Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

You must admit that there is a difference between the self-serve check-out and the regular attended check-out.

With the attended check-out, it is axiomatic that control of the entire check-out process devolves upon the cashier. The customer abdicates all control over the process and the line, except, of course, when the customer with a bulging, overflowing cart allows someone with one or two items to go ahead. On one occasion, however, I witnessed a cashier nullify such a move and direct the customer with only a couple items to the "12 Items or Fewer" line, thereby asserting absolute authority over the entire check-out process. The customer's choice to allow someone to cut was illusory.

Here is where the problem lies. With the attended check-out, oftentimes the cashier permits a customer, during check-out, to retrieve an item from the shelves that he forgot to get. I say "he" because invariably it is a man who has overlooked an item on a list he was given or, having eschewed a list because he believes himself to be of superior intellect, forgot what he was supposed to get until he saw the item in the cart of the woman behind him in line.

If you are not a novice, you know that the experienced cashier, at busy times, elects to ring out the customer and upon his return then total up the items. Today's memory cash registers allow this to be done very easily. The cashier takes the next person, the woman, and they make fun of the guy who forgot the item.

What procedure is in place if this occurs at the self-serve check-out? I went to the self-serve check-out and found that a lot of stuff was on the rollers at the end of the conveyor and the screen was in the middle-of-the-order configuration. I assumed that the customer had forgotten something and went on a search mission to retrieve the item or items that were forgotten. How is one really supposed to know that, though? An unscrupulous individual could scan the two cartons of skim milk and box of Rice Krispies, bag them, and leave before the customer returns from his mission.

I didn't do this. I went over to the express lane, at which there were several people in line; however, at the time I paid the cashier, the person still had not returned to the self-serve check-out, perhaps lost in the organic produce or frozen foods section.