Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech::When Walmart’s anti-theft self-checkout tech alerts an employee of a missed scan, it can cause some uncomfortable situations.
You force me to check out my own groceries. Fine.
But don’t get pissed when I have a lot of groceries and have to move my bags because you gave me one square foot of space to bag everything. That’s often my biggest frustration. The robot thinks I’m trying to do some shady stuff, and I’m not.
The ‘robot’ isn’t the problem. This design is intentional and human made. Here in the Netherlands self checkout is the norm, even in very small grocery stores. However, it’s super easy and not frustrating at all, because the stores TRUST their customers. The self checkout is super simple, you scan a product and put it on your bag, or backpack or whatever you have. No need to weigh the scanned products or anything. Nothing overcomplicated.
Now there are some control measures, but they are designed in a way to not be too intrusive or create unnecessary frustration: First, most places have a gate at the exit that only lets you leave by scamming your receipt (or if you go paperless, you scan your membership card on your phone). Also, some places do random inspection. But that’s frustration free too - a worker comes up to you with a hand scanner, scans like four or five random items of yours and leaves. Boom, done.
Yeah, you can’t trust Americans. They’ll steal your own land out from under you and Rob your grandma and call it good business sense. Saying this as an American.
Don’t drink the water. There’s blood in the water.
And probably some forever chemicals, but we’ve made that everyone’s problem
Don’t forget microplastics.
Where isn’t there, the Antarctic?
No, that’s all oil
oil
DID SOMEONE SAY THEY NEED SOME FREEDOM?!? F16s fly overhead, teens getting tossed ARs
WE WILL SAVE YOU
and your resourcesAnd penguins
The penguins are coated in the oil.
However, it’s super easy and not frustrating at all, because the stores TRUST their customers.
lol, I’ve been at the Albert Heijn near my hotel 3 times and 3 times I had to have my items rescanned. Maybe it’s because I’m not blond and tall?
One week in NL and I’m wondering what we’re even doing over here.
We’re accepting white the Nordic countries are fiercely xenophobic. It changes the game quite a bit.
NL is neither a Nordic country nor ethnically homogeneous. Just like all countries with a history of colonizing other people, many of those people are now in NL. Stop blaming everything on diversity
Nice try, but no.
Dutch 75.4%, EU (excluding Dutch) 6.4%, Turkish 2.4%, Moroccan 2.4%, Surinamese 2.1%, Indonesian 2%, other 9.3% (2021 est.)
However, it’s super easy and not frustrating at all, because the stores TRUST their customers.
A third of these are people who are either disabled or in medical crisis. They’re marked “funny”. And this is where you go for entertainment? Well, when people tell you who they are, believe them.
Also, some places do random inspection. But that’s frustration free too
Yeah, I’m gonna disagree with that. They’ve recently ramped up those checks because of increased theft due to inflation. They also scan more items now. After having been checked 4 times in a row and them completely emptying my bag each time, I no longer use the self checkout.
Jeez where do you live?
NL as well. Maybe it’s because it’s a big city, poor neighbourhood, more theft, I don’t know, but I’m done with it.
Sounds frustrating, sorry to hear that
Thanks, it really was. I had happily used the self-checkouts for years before that, so it’s a real shame.
most places have a gate at the exit that only lets you leave by scamming your receipt
That would be unlawful detention here. Also, what about people that go in and decide they don’t actually want to buy anything after all?
Fun fact: You can ignore the receipt checkers at wal-mart in the states. They have no legal authority to require you to stop. Costco, on the other hand, since it’s a membership club, can.
Costco can stop you from leaving either. They can however revoke your membership for breaking the terms. But if you not longer care about you membership you ignore them like the Walmart checkers
That would be unlawful detention here. Also, what about people that go in and decide they don’t actually want to buy anything after all?
It’s not like you’re trapped… you can just walk out if you want, but doing so without paying and carrying full bags may raise an eyebrow with employees. Although I think I could easily get away with that in my small village supermarket during quiet hours when nobody is paying attention.
This isn’t about the weight sensors, it’s using “computer vision” to detect you didn’t scan something and forces employees to get involved.
