Self-Checkout

To begin. I do not use self-checkout very often. I find it troublesome and somewhat offensive. If you read the following you will see some of my reasoning. If it were merely used as a overflow method of satisfying customer traffic, so be it but it is not. Thus I will not use it very often as a matter of principle.

In fact, I was at a store called WinCo that you place your product on the conveyer belt and you bag the product at the end. Now they have added self-checkout. My thought was that they were going to start a new practice of either having you get your product off the delivery truck or stock the shelf prior to buying, but that may be just me be facetious – or not.

In any case, I was at a Home Depot Store the other day and when it came time to check out, they had no staffed registers. To say the least, I was not happy. I reluctantly went through the self=checkout and went home with my purchases. The more I thought about it the more I was upset about it. As I received an electronic receipt that asked for me to participate in a survey, I did so. In the survey, I expressed my dissatisfaction and why. I also stated that if it occurred again, I would leave my cart in the aisle and leave the store.

As can be expected, I got a response as can be seen below. I have redacted the sender’s name as it is not moot as he is merely attempting to assuage my supposed anger (I am not angry, just tired of policies) and was attempting to make personal contact to smooth over the issue:

Hello Robert,

My name is XXXXXXXX and I am one of the managers at the Troutdale Home Depot. We recently received your feedback regarding our self checkout and registers. I apologize that this happened. We do try to keep at least one register open at all times and clearly this time we failed to do so. 

I would be glad to talk with you some more, if you would like to call the store, alternatively I or one of my fellow managers can call you at a time that is convenient for you if you would like to send us a phone number and a time that would be convenient. I am here until 3 today and I will be back from 7 am until 4 pm tomorrow as well. Please feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you for taking the time to offer us feedback on your experience. 

This is my response to him:

Dear Mr. XXXXXX,

You will see my phone information attached to this email but it probably would not be of any real value for you to contact me directly.  There is a good reason I did not call you directly.  I have a tendency to wax poetically and go off on tangents and this would do neither of us any good.

Your desire to have a register open at all times is laudable but like that great Star Wars philosopher Yoda stated, “Do or do not, there is no try!”  Your decision to not have an open register at ALL times, regardless of your best intentions, is not made in a vacuum.  It is a business decision and a decision that has been made from the corporate level.  More is the pity.

Although you may point to some customers who prefer to use the self-checkout, I would suspect that if you would go to the added trouble of finding out why you would discover that if is because they do not want to wait an inordinate amount of time at registers that are inadequately staffed.  I am not objecting to the use of self-checkout as this allows an organization such as yours to adjust to a changing flow of customers throughout the day by having a safety valve effect of the self-checkout lanes.  As long as it is only an option, I am willing to accept that and continue to use a staffed register instead.  However many companies, yours included, have opted to force the customer to use the self-checkout by understaffing the registers to the point that they have no choice but to use self-checkout.  You have gone to the far end of that scale by not staffing the registers at all.  I can assure you that they are losing my business.

I am retired and choose not to acquire any part-time position with your organization, even a short-term position as a checker in your self-checkout lane.  I also do not know if I am qualified in any case.  Finally, I do not think you can afford me.  Nor would you like my input in staff meetings.

I can assure you that I am not singling Home Depot out.  I am going to do the same with any other retailer that will not staff a register when I am ready to check out.  I will leave my cart in the aisle and leave. 

Needless to say, the individual neither called me or emailed me in response to my email. Also, needless to say, I am not making this an idle threat, I will walk out of the store without my goods and I will let them know why. Enough is enough.