Other customers more important than me!

[uummm]

Today we had triple coupons at one of the stores here. Of course with all the coupons in the paper today they were busy. I took my 18 yr old with me and my 9 yr old. I got my items, I am allowed 20 coupons to triple. Well they also have 2 catalina deals going on so I wanted to do 3 orders. I decided it is much easier to do seperate orders at Uscan (self checkout). When I got to self checkout there was only ONE Other peson checking out, and there are 4 lanes total. I picked my station closest to the cashiers manning the lanes. My 2 kids also decided to get items on their own, with their own money and cards. I was ringing up my orders and didn't have a problem. I got my first order done.

I heard the cashier walk up to my son and tell him he could not use his $1 off 2 Reese Whips coupon because the "Vaue of coupon exceeds price of item"

So I turnd around and said "ADJUST THE COUPON" And Yes they can do it, I have done it MANY of times. I told my son his mistake was scanning the card first.

Anyway my son says "Then I don't want them, take them off." That is my kid! So Tweedle Dee (about 21yrs old) and Tweedle Dumb (about 40ish) are up there trying to figure out how to remove the items. MY son waited a minute and goes to pay. He says "this total is too much".

Tweedle Dee says "SIR You don't need to yell at me."

My son looks at me and says "Did I holler?" He didn't.

By now there is a line forming. I heard them ask my son if we were all together (does this really matter?) Son# 1 was buying 2 candy bars and 2 sodas and #2 was buying a donut and 2 bags of candy. My son said yes.

I am now almost done with my second order, everything is running well. I have no problems my coupons are scanning no issues what so ever.

All of the sudden Tweedle Dumb walks up to me and says "Mam, you are going to have go to an other register because there are customers that are waiting."

EXCUESE ME? So I reply "My bad, I thought I was a customer, that is fine I will go. I guess they are more important than me."

So because they had a line forming, because THEY didn't know how to handle a coupon or their register I have to be inconvienced to move down 5 lanes to another register so the other customers don't have to wait?

I actually had the manager waiting on me and I told him that I was not in any hurry, but really Tweedle Dumb could have handled the situtation better than he did.

I went to another store after this with my mom and I was helping her do her orders at Uscan and the cashier was probably in her 60's. I managed to flub up with the coupons, voids need to be made, a coupon needed adjusting and I did 3 orders....She had ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM what so ever. She was even being nice to my kid who was getting kinda antsy...Plus there was a line forming yet at that one I was not asked to move-had I been, I would have understood since I was the one making the line.

[sati769leigh]

while you are a customer really, couponing at self check out? never never a good idea. between 3 of you 3 of 4 self checks were being taken up at once. this makes a store cranky since self check is usually also for people in a hurry, eh? i AM sorry but maybe going to a regular check out when doing multiple transactions is really just more courteous to the store and other customers?

[uummm]

My #2 son had no coupons that he was using. And it has NEVER been a problem at any of the other stores I have been too. It wasn't ME that was holding it up. If they don't want you to use coupons at Uscan then why do they allow them through there?

I have tried to do a few different transactions at the regular check out. The problem is they pull from your cart, not from a belt and I even though I say "take it from this side first" with a huge void in the middle that is too difficult. If it was like Walmart where I had to put my groceries on the belt for them to drag down that would be one thing, but once I put my groceries in my cart from the shelf I don't touch them again until I load them in my car.

[MaryMary]

Originally Posted by sati769leigh while you are a customer really, couponing at self check out? never never a good idea. between 3 of you 3 of 4 self checks were being taken up at once. this makes a store cranky since self check is usually also for people in a hurry, eh? i AM sorry but maybe going to a regular check out when doing multiple transactions is really just more courteous to the store and other customers?

In our stores 1-2 of 4 self checkouts are marked with 15 items or less, the rest are for unlimited number of items.
There are also express attended checkouts for people in the hurry.
I do not see anything wrong with 3 people using 3 self checkouts, even if all 3 people came in the same car or belong to the same household.
IMO, more people incline to use reg. checkout then self, so it's better to do multiple transactions at self checkouts, provided your coupons do not need extra attention from the cashier anyway.

[Mothernature]

Running three orders at the Uscan? The cashiers handled it correctly. You should have checked out a register or came back to allow other customers to check out. Those uscans are for quick orders.

