Unexpected Items

You know, I generally make it a point to be polite and friendly to the people working on supermarket checkouts. It's a lousy job with piss-poor pay, so why make it worse by being rude and condescending? However, today I did have cause to get bloody irritated with a cashier in Sainsbury's. It was a simple thing which pushed me over the edge - specifically being asked if, as I only had five items, I'd rather use the self-service tills, as there was no queue there. For fuck's sake! If I wanted to use the self-service tills, I would have been standing at them. I wasn't. As I pointed out, the reason there was no queue at them was because nobody wants to use them. They're shit. Every time I do see someone using them, all I hear is the infernal device telling the customer that they need to seek assistance as there was an 'unexpected item'. Well, fuck me, a psychic machine! It apparently knows what items you are going to buy and put through it!

What really pissed me off was the idea that by having fewer items I had somehow forfeited the right to be treated like a 'proper' customer! I really couldn't understand what the relative length of queues at different tills had to do with it - there was only one person in front of me. Not only that, but why would any self-respecting worker advocate the use of a self-service till? Doesn't he know that the only reason the supermarkets are trying to force these bloody things on us is so that they can cut staffing levels and maximize their already inflated profits by reducing the wage bill? But what the hell, I should have realised that there'd be trouble as soon as I clapped eyes on that cashier. He was some bloody spotty teenager with a stupid hair cut. Anyone who thinks such a style is in any way fashionable is clearly a pillock of the first order. Ultimately, using those self service tills is like wanking yourself off in a brothel - why do it yourself when you've already paid for the service?