All the Walmarts I’ve been to have the bagging area weight sensors turned off. It seems the local grocery store finally turned theirs off because using a reusable bag used to set it off.
Yeah, I got pinged twice, in one visit because I moved shit around, trying to organize.
Way more false positives, in my opinions.
Honestly, those weight systems are so easily defeated, I don’t even get the point. Anything that is measured by unit vs weight can easily be stolen.
I use reusable bags. I have to be very slow and deliberate getting the bag ready in the bagging area or it’ll flag me.
Same for me.
Maybe it’s just Colorado but the only store I’ve been to that had weight verification was a King Soopers (Kroger in other states)
Remember everyone. If you see someone shoplifting from Walmart, no you didn’t.
Unless they’re stealing guns or ammo.
I wouldn’t say anything. Not because I care about “muh poor people” but because I actively mind my own business. I would behave the same way if I saw someone steal from a small business as well.
The employees can potentially get fired.
As long as it’s just “shoplifting”. Where I’m at, people will come in on a bike with a trash bag, load it up, roll out, and go to the next town over and sell the stuff on the street in the ghetto.
Since you kids are so sheltered you don’t believe anything like this happens, here it is on video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JLIWxxya4
Tell your moms I said hi, suburb kids
That’s quite a story.
It’s pretty common here. A lot of stores have been hiring private security, but if the security intervenes then the thief can sue them.
I used to be in security. I couldn’t imagine getting paid a little over minimum wage and giving a shit about theft. The only ones that would were people who took it too goddamn seriously and we called them “tac heads” because they purchased all this tactical gear like the maglights like a fucking billy club and were looking for an excuse to throw down.
Matter of fact that describes some cops too. Damn is there a serious problem with how we staff enforcement jobs.
We call them “Entrepreneurs” lol
Cool story bro.
Let me guess, you live in a safe, lily-white suburb😂
Poverty breeds crime, but not all crime is of desperation.
Just curious, do you get anything if you tell on them?
Tell what? All of it’s happening out in the open, the cops just refuse to do anything about it. It’s not like if you tell a cop they’ll be like “oh shit I had no idea, let me go run over there and do my job for once, thank you citizen!”
To be fair to cops, they’re understaffed and they don’t want to do their jobs for fear of activists suing them. But all of those suits are paid for with tax dollars, so idk why they care, just do your job and if they sue you, they sue you.
I think it boils down to laziness but with the excuse of being sued.
Tell what?
Tell on people who are shoplifting.
All of it’s happening out in the open
Then what did you mean by:
As long as it’s just “shoplifting”
To me, it seems like you were saying that if you saw people “on a bike with a trash bag, load it up, roll out” then you would snitch, since this comment chain is about not telling on people who are stealing from corporations.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
You’re getting ripped off even with a stolen Walmart bike.
I work at a shop and people call us snobs because we won’t work on those deathtraps
What would even be wrong with someone doing that? 🤔
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I feel like it depends. Stealing is morally wrong no matter what. But I’d probably act as if I saw nothing if someone just stole a sandwich or similar. I’m not sure I’ll act the same if I see a teenage girl of a family that is obviously very well off steal things like makeup (that one literally bragged about it in front of her parents during a dinner where I was invited).
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In our society people are acknowledged as human beings through consumption, and that need is hammered onto our heads by ads and beauty norms everywhere.
Belonging is a human need. Sometimes some cheap makeup is all it takes.
But also, the rich people are stealing from us in so much worse ways. A rich teen stealing from a rich corporation is kind of karmaeic, and really, even if she was caught, nothing significant would happen, whilst a poor girl doing the same would suffer a lot more.
Ergo, if you see something, no you didn’t.
This guy gets it.
I don’t know that stealing is morally wrong no matter what. My rabbi taught that if a man steals to survive, the crime is not his, but of his community because they did not save him from poverty. That teaching really stuck with me. Yes, stealing indicates something is seriously wrong in the world, but there’s a big difference in where the evil lies— is it in the thief, or in the society?
Stealing is morally wrong no matter what.
🤡
Fuck Walmart
This is the way.
