View Single Post
  #28   Report Post  
Posted to uk.d-i-y
polygonum polygonum is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,386
Default OT-ish B&Q automated checkout

On 12/04/2013 21:38, PeterC wrote:
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:23:16 +0100, Phil L wrote:

David.WE.Roberts wrote:
To be clear, I'm not at all against automated checkouts - when
properly implemented they can be very good and fast.

It is just that the voice and the timings on the B&Q checkout are
immensely irritating.


They can't possibly be more irritating that the ones they have in Morrisons,
as soon as you start scanning, it starts squawking, 'put the item in the
baaag' beep 'put the item in the baaag' beep 'put the item in the baaag' -
there's not a fraction of a second between the beep of the barcode and the
incessant drone of the most hideous voice you've ever heard - imagine Janet
Street-Porter holding her nose....I can't believe there were choices and
someone at head office decided, 'ah, that's the one'


I use Morrisons but I won't use those damned machines. Part of the reason
(other than I hate them) is that I use a rucsack that weighs about 1.5kg -
for some reason the machine nags me, but I'm not using carrier bags except
occasionally. I sometimes walk the last 2 miles home and the rucsack is just
a tad better than 15kg of shopping in placcy bags.

When first installed, they seemed better than JS or Tesco. But they have
deteriorated severely. The lit note accepting slot is no longer lit (on
any of them). The coin accepting trough takes what seems like a minute
for each coin - if it accepts it. The display amount left lags by ages.
Most often half of them are not fully operational - cash only, card
only, or broken. And they seem to be even less well attended than the
others.

I hate them ALL.

The only supermarkets which are regularly acceptable to me are Lidl and
Waitrose (obviously, we do not have branches of every UK supermarket).

--
Rod