On my way home from my dog walking client's house today, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. I typically do this once a week. I wouldn't survive the grocery store without self-checkout. I seriously wouldn't. When I go shopping, I don't like to interact with store employees & actually cringe if an employee asks me if I'm finding everything I'm looking for alright. The Grocery Store Without Self-Checkout: About ten years ago, I worked as a cashier in a grocery store called Market Basket (worst experience of my life!). I would not recommend working as a cashier to any diagnosed or undiagnosed autistic person, but I'll tell you more about that later. Anyway, Market Basket prides itself as a full-service supermarket. When I worked there, I was told that Market Basket supermarkets do not have self-checkout because it is poor customer service. This is because it goes against their people taking care of people mentality. When I first heard about Market Basket's stance on self-checkout, I thought that that was the worst idea EVER. My opinion hasn't changed since. I am someone who depends on self-checkout, so any store assuming that people prefer cashiers over self-checkout isn't catering to all of their potential customers' needs. People who prefer to be checked out by a cashier would wait in the cashier line, while people like myself, who prefer to utilize self-checkout, whatever the reason may be, would go to that section of the store for check out instead. A new Market Basket opened in the town my parents & I live in & my mom's completely obsessed. She does all her shopping there now, even though it is a little further away than Stop & Shop, the grocery store she used to do all her shopping at. Several weeks ago, my mom suggested to me that I shop at Market Basket, as well. I asked her if Market Basket had self-checkout because I didn't feel comfortable shopping there if it didn't. I shared with her what I was told about self-checkout when I was a Market Basket employee. At first, my mom said that there was definitely a self-checkout section. However, she then realized that it wasn't self-checkout, but was express checkout. I still haven't stepped foot in that grocery store for that very reason. I mean, it doesn't make sense for me to go in there knowing that I'm not gonna be able to buy anything because the supermarket doesn't cater to my needs. When I mentioned the self-checkout issue to my dad, he said that whether or not having or not having self-checkout is good or bad customer service depends on who you're asking. I completely agree. I think that supermarkets who do not have a self-checkout section are actually providing poor customer service because they are not catering to all of their customers' needs. This is the exact opposite thing Market Basket is trying to achieve. I would think that extroverted & technology-illiterate people would be the type of people who would prefer cashiers over self-checkout. However, would these people think that the mere existence of a self-checkout section in a store is poor customer service? I don't think so. Curbside Shopping Or Self-Checkout?: There were many aspects of the coronavirus pandemic that made my life better. No longer needing to walk into stores to pick up the items I needed was one of the many things about COVID that benefitted me. I understand that there are many people who lost people they loved because of the virus. Luckily, I was not someone who lost anyone due to COVID, although I deeply sympathize with those who did. With the exception of the existence of the germ (that still sadly dictates my life), our way of life was actually better for me than the way we lived prior to the pandemic. The creation of curbside shopping was one of those things. Not having to go into stores to do my shopping & only having to have minimal interaction with one store employee who brought my items to my car was a literal dream. However, the thing that was less convenient was having to pick the time I will be at the store, several days ahead of time. I could never be spontaneous about when I was going to pick up my items, which is the kind of shopper I am. I like to be efficient with my time & with the gas in my car & it's hard to do that several days ahead of time, when I don't know for sure what the day is going to look like. These days, I prefer self-checkout over curbside shopping because it gives me much more flexibility. Plus, I generally feel safe in stores as long as I'm wearing a mask & I don't have prolonged contact with anyone. My Experience With Self-Checkout TODAY:
Even with how much I LOVE self-checkout, there are many problems with it. One of the problems is that the scale is WAY over-sensitive. The scale on a self-checkout station knows how much every item should weigh & it freaks out if it senses something that weighs even slightly more than it should. I get that this is the store's way of preventing theft, but there has to be a better way than having these machines freaking out at people all the time. I know that many cities & towns instituted this a long time ago, but my town JUST started charging for disposable grocery bags last month. Items fit much more nicely into paper grocery bags than they fit into insulated reusable grocery bags, which I was trying to use because it was ninety degrees outside. Most of the items I purchased were items that were prone to melting, plus insulated bags were the only kind of bags I had with me. I still have not gotten the hang of bagging groceries into reusable bags in a way that doesn't make the machine freak out. When the machine freaks out, I'm used to the person overlooking the self-checkout area coming over to the machine & simply putting his or her key in, so that I can continue scanning the rest of my items. The woman in charge of the self-checkout area today didn't do that, however. Instead, she insisted on having a conversation with me where she was telling me how to bag groceries & she became very accusatory. She even told me that she was trying to help me solve a problem, when I didn't think there was any problem that needed solving. The machine simply sensed some of my own body weight when I was trying to make the items fit into the bag better & it thought it detected an unpaid item. Any smart person could've told her that. However, this woman who came over to help me even showed me the surveillance video of me (on the self-checkout monitor) bagging groceries, like she was trying to prove to me that I was attempting to steal a $4 item. The item in my right hand was the item that I had just scanned that caused the machine to freak out. And the item in my left hand was the item that I was about to scan that I hadn't scanned yet. This is the way I have scanned groceries for years, including when I was a Market Basket cashier. This is the first time I have ever had a problem with this method. She then continued on by telling me that I only scanned one of the items I was holding & then proceeds to scroll through the entire list of items I had scanned thus far. I didn't think I was doing anything suspicious. I was simply an autistic woman who wanted to be left alone, so I could go about my day. I was beyond flustered with this woman & with my experience in the self-checkout area today, but am I going to go to a cashier the next time I go grocery shopping? Absolutely not; I'm simply going to cross my fingers AND my toes that this woman isn't there or if she is, she leaves me alone. That is how much I dislike interacting with cashiers when I shop. When There Is No Self-Checkout Option: A store not having a self-checkout option isn't a problem for me. It's the stores who think of self-checkout as a negative thing that I have a problem with. I can name several stores that don't have a self-checkout option, off the top of my head. PetSmart, Michaels, & Kohl's don't have self-checkout, for example. The last time I purchased items at any of those three stores, or at most other stores that don't have the self-checkout option; I utilized the purchase online, pick-up in store option. When paying via cashier is necessary, of course I oblige, but I only do that when it is absolutely necessary.
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AuthorHello! My name is Kim, I didn't know I was autistic until I was in my thirties, & this is my story. Categories
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May 2024
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