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Ew Gross. Way too many diseases.
prophylactics are in aisle 17
Still not worth sticking ya dick in THAT level of crazy
Ever since the pandemic, curbside pickup has been the norm at our house for groceries.
We use Kroger, not Walmart, but I had a recent experience relevant to share.
I was out running an errand and my spouse asked me to go grab a couple items from Kroger since it was nearby.
I hadn’t been inside the store in like a year, so I was surprised to see gates at the door that opened and closed upon approach and walking away.
Also, while shopping, at some point suddenly the wheels on the cart locked up, causing me to bang the ever loving shit out of my shins on the cart frame. That’s when I got to learn about the new “anti-theft” wheel lock tech being used on all carts now.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wanted to flip the goddamn cart over and kick the absolute shit out of it… but I knew that wouldn’t help.
…But if I read a story about someone going and drilling holes in every single one of those cart wheels, or setting fire to them all, or breaking the gates, I would laugh.
I imagine as soon as someone gets something worse than bruised shins and brings a lawsuit against these stupid companies, we will see these stupid things go away… but until then, I’m not fucking stepping foot inside any store that has that bullshit.
The grocery store in my city became straight dystopian. It was always a sort of sketchy area but nothing that bad. After the pandemic, they added a second armed, vested private security in black, one-way turnstiles going in and out, increased cameras with screens on every aisle that showed you with the words “RECORDING IN PROGRESS”. They even added locks to the frozen section, so you had to get an employee to help you buy ice cream. The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.
The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.Cops can generally get away with that. Store security guards assaulting customers open the store up to a lawsuit.
True, the store security usually didn’t actually do anything, the police would be doing that while the security talks to them, but on two occasions I did see the security tackle a person.
The “bad” grocery store near me has taken to posting security cam pictures of people they catch stealing which is a terrible, awful, extrajudicial thing to do, but I would be lying if I said it does not make for some hilarious pictures. It’s a big wall of shame right as you enter the store.
Jesus Christ that all sounded (unfortunately) normal until the locked freezers. That’s a step too far. I mean, all of it is, but that’s actually a ridiculous concept lmao
I wonder if that’s a response to that stupid internet trend of opening ice cream containers to lick it and then put it back.
The WHAT NOW?
It’s pretty funny to think, living in the US, nothing is odd about a privately employed person with a gun guarding groceries or people being violently arrested when they steal said groceries out of necessity.
My wife’s creepy racist incel uncle had a fit once when we went into a store and he saw himself on the security camera. He said he doesn’t like seeing himself. My sister had the same reaction to seeing herself pre transition and apparently it’s a common theme among trans people who haven’t realized it yet.
I know it’s a bit of a tangent, but he’s rabidly transphobic up to the point just short of being blatantly hateful. He’s obsessed with my sister and other trans people and made a lot of obsessive and creepy jokes about dating them.
This post triggered my PTSD.
That’s more a body dysmorphia thing than specifically a trans thing. For instance, I hate seeing myself too, and I’m just fat, not trans. I disapprove of the appearance I have, and dislike being reminded of that. Yes, I’m working on it.
He’s a completely out of shape incel, so that’s a possibility. Considering everything else, he seems deep in the closet. He started mentioning trans stuff all the time before he found out that my sister is trans, which caused him to have an existential crisis, because he was obsessed with her and trying to get her to date him. He also has a creepy latent obsession with Russian women. He constantly talked about other trans women and joked about dating them and went through an entire hypothetical situation of introducing a specific trans woman he was obsessed with to his family.
Yikes, I hope you don’t have to deal with him anymore.
I’m surprised it locked up like that. About 15 years ago I was a frequent customer in a store that had these and I never encountered any problem with it, nor did I hear of anyone else encountering a malfunction while using them.
That store implemented those locks because they were the closest supermarket to a college campus. Some students were taking the carts back to their dorms and chaining them up to a tree with bicycle chains. They would also use those carts to go shopping in a nearby supermarket of another store chain.
Different continent though, so it’s probably not entirely the same technology. People like reinventing the wheel.
People like reinventing the wheel.
I see what you did there.
