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# Why I'm sick of self-checkouts
- URL: https://splash.themesbykyle.com/why-i-m-sick-of-self-checkouts/
- Published: 2026-10-13T14:55:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-15T13:08:11.000Z
- Description: Unexpected item in the bagging area? Yes, it is my patience.
- Author: Pat Doyle
- Tags: Opinion

I have spent most of this year being told off by a machine.

It started with a bunch of bananas. It will end, I fear, with me being asked to wait for assistance while my shopping goes cold and a teenager with a key card strolls over looking like I have asked him to solve a murder.

I am not against progress. I own a phone that tells me when it is going to rain. But supermarkets have decided that I should now work for them, unpaid, and for the privilege I am given a voice that calls me “sir” in a tone of deep disappointment.

## The robot never trusts you

Last Tuesday I scanned a tin of tomatoes. The machine said it was not sure about the tin. I put the tin down in the bagging area, as instructed. It said I had put an unexpected item in the bagging area. I picked it up. It told me to put it down.

By this point I was losing an argument with a tin.

The nice woman who came over scanned the tin herself, with the same scanner, in the same place, and the machine accepted it without a murmur. It only does that to me.

## Stop calling it service

I do not mind a shop that wants to save money. I mind being told it is a favour. “Skip the queue,” says the sign above a queue for the machines which is longer than the queue for the tills.

I would like shops to keep real tills open. I would like them to keep a person on them who says good morning. And if you must give me a machine, please let me buy a single banana without a recorded voice demanding I check my weight.

Until then, you will find me in the queue with the trolley. At least the person on the till has never once called me sir.

*Pat Doyle is a columnist for the Daily Splash. Write to pat@dailysplash.example*