I liken packing supermarket bags to playing tetris. You somewhat randomly take the items out of your trolley and place them on the conveyer belt. The checkout chick/person then uses their skillz to scan and pack items nice and quickly into the bags. Packing these bags is definitely an aquired skill. The less experienced tetris players will put things in whatever order they arrive. The better ones will pick and chose appropriately to get the best fit. These are the Master Tetris Players.

I had my first self service check out experience today, and I realise now, that I am not a Master Tetris Player. This new system has its fair share of flaws as others have explained.

The general concept …

• You roll up your trolley,
• scan in an item, and
• put it in the bag.

The bag rests on a scale so the machine can tell if you have placed an item in the bag which you haven’t scanned in. If the item doesn’t have a bar code you can look it up on the list of pictures, it gets weighed calculates the cost for you.

• Hit the “finish” button,
• swipe your card,
• enter your pin, and
• go home.

The problems …

They started when I decided to use my own enviro friendly green bags. Once I placed it on the tray the machine warned me that there was a foreign object in the bag. It obviously weighed more than the usual plastic. To continue it required the assistance of a hovering staff member to wave her RFID card at the machine. This had to be done with every bag I placed on the tray.

I also had trouble packing my own bags. Because there was no conveyer belt on which to prepare your items, I found it insanely difficult to pack the bags nicely. It was like the final levels of tetris where they come flying in too fast. I ended up with items on all sorts of angles and arrived home with squashed bread and a leaking container of antipasto mix.

The additional pressure to scan and pack as fast as the Master Tetris Players is immense and doesn’t help the experience.

I finished my first bag and quickly snatched it off the scales. The machine freaked out because it musn’t have had enough time to weight it properly. After another swipe of the magic RFID card, I was onto my second bag.

Some good points …

Muddling through some more items, I finally got to the fruit and veg. Finding an item on the list of images was pretty easy. This part I was pleased with.

Finally, the paying options were straight forward. They obviously spent a lot of time making sure they could get your money, but not as much on the rest of the experience.

Gaming the system …

Through this debacle, I realised that I could cheat this system quite easily.

1. Don’t scan items and just place them in your bag

Place an item in the bag without scanning it, wait for the machine to complain about foreign items in the bag, look confused, hail the now retired Master Tetris Player, and have them wave their magic card.

I would guess that the more often you did this during your checkout, the more likely they would think you were just incompetent with technology and the more you were likely to get away with. If they catch you in the act, just return to that confused look and you’re home free.

2. Selecting a cheaper item

With fruit and veg, you need to weigh in the items and select the picture on the screen. It wouldn’t take much to select a cheaper per kilo item. If you get caught – “Oops, sorry maam. I thought I hit the picture of the avocado. This thing is so confusing.”

3. Walk out without paying

If you’re really game, it wouldn’t be difficult to do. Hit a few random buttons, get confused, swipe your card in some random slot and walk away. You may need to move your items past a certain area to demagnetise the barcode. As usual though, if you get caught, put on your confused face and pay up.

All in all, I hope these don’t become common practice. I much prefer leaving the professional bag packing to the well practiced Master Tetris Players. It’s not a skill I wish to aquire myself.