I always try and smash my cart into the gates extra hard every time I go through
I’ve had too many incidents with spoiled or opened food to ever use curbside pickup.
My wife once ordered some dried basil or similar herb, they said they were out of stock and substituted it with an actual live potted basil plant. We both thought it was hilarious, but also annoying.
Some loss is the expected result of replacing workers with customers. Even cashiers who are paid and trained to check out customers have a failure rate of about 1%. Walmart treating their customers like criminals for things that routinely happen to even their own trained and incentived employees is ridiculous.
I’d get hostile too. This wastes literally everyone’s time, employee and customer. Walmart and other companies already write off all their losses as tax write offs. It would actually be more cost efficient to do literally nothing. But it’s not about preventing theft. It’s about proving a point: that corporations control you.
Hostile to the point of attacking the employees?
I’ll call for their manager and attack the manager specifically. Is there a term for that yet?
I’m sorry but I don’t think that makes very much sense.
Retail theft is a real problem for a company’s bottom line. Enough so that Target is pulling out of San Francisco, IIRC. And self-checkout is one of the easiest ways to pull it off.
Why would a corporation frantically seeking quarter over quarter growth spend money to “prove a point” about control?
Enough so that Target is pulling out of San Francisco, IIRC
ehhhhhhhhhhhhh. They’re blaming theft, but that’s not it. Theft might be a part of it, but the stats nearby contradict that. We don’t have access to their internal theft metrics, but the city data doesn’t pan out. When there are stores (mission district) that have higher theft and are staying open, then is it really theft?
Or is it poor retail performance since WFH is the new king and people live in the suburbs more than in the city. When continue to order online more and more instead of shop at a physical store.
Theft is an easy way to blame other people without providing evidence. It’s not the CEO’s failure to adapt to changing market conditions, it’s the poors! It’s their fault! /s
This.
Both Walmarts in Portland OR closed a few months ago. Good fucking riddance
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How about this. If self check out is a problem go back to paying cashiers.
No way. I don’t need someone to frantically scan my items while I barely manage to bag them in time.
Then they need to rehire baggers, too.
I’ll never understand why people like you care about a mega corporation’s bottom line. The executives are still making billions, while keeping their employees as poor as they can get away with.
Target will survive without San Francisco. Even if they fail, the top dogs will just liquidate and take a fat paycheck home, enough for a 1000+ employees to retire and live off of for the rest of their lives, and they’ll just pocket it all. Fuck 'em.
I don’t give a flying fuck about a megacorporation’s bottom line. Fuck Walmart. Fuck Target. I don’t disagree with a single thing you just said.
I just didn’t think it made any sense to say that they made an expensive change to their self-checkout just to “prove a point” about controlling people.
But apparently no one knows how to read. And once some of you saw downvotes you knew everything you needed to know about what I think.
So is CEO greed though. And they could choose to use that money to balance their budget, not ruin my experience of being out and about.
Yes, they absolutely could and should. That wasn’t my point. I just don’t think it makes any sense to say that they made the change to their self checkout to “prove a point” about controlling people.
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Eh. Shop wherever you get the best deal.
Getting screwed over by someone locally isn’t better than getting screwed over by someone miles away unless you’re a tool.
You understand why Walmart is able to charge so little for shit? Their workers are paid garbage (a lot have to supplement their wages with food stamps), they buy in such crazy volume that they can undercut mom and pop places with impossible margins and they drive local businesses under. I hope the deals are worth it
Amusingly the 2 Walmarts in my city closed due to crazy shoplifting. I’m not sad to see them go, but they left a massive crater in the shopping center where NOTHING needs that much space and I can’t see anybody moving in anytime soon. Sadly they’ve chased smaller places out of the area already so shopping options are limited
Walmart workers are paid comparably to workers at Kroger and Target.
Walmart is able to charge low prices because they make up for it in volume. They make up for it in volume because they charge the lowest prices.
I hope the deals are worth it
It is. If mom and pop stores want to stay in business, they can take a hit to their paychecks so customers have a better deal. If they aren’t willing to do that, then they shouldn’t get to stay in business. It is business, after all. I’m not getting ripped off just to be nice to someone local, lol.
