful self check lanes that ALWAYS REQUIRE clerk intervention (so slower than cashier lanes) and only two cashier lanes open with NO quick check cashier lane open. The NO quick check cashier line open is what I rant about. I should not have to do my own bagging...not at prices charged in Safeway! And I also should not have to wait forever.

The other grocery stores here don't have self check nor does Target or Wal-Mart. I prefer all the other stores over Safeway because I resent Safeway trying to force me to do my own checkout and they are too cheap to have a quick check lane always open. My favorite grocery store has FOUR quick check lanes ALWAYS OPEN. Now THAT is proper service!

The reason Safeway has self check lanes and no one else does (and has almost no cashier lanes open) is because the cashiers are unionized at Safeway. They are not unionized at any other grocery in my town and those stores have plenty of open quick check lanes and NO self check lanes. As for Wal-Mart, they learned the hard way to not have self check...they removed them after people complained about them. Target only came here a year ago and they knew not to have self check lanes. Safeway loses a lot of my business to the other stores where there are lots of pleasant cashiers that quickly serve me.

I have been to several gas stations where a couple pumps did nto work and people had to wait - it is also NOTHING like your example. A store can't\won't provide instant one on one lane openings - it just does not make financial sense.

I have gone tot he store plenty of times when the self checkouts were closed - at Kroger that is usually 8 to 8:30 PM. And they usually have limited lanes open as well.

I simply deal with it like an adult.

So you're saying that a labor union forced a store to replace human workers with machines? Odd...

Vote with your wallet.

Go down the road to Shop Rite in Bloomfield and deal with the crowds and crummy store layout. Or Acme in Clifton by Home Depot.

My Dad does the same thing - complains about the Brookdale Shop Rite. I remind him to go elsewhere yet he still complains....

Sure - cheaper to pay for 1 cashier to man the self checkout than deal with the unions....

Why is this such a difficult concept to understand?

I stopped shopping at my local Safeway for the same reason. Because of my work schedule, I would shop for groceries around 8 pm. It seemed that almost every time I went in the store they would have several full-service lanes open and their self-serve lanes open. But when I finished shopping, often with only a few items in my cart, I found that the self-serve lanes were closed and all but one or two of the full-service lanes were closed, with long lines of shoppers waiting to check out. Not just once or twice, but most of the time. So I now shop elsewhere.You're absolutely right. The OP has every right to feel frustrated and rant here. We (or at least I) get frustrated, too. Do I get frustrated when I'm just about to enter the barber shop and a family with a half dozen kids gets to the door before me? Sure! Do I get frustrated by heavy traffic and long red lights? Sure! Etc. Life is full of these moments.

I don't think people are responding to that, but rather to the notion that every store has an obligation to ensure that everyone is first (or nearly so) in line. If a store doesn't provide the level of service you want, by all means go elsewhere. Not every store owner wants your money at any cost.

That's the problem. Most people are clueless and take at least twice as long checking themselves out as a cashier would. I probably would have done the same thing as the poster -- not that the store was doing anything "wrong", but that it's not worth my time. It's incredible how much time and money is wasted standing in various lines when appointments or other mechanisms could make things dramatically more efficient.

And since we're talking about checkout lane inefficiency, how about the people (the vast majority) who don't realize that they can swipe their credit cards while items are still being scanned? Instead they don't even pull out their wallets/purses until the very end.

This does not even make sense...

Why not? The less union workforce you have the less you have to deal with them and the less clout they have. You could deal with the union issue for, say 20 employees or 2. Makes sense to only deal with the 2.

Think auto unions for the mess that a union could cause. So it's easier to limit your exposure by limiting the number of union employees.

I've felt the same a few times. But, I realized after my tantrum that I was behaving like a child. I don't mean that as an offense to you at all.

Many of us have our days.

It's good to rant if it relives the stress.

Now, stay away from 'Stop and Wait' and go to another store.

When you find one that is acceptable post a 'Praise'

That would be epic!

Have a great weekend!

Dave

Not to take sides but I've gone to a stop & shop that stays open for 24/hr and walked in around 6 AM and they have the self check outs open with no monitor.. same when late at night around 10 PM.

However I went in one time around 2 AM and they just have a single lane open.. but for a good reason because I found I was the only shopper in the store at the time.

this thread is tl;dr, because reading about 4 items is just not worth is, BUT, Kudos to the OP -- he voted with his wallet.

Around christmas time I went to sears to buy pants. Tried them on, everything fit really great, went to the checkout and noticed a really long line. Looked around and found that this was the only cashier that was open in this part of the store. My wife saw some employee hanging around so she nicely asked if there was anywhere else we could pay. I forget his exact response but it was something like, its christmas time, suck it up and wait in that long line. So I took out my smart phone, loaded the amazon app, scanned the barcode with amazon's barcode scanner and then order the pants from amazon and left sears without having to wait in line. Technology is wonderful

My Stop and Shop is great, but that doesn't mean yours isn't sucky. If this happened all the time I'd be annoyed and shop elsewhere. If it's a one off incident, well I'd figure that there was a possibility the store was short staffed/someone called in sick and then deal.

My Stop and Shop always has a "12 items or Less" isle open at all times. I am surprised yours doesn't.

In those off-times I am in a hurry with my few items and all isles are too long - I go to the courtesy counter, where they will ring you up there too (or it prompts them to open another register).

It's hard to feel for your rant, when you didn't even go to courtesy for help.

-Jim

PS Growing up we never had any highfalutin self checkout. We waited in line for as long as it took and liked it.

Now get off my lawn.

I think they are half great, when you just need a few items you don't have to wait for the old bitty with a handful of expired coupons, and wants to argue about them, then talk about how her cats really need that cat food.

I understand they might shutdown the self checkout during off hours, and I'm ok with this when they only leave one lane open so they are not paying people to stand around.

PTU

The courtesy desk was empty, as in not staffed, unoccupied, vacant. And it wasn't off hours, it was 8 AM.

Ask yourself this, who goes to the grocery store during a non-holiday weekday at eight am, very few people. Almost nobody does their family shopping at eight am.

and yet, the OP found the only 2 people in Clifton, NJ that shop for the family at 8 in the morning in front of him.

my "off-times I am in a hurry" does not equal your store's off-hours. It does equal the few times I am in that much of a hurry.Ah ok, so you forgot that part in your rant and also where you went to the courtesy desk and reasonably waited for staff in the (most likely adjoining) back office to come forward having seen you on the monitor (which is where they are in my store if no one is waiting at courtesy) before you gave up and left. Not to jump ahead but saving the trouble.