Kicked Square-In-The-Nuts:Self-Service Checkout LinesPart II: The Solution

Part II of this series will focus on my solution to the problem of forced servitude and human slavery imposed by the retail self-service checkout line.

Sadly, Jonny has come to realize that bitching to a mega-retailer, or any mega-company for that matter, is an exercise in futility. The representative to whom you complain may feign interest in your concerns and sympathy for your plight, and they may even fabricate a response along the lines of "We are working to improve that" or "I agree with you and I will absolutely pass your comments along to upper management". But they don't, and they won't. Frankly, they don't give a shit about you or your opinions. They have thousands upon thousands of customers, and in their opinion you can pound your stupid concerns straight up your ass.

In my case, if I get pissed enough about the check-out situation and demand to speak to a "manager", I'm going to get some fat guy wearing a necktie that barely reaches his sternum who will patronize me with statements similar to those above, and then he will proceed to tell me how much he appreciates Jonny's honest feedback and how much they value Jonny's business and blah-blah-fucking-blah. In reality, he just wants to get me to leave as soon as possible so that he can go back to playing Freecell and getting handsy with the teenage help. And if I threaten with "I'll never shop here again" or "I'll take my business elsewhere", do you think he gives a fuck? Nope. Especially since all of his competitors do the same shit. They will trade customers back and forth, and as long as no one is doing a better job than anyone else, they will all share equally in this zero-sum game. Nothing is going to change, and all I'm going to do is make myself even MORE bitter and pissed off by attempting to convince Mr. Manager that his system sucks and that he needs more $6.00/hour teenagers.

So instead of twisting myself up bitching to people who don't care, I execute covert operations in the hope that the retailers will eventually see the error of their ways. Most likely they will not catch on and nothing will change, but at least I get the satisfaction of knowing that I "stuck it to the fat guy in the tiny tie".

Now, I'm not advocating that you steal any merchandise from the store. That would be wrong, right? Instead, rationalize it like I do: They are making more money by reducing their workforce and at the same time they are stealing my labor without fairly compensating me for my time when I am forced to scan and bag my own groceries. Generally, a person making close to Minimum Wage is not going to be terribly diligent about their job, so how diligent am I expected to be when I am working for FREE? Exactly!

So I might accidently overlook a few items and forget to scan them. Hey - Give me a break! They don't pay me enough to do this job diligently, plus I didn't get proper training as a grocery checker-outer. Or when an item doesn't scan, or it's an item without a UPC like produce, or for whatever reason I have to look up an item on their computer, I might accidentally pick the wrong item. And by a miraculous coincidence, the incorrectly-selected item might always cost significantly less than the actual item. Oops! Did I make a mistake? I'm sorry - I am new at this job, and during my training the manager was more interested in grabbing my ass than teaching me how to properly handle the precious assets of the store. If you pay me more, I promise I'll pay more attention and do a better job. Until then, I'm going to do what all low-wage workers do - I'm going to fuck up a lot, usually for my own benefit.

And if all else fails and they confront me with all of the mistakes I'm making while working as an unpaid, untrained employee, I'll just blame it on their REAL employee. After all, he's the one who is apparently doing all of the work. Those arrogant fucks have the nerve to print "Your Cashier was Skippy" on my receipt, so it must be Skippy's fault that I paid less for my groceries than I should have, right?

Jonny has grown tired of this topic, so Jonny out, bitches!