Bragging about being equivalent to Kroger pay is… sheesh…
Yeah I don’t think they get that countered their own point. All of em are corporate places that are cheap and pay shit.
The one corporate retail chain I’d give a pass to is Costco. They show that it is completely possible for all of these larger chains to compensate their employees fairly.
The best deal is always free. So, I’d rather inconvenience the conglomerate haute-booj than the petit-booj, even if it’s only a few dollars.
The best deal is always free.
What are you talking about? Who told you that and why do you spout it as though it’s a law of the universe?
No, the best deal is not ‘always free.’ That’s the kind of soundbite that’s appropriate for republicans.
These incidents were mistakes.
Let’s stop that from happening, and make it deliberate.
Maybe they should keep some non-self check registers open then. I was a grocery store cashier in high school and college and I got $20/hour for doing it (adjusted for inflation). Right now if I see a store only has self-check open I will walk out, what I want to do is start tracking my time then mailing in a 1099 and an invoice for my time.
I’d never think to harass the poor employee who has nothing to do with the store managenent’s decisions…
However, when I’m pissed or tired I’ll sometimes be rough or sloppy with the machine, and I get pissed if they have too few manned checkouts for how crowded a store is. Banging items against the scanner glass, tap selections on the touch screen forcefully with my ring etc.
To keep the self-checkout machines company, I’ll act like a machine too. If I unsuccessfully attempt to scan something, after 5 tries I “timeout” and move onto the next item.
I give 60 seconds for someone to come fix the self checkout when it fucks up. If no one is available, I’m taking my shit and leaving. I tried to pay, fuck you I don’t have time for this.
I tried to pay, fuck you I don’t have time for this.
Lol, uh huh. Whatever you gotta tell yourself to justify stealing that bag of doritos, dude.
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I’m not gonna cry for a corporation that doesn’t give a fuck if you eat or not. Why are you?
I’m not “crying” for any corporations. I’m laughing at that jackass for their asinine rationalization for shoplifting. If you don’t understand the difference, I don’t know what to tell you.
You’re not crying for them, you’re licking their boots
You’re free to do so, of course, and we’re free to laugh at your dumb ass paying full price for $20 steaks that were only half as much three years ago.
Lemmy sure attracts some fucking characters. The guy simply pointed out that stealing isn’t justified by a 60-second wait. And you are jumping in here ranting about the price of steak for some reason. You’re not Robin Hood. You’re just a dumbass with a keyboard.
Tell us you’re not listening without telling us you’re not listening
This dumbass with a keyboard knows their worth and knows it is rarely if ever worth it to pay full price for stuff. Especially expensive necessities, for example meat, for which the prices skyrocketed thanks to the lockdowns and aren’t going back down because of the horrifyingly astounding greed of big corps like Walmart who largely control the market.
Hence, stealing stuff like that from Walmart is justified.
Hell, it’s justified simply because it is Walmart, but that is the more detailed justification.
It doesn’t matter either way, though, because people are going to keep doing it regardless of what you think.
So carry on, dumbass keyboard warrior. The only one you’re hurting is you. 😎
Sucks to suck. Fix your machines.
It’s unethical and I personally wouldn’t do that…
…but in your situation practically speaking, if no one’s going to come and fix the machine in that amount of time, then who would be there to stop you just walking out with your goods?
Sureee you will.
No, you’ll stand there and look around annoyed like everyone else, all yourre saying is youre gonna be a dick to whoever has the misfortune of helping you.
I’ve done it several times lol
One time I’ve gotten a “hey you can’t do that” but in my area the guards aren’t allowed to stop you. Which imo is a dumb rule but it allows me to do this.
I don’t know about you, but I get annoyed that I still can’t use NFC at checkout. It’s 2023, tap to pay has been around in the US since 2016 and much longer in Europe.
It really is stupid cause literally every business accepts NFC payments now. Even gas pumps. But not Walmart.
From an employee I talked to it’s because they have a specific contract with the payment processor and it requires using specific payment devices that are covered in the contract and they don’t want off it for as long as possible because it gives them preferential fees.
