Self-Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself, Part 12
My grocery store has self-checkouts. You can either scan your items by hand or grab a handheld scanner at the entrance of the store and scan along the way. I usually go early, because it’s then less crowded. However, there’s May-vacation in our country, so I notice it’s a bit more crowded.
When I’m done, I go to the self-checkout and arrive almost simultaneously with a man and a woman. I assume they are married, considering how they bicker and are dressed in matching summer attire.
Man: “Error? What do you mean error?! What is going on?”
Employee: “Can I help? Oh, this error means ‘unknown item’. See? It says here: ‘unknown item, barcode not scanned’. It means the barcode was not recognized.”
Woman: “Oh dear, which item was it?”
Employee: “I don’t know, since it couldn’t scan. Did it give some weird beeps while scanning something?”
Man: “How come it doesn’t say which item it didn’t scan?!”
Woman: “I’m sorry, I can’t remember. How can we find out?”
Employee: “Well, we’ll just check the groceries on screen. If I see your list, it was grabbed around the time you got both [item] and [item], so that means you were in [part] of the store?”
Man: “Ugh, this is absurd!”
I had already paid for my groceries and since there were still several self-checkouts open, I admit I started packing a little bit slower…
Employee: “No… this was scanned… and this was… and this… oh, wait! I see you have two of [item] and there’s one on the list! Ah, yes, this barcode got damaged! This is it!”
Woman: “Wonderful! But how do we fix it?”
Employee: “Well, we remove this unscanned item… and just scan [item] once more. There, all done!”
Woman: “Thank you so much for your time!”
Man: “Ugh, machines… Why are they all so buggy?! Can’t anything ever go right here?!”
They hit the ‘pay’ button and… yup, they get the ‘random bag check’.
Man: “Oh my god! Can we get a man up here?! What is this for a circus?!”
The employee that is on random bag check-duty is the same that helped them so bleep-bleep-bleep, all set!
Employee: “I do apologize, the system is truly random.”
Man: “Suuuure, of coooourse it is! I’ll never shop here again!”
They went to the gate, scanned their receipt to open that gate, and left, but not before the woman smiled to the employee and said:
Woman: “See you next week!”
Related:
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 11
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 10
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 9
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 8
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 7
