In article ,
Frank Erskine wrote:
Both the Tesco and Sainsbury ones round here are fine.

What's the alleged advantage of an automated checkout? Clearly it
does away with a humanoid (although they still need to be such around
for, say, alcohol purchases). In RL they seem to be much slower than a
checkout manned by real people. Is it just that most purchasers hate
the idea of having to speak to a real life human cashier? If so,
that's very sad.

It's even sadder that the average checkout person would rather be doing
absolutely anything other than serving customers. I can understand that,
of course - must be one of the most boring jobs ever invented. But at
least a machine doesn't find the need to chat to someone in front of me
when all I want to do is get out of the damned place and on with my life.

--
*I don't have a solution, but I admire your problem. *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.