So until the cost of business lost is enough to cover increased payment processing fees, don’t expect to see tap to pay.It definitely cost them my business at least twice when I forgot my wallet and remembered they don’t take NFC so I went across the street to target.
Why don’t you just go to Target first? You can get all your crap ahead of time and just pickup the order. Their prices are super low to compete with Walmart and they price match. Right now it’s basically Walmart with better customers.
The man reason why people go to Target is because they’re willing to spend a bit more to not have to shop at Walmart. Not everyone can afford that luxury.
I left my cart in the checkout lane once because of this. I forgot my wallet, but had my phone with my wallet app. They are actively refusing to implement tap to pay in order to drive people to their app. Not happening.
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They want you to use Walmart Pay in the Walmart app. That’s the only contactless way you can pay there. It’s not horrible but you need have an Internet connection to use it.
Do the stores not have free WiFi? I’ve never been in a Walmart, but all bigger stores here in Europe have WiFi.
They do have WiFi.
The last few times I’ve walked into a Walmart, the place has been a disaster.
Shelves empty and in disarray, no evidence that they ever did carry the product I was after, the building in an increasing state of disrepair.
I’m done with this company.
The Walmart here is pretty good, but this is a small city/large town where most of the local businesses have gone, so we have to rely on the Walmart a lot of the time. They keep it clean and well-stocked. They even usually have a couple of checkout lanes open.
But Walmarts are generally awful from what I understand.
Yeah hopefully ours goes out of business soon.
Have they choked out all other options in the vicinity?
Not really; we’re pretty flush for retail.
Of course. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Often times it’s an honest mistake that a cashier themselves may have made. And now WalMart is treating you, a paying customer like a criminal.
Based on nothing but the people I have seen at Walmart, I would assume there are more people with a convicted criminal history shopping at Walmart than Target.
A key to success in business is knowing your customer base.
They do sell crowbars no?
Not at walmart, but one of our supermarkets in town has two self-checkouts. I tried them a few times, and they were so f-ed up that I gave up on them. One time, the machine did not accept any cash, but was stuck in the menu choice “pay by cash” without a “back” button. So I took my stuff to the normal checkout, which had the problem that my steaks had already been scanned. Solution: leave a bag of 20+ Euro meat at the checkout, and get a new one from the butchers shop.
normal checkout, which had the problem that my steaks had already been scanned
Lol, that meat had a serial number.
Yes, if I get if from the butcher inside the supermarket, it has a “local” EAN13 barcode that “costs” the total of all parts I got.
Sounds like a badly configured system IMO. It shouldn’t take things out of stock or prevent rescanning until the sale was actually made (the customer paid).
Meat heist is unironically a real thing
We hang cattle rustlers round here…
Dang, from one ‘local’ establishment to the next.
And I bet you’re paying more, too.
It’s funny, my local Walmart ditched the weight checking part of the self checkout so it’s quick and easy, yet every time I go at least one person has managed to fuck up badly enough to need to call help over
Meanwhile I’m getting a decent discount on my purchase, which is nice
You’re stealing?
Unexpected item in bagging area?
Fuck you buggy robot, keep up. I’m moving on to the next one.
Didn’t get scanned? The store is getting the quality of checkout that it paid for.
Ah so stealing. Got it.
Stealing from Walmart is a community service.
I refuse to do the unpaid labor of fixing their shitty robot.
If bad business decisions cause accidental shrinkage, oh well.
Lot of mental hoops your jumping through to justify stealing.
Why are u defending a corporation that’s making you do a job for free that people used to get paid to do.
Because we live in a society where stealing is wrong. Sorry you don’t like self checkouts, but that doesn’t give you the right to steal. I don’t like speed limits, but I still follow them.
Here’s an idea; if you don’t like self checkouts, don’t use them.
I’ll go there. Robot fucks up, I’m stealing.
I tried to pay. Fuck em.
The store is stealing labor from you.
It’s simply the customer getting paid for the labor of being a cashier. If someone does labor for a company, the company pays them.
