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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31395 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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They won't because evidently the losses to such incidents are not worth hiring somebody to man a checkout counter, much less pushing the prosecution of a <$50 shoplifting case.

The places around me that have kept their self-check out counters almost always have some staff at hand that man multiple counters at once, both to supervise and help out if there are any issues. Perhaps 1 staff member per 5+ counters.

And that person is always busy, either helping someone who can't figure something out, or verifying ID for alcohol sales, or taking an item off for a customer who accidentally scanned it twice, or...

And they're always needed, because at some places they'll refuse to accept those shitty mandated-by-law cloth bags are empty when you start.

Pro tip: Don't put the bag down until it already has a heavy item in it (Canned/Frozen food). The scale is more forgiving with heavy items.

Right, there's probably some benefit to honesty by having a real human present, I'd bet on the margins it makes people less likely to cheat.

But that staffer isn't going to catch someone failing to scan a $10 item or scanning something as a different item unless they're aggressively looking for it.

And in the hypothetical where I scan the ham twice and miss the prosciutto, or scan the cheap lightswitch ten times and throw the heavy duty switches in the bag, and they catch me, "Oh man, lucky you noticed! Long day at work, I screwed up, let me fix it quick." No one is getting arrested, no consequences.

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