DonAntonioMagino

Interesting thought, but the ‘you’ve been selected for a check’ (or however it’s phrased) message comes up before you pay.

You have smalltalk at the cash register? All I say there is: ‘Hi!’ or ‘Good [part of the day]!’, cashier essentially repeats the same thing; the cashier scans groceries, I put them back into my cart, then when they’ve been scanned the cashier reads out the price, I pay, cashier gets ready to ask if I want a receipt, but I cut them off saying ‘I don’t need the receipt! Thanks, bye!’

I only use self-checkout if it isn’t annoying. Albert Heijn in the Netherlands has self-checkouts which are mostly quiet. You can scan your groceries there, or get a scanning ‘pistol’ at the entrance to do it beforehand. You are checked at random by underpaid 16-year-olds, the only real downside. This is really annoying when you’ve already packed your groceries, as they have to scan them all to see if it matches what you’ve scanned yourself. And those 16-year-olds as a result have to deal with annoyance and even aggressivenes by customers.

On the other hand, self-checkouts at the Lidl here (used to) show you on film and be overly loud, every step being explained at volume level 10. If self-checkout sucks this much, I’ll just wait in line at the normal cash register. I’m pretty sure it has improved there as well in the meantime, but I now go to the cash register at Lidl anyway.