Time for a shoppers' revolt in the bagging area

PITY the poor shop assistants who have to man the tills next to those automated checkouts.

Imagine being forced to listen to the phrase “Unauthorised item in bagging area”, delivered in a robotic tone, a hundred times a day. It would drive you demented.

It can only be a matter of time before some hapless employee sues a supermarket, claiming it’s a new form of repetitive strain injury.

These maddening machines are all about the stores saving money by employing fewer people.

As is their kind offer of allowing you to pay at the pump after filling up the car, thereby saving you the huge exertion of walking a dozen steps to the kiosk where you might help keep an attendant in work.

While it might boost the big chains’ profits, this culling of cashiers is bad news for society.

With fewer jobs for unskilled workers, more people on zero-hours or rolling short-term contracts, wages frozen except for the bigwigs (Wiltshire Council, leading by example as usual), and public services such as our hospital laundry flogged off to firms that the unions say will drive down pay and conditions, who do we imagine will be earning enough money to keep our businesses in business in the future?

I try to avoid being bossed about by a machine if there’s an alternative of dealing with a human being.

But I’m aware of subtle ways in which this is being made more awkward.

For instance, the spaces allotted to ‘baskets only’ in our superstores are now so narrow that you can only just fit the basket in lengthways.

And there’s only room for one carrier bag by the till. You have to dump any others on the floor while you rummage for your purse.

Not forgetting your loyalty card, of course. So you feel you’re getting some reward for your trouble, even though you know they’re not really giving anything away, it’s all factored in to their prices.

Most of us put up with being treated like this, but one of the joys of writing this column is that I can grumble if I want to. And increasingly, I do. It must be my age.

I’d like to place an unauthorised item right in the centre of every bagging area in the land. A sledgehammer, wielded by a champion weightlifter.

anneriddle36@gmail.com