Morally maybe, but legally no. Theft requires criminal intent. If the person is honestly attempting to pay for the goods and errors in the payment method cause an over or underpayment, that’s not theft.
It’s theft if you know that the item didn’t scan and you just bag it anyway. You can ask for help. But no keep stealing and trying to justify it.
It’s not theft if it’s from Walmart 😉
It’s not theft if there’s no criminal intent. If the lack of scanning was caused by equipment malfunction then there’s no reason to think that they intended to steal.
I don’t understand people that get upset and hostile at employees in these situations. When I go through self checkout I go in with expectations already set that it’s very likely that at some point during the checkout process the machine is going to trigger an alarm and an employee will need to come over and override the alarm. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does my first reaction isn’t to get all pissy and throw things at the cashier.
If you have no patience for this sort of thing, then go through the regular checkout. See if it takes longer going that route.
The store has chosen to save money by pushing work onto customers via a buggy robot overlord.
Employees are the only person you can complain to.
Just more billionaires making things shitty for everyone.
I could justify it if even a fraction of a percent of the savings were actually passed on, or hell, even distributed to the few employees they still have. But no, it lines the fat cats pockets.
That’s the worst part. It has gotten so miserable for both employees and customers and none of the profits made from these changes has gone back to those most affected by them.
Yeah I do agree that complaining to employees is useless, but it’s also a really frustrating situation and it’s not like you can get the CEO on the phone to complain. I wouldn’t personally complain at an employee, but I do get how someone might in the midst of such frustration.
As a consumer, what’s your other option?
Pretty much nothing, hence why I said I get it 🤷🏼♂️
The only viable legal option is to vote with your wallet. I know elsewhere you said that’s not an option in your area, and that sucks. Still, do what you can to shop at other places, even if you can’t nix walshart entirely.
Edit that was another guy who said that, my bad. Statement still standa tho
Shop elsewhere.
Where? Idk about your area, but in mine all the options are big corporate chains
And even in areas where family owned retail stores still survive, a lot of people can’t afford to shop at them, because they’ll always have higher prices than the big chains, and with the price gouging that’s gone on since 2020, many families are struggling to make ends meet as it is.
Yeah, it sucks for sure. I personally choose to spend a bit more and buy a bit less to go to somewhere that doesn’t suck horribly, but that’s a lot of effort and a privilege that others may not have. I’ll never condemn a person for shopping at walshart, due to that. Still though, shop elsewhere when you can, buy minimal when you can’t. That’s about the only legal recourse we have as consumers.
What regular checkout? Around here they are all closed down and only self checkout is available.
Take all your shit to customer service and check out there.
It’s an asshole move everyone should use until they stop understaffing checkout.
What customer service? That shit’s closed too.
I might uniroically start doing this. Or I would if I thought for a second it’d do anything other than inconvenience the employees…
I would LOVE to go through a regular check out! If only we still actually had more than 2 open in a full supermarket. It’s not about time taken, though, it’s about the sheer level of inconvenience that it’s become. It’s an active pain in the ass to have to do the job that used to be done by employees, with shitty machines that yell at you every few minutes, while actively being recorded and treated like a criminal, and have to go through another checkpoint where they’re going to once again actively treat you like a criminal and look through your receipt. Or I can spend like, 30 minutes in line at one of the two open cashiers.
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We all make decisions like that daily. Just because I’m choosing one slightly more convenient shitty thing over another doesn’t mean the one I’m choosing is good. It just has a utility. It also only has that utility because the other option is being actively neglected.
It also wasn’t too long ago that I worked retail, at Walmart no less. Even after self checkout became popular, we’d have 4-10 cashiers depending on the traffic at any given time. They’d even call employees who worked completely different sections, like myself, to run registers if they got backed up.
I think a lot of it has to do with that last part of your comment. The amount of times I’ve gone to the grocery store to find there’s no register open other than the self checks or that there’s 1-2 open at a huge grocery store with a 6-8 people in line for them and no self check line… People are being forced into self checking when they don’t want to. These people are obviously going to be more easily upset by issues with the self check machines. Walmart in my limited experience (try to never buy anything there if I can avoid it) is the worst offender I’ve seen.
