Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Humiliation

Never again!

All I wanted to do was purchase a few basic items and what do I get for my troubles? A public ticking off.

"Unexpected item on the conveyor belt!" cries the creepy little voice. "Swipe the bar code on your item" it demands. "UNEXPECTED ITEM ON THE CONVEYOR BELT" It shouts -louder this time.

I am getting flustered. In vain I try and swipe my packet of frozen peas. "Key in the item code you moron!" yells the nasty impatient voice.

"UNEXPECTED ITEM ON THE CONVEYOR BELT AGAIN!" it bellows at the top of its voice. An army of armed security guards have by now gathered at the end of my conveyor belt, loaded as it apparently is with unexpected items - "She bought Tesco's own tomato ketchup and I expected Heinz"??

"Have you swiped your Clubcard?" it demands repeatedly as I try and fail to successfully swipe my Clubcard. I think there was one little old lady so hard of hearing in the store that she didn't know I was the idiot who couldn't even swipe my Clubcard unaided, but she was the only one in the shop who didn't know by the time the bloody thing shut up about how I was swiping my Clubcard All Wrong.

"Thank you for shopping at Tesco's. Have a nice day!" it says in a vain attempt to restore good customer relations. It spoils that somewhat by shouting after me "TAKE YOUR GOD DAMN RECEIPT!"

Never again will I choose the self service check out. I'd rather be told off by someone I can have a go back at.

10 comments:

Reidski said...

funny, funny, funny!

cookie monster said...

could you not just have shoplifted?

Holly said...

I refuse to use those self service check outs, pain in the arse and I dont go to Tesco's to have to serve myself!

Anxious said...

Oh, those things are a total pain. I tried to put my shopping bag on the conveyor belt, so that I could put my items directly in it after scanning, but it started bleating about unexpected items. So I had to allow all my shopping to travel to the other end, and then spend the time packing it afterwards!

Awful thing.

George said...

I've only used them one, and that was when everything else was closed. The lady down the end came up to me three times just because I was hesitating. I was going to work it out, ok? LEAVEMELONE!

Anonymous said...

I usually boycott Tesco because they are evil, but occasionally my principles get the better of me when I am on call and get called out in the middle of the night, and I stop at the 24 hour one near our office to get some munchies to sustain me. It's always full of drunks who can't work out how to use the self-scan things that are the only things open at that time, and they have a woman who goes around patiently explaining it to them, so that you wonder, wouldn't it be much easier and quicker if she just manned a bloody till and allowed them to pay the normal way?

J.J said...

Reidski - not at the time!

Cookie, what? With the eyes of the entire store upon me!

Moo, good point there.

Anxious, bossy machines - don't you just hate them?

George, she probably fancied you!

Alan, the woman who has that job must be a saint.And yes, bloody well employ someone to work the tills although I do realise that might damage their million pounds a second profits.

Nat said...

There are self service tills in tescos now?

What am I missing?

They've barely got the whole swipey thing here!

Nat said...

Although they are all quite twee with a corner shop vibe still.

They even pack all your bags for you.

I live in such a pleasant place!

J.J said...

Nat, it sounds like heaven for technophobes like me.

Simon, I am beginning to think the Luddites had the right idea.