Today I went to a Mega-mart and purchased a few household and hygiene items, since my New Year's resolution is to stink slightly less. I also decided, that since it is a new year, I would try something new, self-checkout. While I can see the benefits of self-checkout for the company what with having only one employee manning the ship for 4 checkout lanes, it doesn't make sense to me.

After all, I have been with others who were using self-checkout when something wouldn't scan and they simply kept going (in their defense, they had been drinking). So is the "shrinkage" that much less than the savings on 3 minimum wage earners? I don't know.

What I do know is this: the people who operate the cash registers are trained to operate the register and it is believe it or not a "skill" for most Americans. While the vast majority of Americans would like to think that they are smarter and better people than the people who work at the Mega-mart, they are not. This is the great equalizer in retail, have the "better" people operate the checkout themselves. They soon realize that they are idiots.

I am not speaking about myself. I am however speaking about the retards in line ahead of me, who couldn't figure out how to properly scan items, or how to navigate the ultra-dumbed down software. These people looked like the kind who would believe themselves to be better than me, and by proxy (since I know I am better than retail employees) better than the employees. Yet, not one of these imbeciles, who are probably well-respected when they aren't using a product scanner, could figure out the fastest and most efficient way to scan and bag their purchases. It was pathetic.

One woman scanned everything at minimum 3 times, and kept going back to the screen to see if there had been a "Windows" crash or something. It was actually the fact that she didn't realize that the bar code was what was being read. Over and over the items would be scanned incorrectly, yielding no results, but still being done wrong. Eventually, she was finished. It then became my turn.

I soon realized that it wasn't necessarily her ignorance that caused all of the multiple scans. It is possible that the scanners are set to a lower tolerance in an effort to reduce the number of accidental multiple scans of items. It took approximately 1 scan and 0.65 seconds for me to come up with the theory and adjust my scan speed and technique. I purchased everything and paid within 90 seconds. What the hell was her problem?

Note: I do not truly believe that I am better than the employees of Mega-mart (or the company that inspired its use on this website). But, it sure is funny as hell to say that I am better than those bastards.

As a side note that is completely unrelated, I watched the news tonight and they were interviewing a woman affected by the rains in California, and she put two words together that made me laugh: Major Shake. Those in the know are aware that Major Shake was a replicant used by the Plutonians on the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so I laughed.

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