[lovemy2girls]

I almost always use the uscan at kroger. My girls like to ride in the carts that have the car on the front and they are really hard to get through the regular lanes. When there is a good sale going on or a catalina promo, I sometimes have multiple orders, which almost always include coupons. I have never had a problem with anyone telling me I needed to go through a regular lane. They do have 10 item or less lanes along with the other regular lanes. As a matter of fact, I don't think any of the uscans say 10 or 20 items or less. I've never had any of the uscan cashiers get mad because I was doing more than 1 order. Most times they will even come over and give my little girls stickers and a couple of the college age girls will even kneel down by the car and talk to them while I am checking out.

[uummm]

Originally Posted by Mothernature Running three orders at the Uscan? The cashiers handled it correctly. You should have checked out a register or came back to allow other customers to check out. Those uscans are for quick orders.

Is that why the person that was being checked out when I got there had 6 bags full of groceries and her total came to $94.xx (she left her receipt). Why do they have a a bagging area that holds 8 shopping bags for you to fill for one register? I thought Express Lanes that say 10 items or less were for those people. I have also not seen signs that say there is an item limit at Uscan either. When I got there there was NO one in line-one person was checking out (with her cart full of groceries). The line formed when the 2 other customers that were getting 4 items each couldn't be checked out because the cashiers didn't know how to handle the issues that popped up. Why is that my fault? I have never seen a sign at any of the grocery stores here that have Uscan that say "Uscan Reserved for Express lane 12 items or less."

[Krystalily]

Originally Posted by Mothernature Running three orders at the Uscan? The cashiers handled it correctly. You should have checked out a register or came back to allow other customers to check out. Those uscans are for quick orders.

It sounded like the OP was trying to do their stuff in 3 transactions at the self checkout (which at my store is the only checkout open until around 9 a.m. which is when the regular registers open sometimes) and there were 2 lanes open for their kids to use. Sounds like the cashiers took too long in helping out one of the kids (not able to adjust the Q amount, oop was wrong, etc) and a line formed because at this point all the lanes were full. Please keep in mind it sounds like the kids only had 1-3 items. That transaction should not take longer than 2-3 minutes at a self checkout, even if a Q needed to be adjusted/transaction needed to be voided, etc. The kids themselves are separate customers too, whether or not they came in the same car/blood related/whatever.

I would think that the OP could have gone to a regular checkout and the sons could have gone to the self checkouts or just done their own separate transactions after the OP did theirs. The self-checkouts have become very popular at our stores and it seems that people would rather wait for those then go in the other checkout lanes. There's always a line at my store. Plus, if the cashiers were thinking that there would have been a problem with the amount of items/separate transactions that the OP were taking they should have told them to go to another register to begin with and not wait until they were almost done to tell them. To move them "because people are waiting" is not a good enough reason at that moment in time. What was stopping the people waiting behind them from going to a regular register line anyways?

Not enough info in the story (how many items the OP had with each transaction) to really make a judgement call on whether or not they should have used/not used self checkout. I think that the cashier should have kept their mouth shut and let the OP finish their order since they allowed them to start it to begin with. And the cashier probably should have been faster properly assisting the kids so they could get their transaction of 1-3 items done.

Heaven forbid people have to wait in a line for 5 more minutes.

[faeryedark]

I have to agree w/ OP. She said there wasn't a line when she got there. I do multiple orders @ the self-scan w/ coupons all the time as long as when I got there, there wasn't a line. She said it wasn't her having the problems (her orders were going thru fine) It's not her fault the cashiers don't know how to handle the coupons her kids had, and if they had their own money and cards then they had a right to do it themselves, that's a experience for them.
Personally, I would have just told them, sorry I'm here now, and my money spends just like the next person's

[ladywaterwind]

I always do multiple checkouts at the uscan, that way leaving the FASTER regular registers open for people who need to check out faster. I'm sorry, no one can sit there and say that the uscan is faster than an average cashier.

OP, I think you were right to be upset at the situation. They shouldn't have decided that other customers time was more important that yours.

If you had went to the regular register they would not have asked you to get out of line. It is not unlikely that some people have more than one order. When I was a cashier it was very common for people to have 3, sometimes a lot more, transactions due to assistance programs, WIC, and cash orders. This or that type of order.