Originally Posted by RJB
Surrey Quays now has self-service check-outs, for the more withdrawn FT'er who wants to keep a low profile. Last time I went they were substantially slower than the normal check-outs (for a start, the assistants have learnt where all the bar codes are and you haven't) and there was still one member of staff per line helping people use it.
There's definitely a lot of learning that needs to be done.
For example, it looks like the scanner was not where I expected it to be, ie on the base of the unit - it's on the vertical bit. That confused me when a few things scanned OK during my misapprehension, and then an item didn't.
The other thing is that after you have scanned the item, you must put it onto the base of the bagging area before the till will scan the next item - however big and bulky it is. So despite the fact that I had a dozen identical bottles, I couldn't just wave one bottle past the scanner 12 times. (I didn't see whether there was an option for putting multiple items and scanning once.) It was also pathetic when a 12-pack bag of toilet rolls had to be precariously balanced on top of the stuff that was already sitting in the bags on the bagging side just to allow me to scan the next item after that.
Here endeth the tutorial.