So the local Super Wal-Mart has decided to offer four self-checkout stands.  Today, while heading towards a checkout with the cashier standing there doing nothing, my hands full of laundry detergent, Diet Rite Tangering, and the like, the cashier supervisor requested I try the self-checkout myself.

Hate it.

For one thing, it's overly complicated.  Really.  Like the way you have to tell it when you have an item (like soda) that you're not bagging.  Or the way that it tries to tell you to not take a bag for other items that it deems crushable (like paper towels).  And then it very loudly declares how much your purchase cost - like it's the business of everyone in the checkout area.  Plus the whole process of bagging my own stuff gave me flashbacks to when I was a cashier at Target.

I can understand that they might be helpful if all the regular lines are busy and you are in a hurry with one or two items.  But yeesh, don't send people there when there are aisles open and they have a number of unwieldy items.

What's really scary is that I can see stores like Wal-Mart moving to a completely self-checkout system in the next decade.  What better way to cut payroll cost than not have cashiers?  Don't get me wrong, I like automation in some ways - but if I wanted to bag my own stuff, I'd go to Aldi.