I use them almost exclusively so that I can bag the items exactly as I please. I bag items by their location in the refrigerator and pantry.

I very rarely have more than 20-30 items and actually go out of my way to avoid stores without self checkout.

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Originally posted by Appliance Brad:
And Balze, I can't recall the last time I ever used a vending machine.

Actually...neither can I.

The self checkout at Home Depot pisses me off because there is a camera with a bright light right in my face. The camera is bad enough but that bright light shining right in my eyes is irritating.

I don't use them. Especially at homedepot.

I've been known to leave long lines that are taking too long also, and just walk away. I'll shop somewhere that values my business enough to keep the wait times to a reasonable length.

I'm also the guy who will shop at midnight during tourist season, and get 3-4 weeks of stuff to avoid leaving the house during tourist season. I have a lot more patience for "slow"/"new" cashiers. What I can't stand are tourists/foreigners clogging the lines.

Because they are there.

they rarely have enough cashiers at the other registers,
I use them when I have 12 things to check out, or fewer .

I rock the shit out of those things. waiting around is for suckers.

At the grocery, I always use the self-checkout when I have just a few items when I'm making a pick-up run during the weekday.

On the weekends, when my wife is with me during the main shopping requirement, we will use the cashier lane. I unload the cart onto the belt, cashier scans items, and the wife will either bag it herself and/or supervise the bagging. Too many times we've had the scratching-his-ass-while-staring-at-the-Moon teenage doofus put the bread and eggs on the bottom and then dump the canned goods on top of the crushable. Once I had to loudly express my dissatisfaction as to how the bagger was performing her "job", as she was literally throwing the snack chips into our bags in an attempt to get a "three-point shot".

The employment requirement for our grocery seems to get if you are breathing then you are hired, and if you are a "protected entitlement person" then you are advanced as quickly as possible up the corporate employment ladder.

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It's weighed every time you ring something up. The bag is on a scale. If you wring up something and the weight doesn't match then it freezes the machine and someone has to come check what's going on.

The accuracy of those things is pretty amazing. When it know I didn't put a bag of plastic wall anchors or similar in the bag yet, that's incredibly light.

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I've been known to leave long lines that are taking too long also, and just walk away.

TL;DR - don't piss of your paying customers at checkout.

I was with a friend at Big Orange Home Hell when he was redirected not once, but twice from one register to another while holding a box of roofing nails on his shoulder and an armload of lumber under his other arm. I think I was carrying a box of finishing nails and something else. After the second time, he just looked at them, and dropped everything right where he stood. The nail box exploded and there were roofing nails everywhere.

Immature overreaction perhaps, but that was the last time he went in one. I recall it clearly, but I don't recall what I said as I put down the rest of his stuff and followed the vapor trail out the door. I felt like I should get a broom, but it wasn't worth missing my only ride home!