I’ve not long arrived home from a visit to a flat-pack store. I don’t know about anyone reading this, but I’m certainly no fan of these places. Getting in and out as quickly as possible is always my aim, but it’s not easily achieved.
During today’s visit the shop floor was typically overrun by customers, but that wasn’t what prevented a swift in-and-out visit. Today, it was the store’s checkout configuration that stood between me and my goal.
After collecting the handful of items that I needed, I headed to the self-serve checkouts to make my purchases. This seems like it should be the fastest option, but today the line was very long, far longer than normal.
I looked ahead and saw that several of the self-serve machines were unused – in fact, it seemed that only two in the large cluster of machines were being used. There was one staff member monitoring these two machines, and the entire line of people was feeding slowly into them. It was obvious that this shortage of open machines had caused the long wait.
When it was finally my turn to use one of the checkouts, I asked the monitoring staff member why all the other machines were closed off. He answered that it is the store’s policy that each floor staff member can monitor only two machines at a time. Because there was only one staff member on the floor, only two machines could be in service.
Surely the purpose of self-serve checkouts is for customers to serve themselves without needing staff! I don’t mind scanning my own purchases because I expect it to get me out the door faster and lower the costs of my purchases overall. I do mind being expected to contribute my labour without compensation because the store hasn’t provided enough ‘managers’ to oversee my ‘work’.
