(no subject)

[which_chick]

Wow, I've been slacking on the update front. My bad.

Current item of interest the first: CGI porn. I'm not sure what the point is. Well, actually, I probably do understand the point, but still, it's odd to see it with an English-language soundtrack. (They're making one. With, I should point out, gay pirates. I find this absolutely hysterical.) I'm reasonably certain that CGI porn is guiltless. It's not exploiting anyone, as long as doing porn dialogue and fx in a sound studio is non-exploitative and I can't see how it really would be. After all, the people doing the dialogue and fx are *actors*. (Probably.) I'm not sure that doing the dialogue and fx for CGI porn is any more demeaning than pretending to be a teapot (Angela Lansbury) or a car (Paul Newman) or a mentally-challenged fish (Ellen DeGeneres) or a donkey (Eddie Murphy).



Do I ever kid? Honestly.

The Weis self-checkout thing is annoying as hell. Here are some ways that the user experience with the fucking thing could be significantly improved.

1. It talks too much. I hate having to wait for it to finish saying shit before it is ready to move to the next input. Look, I know that cilantro is 4889. That's why I typed that in. And I entered number of bunches. And I don't need to be told to "Please put your (whir, click, accessing-database*) Cilantro (whir, click, back to pre-programmed phrase) on the belt." I would like the whole interface a lot better if it waited five seconds or so to see if I managed to put my item on the belt after entering it and/or weighing it before fucking prompting me to do so. If I had failed to comply in five seconds, it could then make with the prompting. It could also just say (for example) "1.25 pounds" to let me know it was done weighing the stuff that it needs to weigh.

*It does not actually whir or click. It does pause a smidge longer between the word "your" and the word "cilantro" and then again between the word "cilantro" and the word "on". This makes the speech rhythm unnatural and surprisingly annoying.

2. I absolutely hate the checkout procedure after "Finish and Pay". First, I have to hit "Finish and Pay" which is fine. Then I have to say "Continue" because I don't have any fucking coupons. Then I have to say "Credit" on the touchscreen. Then I have to turn to the slide thingie for plastic. ON THAT, I slide the card and I AGAIN have to say "Credit". Fuck. I JUST FUCKING SAID CREDIT, not thirty seconds ago. Did you forget? Do you perhaps not have the ability to send this piece of information from computer A to computer B? (I doubt it. You know why I doubt it? Because computer B tells computer A whether or not I've fucking paid. If I don't do my credit card shit on computer B, I never get "Thank you. Don't forget to take your receipt..." from computer A.) Making me hit "Credit" twice in two different places on two systems that talk to each other is dumb as shit.

3. The eyeball sensor thing that tells when I've put stuff on the belt is not very good at oddly-shaped produce. Lightweight stuff (greens, herbs) with a low profile does not detect all the time. Stuff that moves or shifts too much (several grapefruits in a bag) also tends to upset the thing. Please improve this technology. It pisses me off to have to wait for help with a big ass blinking light over my head because your fucking "stuff on the belt" sensor is insufficiently clueful. Unlike a surprising number of people who self-checkout, I have never, ever, ever tried to cheat. I am appallingly honest about self-checkout. I am one of your moneymaking customers. Please fix this. It pisses me off.

4. Having the software yell at me that "The bagging area is full" is annoying as hell. Put in rollers all the way down and then just let shit pile up. If I am dumb enough to want to smush my groceries, you should let me.

5. The next time your software tells me to "Please remove all items from the scanner scale" when there's not a fucking thing on the scanner scale except perhaps three microns of dust, I am putting my fist through the screen. I'm just sayin'.

In short, the whole thing should be faster and more streamlined, with fewer dumb-ass not-adding-any-news comments.

Comments

[cousinsue.livejournal.com]

We have different systems in the two Redners I use, and the one really annoys me with all it's talking, and refusing to let me bag the way I want to.

[ladyivy.livejournal.com]

On the whole, while I also find the hurry up and wait and annoying voice with strange pauses irritating as hell at the self check out, it is still preferable to

A) the annoyingly clueless and rude check out clerks
B) the incompetent baggers who do NOT pack groceries the way I like or want them packed (I can line the sh** up on the belt in the order I want it to into the bags then cart with like items together (all frozen stuff should go in bags with other frozen stuff, not in bags with refrigerator and/or pantry stuff) and they STILL get it wrong.

So I tend to do self check out a lot.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I do self checkout for the same reason that I do pay-at-the-pump with my gasoline. I don't have to interface with a flesh person. It's less stressful to work with a machine interface, even an annoying one. However, I think that an optimized self-checkout experience could make my life even better.

You know what would be great? When I swipe my little dumb-ass "Club card" thing, it could remember all my presets for how I like my self-checkout experience to be like and then it would do for me what I wanted. THAT would be the kind of user tracking that would actually improve my shopping experience at the grocery store. Screw useless coupons for "related" products that I will never buy. If I wanted to buy those products, I would already be buying them. No. What I really want is to be able to customize how little of your dumb checkout assistant I have to listen to. That would so totally fucking rock. (The people in charge of customer satisfaction pay absolutely no attention to me.)

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Our self-checkout is different. I don't have to wait for it to talk, I just move on and it scrambles to catch up. And it has no belt - I scan (or weigh) and then put it straight in the bag.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

Do you perhaps not have the ability to send this piece of information from computer A to computer B? (I doubt it. You know why I doubt it? Because computer B tells computer A whether or not I've fucking paid. If I don't do my credit card shit on computer B, I never get "Thank you. Don't forget to take your receipt..." from computer A.)

I can answer this one, what with the decade of professional experience in the industry and stuff. :)

Computer A, the machine that says "Please place your whirr click cooling corpse of the store manager click spoing on the conveyor belt," is written by POSCo, a company that makes point of sale equipment. Computer B, the one that you run your credit card through, is a blackbox device made by CreditCardReaderCo. It takes XML or CSV or TLA* from Computer A, does its magic, and spits out a similar file or data stream back to Computer A once the transaction is complete. The poor sods at POSCo didn't design Computer B and can't reprogram it other than to tell it to display in Spanish or Tibetan or whatever.

*Three Letter Acronym, for our non-geek readers.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

There's a solution: Go to Giant.

I share your aggravation, though. The Acme self-checkout does the same thing you described here.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

We don't have a Giant. We have the Everett Foodliner (small, does not offer self-checkout, does not carry many of the things I eat) and we have the Weis (has decent produce and the aforementioned unacceptable self-checkout) and we have the inconvenient-parking Giant Eagle at which I do not shop. Those are the options in the Bedford/Everett area. I could maybe go to Giant if I were willing to drive thirty miles in the opposite, not-on-the-way-home-from-work direction, but that's highly inefficient.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

That occurred to me after I posted it, but I know there are Giant stores in the State College area, so I wasn't really sure where there reach is.

Of course, you can always go through the regular cashier line, but often they're just as irritating!