@georgepenney This man is my hero of the day. 🦸🏼

@georgepenney I absolutely talk back to those self-checkout machines, but not with any animosity since it's mostly just to amuse myself.

@georgepenney More of this everywhere now.

@georgepenney this is truly heroic.

defy the machines!

@georgepenney Self checkout is one of our society's greatest failures. Every one of those machines deserves thirty seconds of sustained gunfire.

@georgepenney

Be ungovenerable.

@georgepenney@sunny.garden Self checkout is already degrading enough - in aus they've gone as far as having ceiling cameras and gates that prevent you from leaving if they think you failed to bag an item, not sure if NZ's gone there too - but that take your bags nag? I can't stand it. Giving it sass is my only form of solace. This man went above and beyond though, amazing.

- posted by Natalie

@georgepenney That man is my hero. I get whiplash from the switch-up in affect as soon as those machines have your money.

@georgepenney Yes, I hate those #SelfCheckout machines that harrass people into harrassing...

@georgepenney “they don't, he's retired and can wait all day.”

I’m so using this line.

@georgepenney I love this man.

@georgepenney aaah, that's fantastic!

@georgepenney 👏

@georgepenney YES!

@georgepenney the programmer or project lead who thought that repeated, nonstop admonishments were a good idea should be repeatedly admonished nonstop.

@georgepenney That was awesome.

@georgepenney That sounds like me lol.

@georgepenney Wait, was this me? I do this

@georgepenney @skinnylatte a true hero 🫡

@georgepenney

He's the hero we need.

#OrdinaryHero #hero #heroes

@georgepenney I have absolutely done something similar.

@georgepenney This man is my patronus.

@georgepenney Standing up to the machine

@georgepenney

not all heros wear capes.

some are retired. ;)

@georgepenney I firmly believe that if a device speaks to you like a human, it better damn well be able to listen and respond like a human as well.

@georgepenney Legitimately my hero.

@georgepenney omg 😳 this is going to be me in 50 years. I’ve already started saying “yes, yes, Anastasia.” 😂

@georgepenney Reminds me of a time around 30 years ago when it was new in Portland. I heard a guy angrily respond to “please place your item in the bag” with “I’d put it in the bag if you’d just shut up!”

@georgepenney
Superheroes come in all sizes and with or without altered egos...
This is the way.

@georgepenney Loved that he fought back for his own dignity! And he WON!

@georgepenney so it has come to this.

@georgepenney Poor man... being old around today's technology must be so difficult.
Very funny story though 😂

@georgepenney Buy this man a beer. That's magnificent.

@georgepenney not all heroes wear capes 💜

@georgepenney the noisy and demanding self checkouts I've encountered in the USA, Canada and the UK -- PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA! REMOVE THE LAST ITEM FROM THE BAG! etc.

Here in the Netherlands, low volume beeps are all you hear. No scales on the kiosk to check that you're not cheating somehow. I haven't had to argue with one here ever.

@georgepenney

Epic!

@georgepenney that's amazing. Good for him.

@georgepenney The old boy sounds like a great guy. I refuse to use the damned things.

@georgepenney
This is glorious.

@georgepenney Some stores permit customers to switch the speakers off. Many do not. I detest equipment that talks to me. I see it as offensive. Any inanimate box of chips and wires that talks should be dismantled and recycled.

@georgepenney

Legit role model. 😤

@georgepenney Reason #593 why self service checkouts are not bad in principle, but most of them just have crappy UX.

@georgepenney

We‘re not defying machines, we’re defying the people who replaced humans with machines.

@georgepenney Much sympathy for the staff (assuming it's like the US, it's probably a very understaffed store) but kudos to them for being able to turn the damn things down. (The tech is better than when they were first introduced, but I still hate them.)

@georgepenney The machine desperately needs some manners and lessons about consent and respect. Hehe

@georgepenney
Ned Ludd and all fellow #Luddites are proud of the man.

@georgepenney That’s awesome. I have been known to tell the self-checkout staff that I already have a job thanks, as cashier was entirely too difficult for me.

@georgepenney

yep, one of the few advantages of being retired: we have all the time in the world 😉

@georgepenney A hero for our times! (I just swear at the machine, usually loudly. I hate them.)

@georgepenney I HATE self checkout with a passion. The system aways act up and you don't even get a discount for doing the work yourself.

@georgepenney This is the way.

@georgepenney And yet, I have the feeling that he didn't understand the machine was preprogrammed and never actually listened to his complaints.

@georgepenney Absolutely love it.

Machines need to work FOR US, don't accept any less.

@georgepenney @Pikatchoune I just imagine the exact same situation in 25 years and the guy will just repeat “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me…”

@georgepenney We all need to stand up against idiotic coding decisions.

@georgepenney
Good for him. I won't use those damn machines. I make them open a real checkout, then if they don't turn up for it quick enough, I leave all my shopping on the till and sod off.

@georgepenney @rberger
I absolutely refuse to use those damn self check-out machines, not only are they annoying and I will lose my shit if this happened to me. 😤
That retired man is a legend. 🥹

@georgepenney yup, I am 58 and yell ( in a mostly quiet volume) at the one in Fred Meyer ALL THE TIME. It won’t even give you 1 second to put your item on the belt. Then it gets mad cause “there at too many items on the belt”… you go down to bag… and in less than 1 minute it starts yelling at you “if you are done please press the finished button”. I assume the other people think I am nuts but I respond with. STOP RUSHING MEEEEEEE and MY GOD SHUT UP, GIVE ME SECOND, YOUR SO NAGGY

@georgepenney Much kudos to that man. I've told a few self-service checkouts to sod off when they've asked me if I need assistance when I'm busy getting my purse out to pay, or when they tell me to "Please take your items". The timings are all wrong, and the sensitivity on the bagging area scales means I easily get "Unexpected item in the bagging area" if my bag has moved slightly. It's not an unexpected item, it's the damn bag!

@georgepenney I pledge allegiance to my new leader, The Man Who Won’t Be Told

@georgepenney FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT THEY TELL ME ✊

@georgepenney I have a straight-up rule of "I don't buy from any place that has self checkout. For many reasons that start from the principled (fucking PAY PEOPLE you billionaire pricks and buy your next superyacht next year instead of next week!) to the practical (you're exposed to extreme legal risk every time you use one because genuine errors are deemed criminal intent).

@georgepenney they can do that? TURN OFF BY DEFAULT! TURN OFF BY DEFAULT!

@georgepenney Hurrah! More of us need to revolt against our machine overlords. My local convenience store has upgraded their self service checkouts and the new ones are a nightmare, constantly claiming I haven’t declared my shopping bag or that some item hasn’t been scanned (though I definitely heard the boop). This results in staff having to come and assist where that was never necessary with the old machines.

@georgepenney OMG, it'd be so easy to program a function that only makes the machine prod the customer when the weight of the checked-out items hasn't decreased in a certain time, indicating that the customer stopped packing...

@georgepenney I argue with the automatic grocery machine myself but I never had the goats to wait until it shuts the fuck up.

What a brave man.

@georgepenney Oh, these little victories of everyday life, I love them. 💜

@georgepenney
As someone who has spent time running a bank of these abominations here in the UK, I both sympathise with him, and applaud him.
Many have been the times I've wanted to scream "JUST SHUT UP!!!" at these things.
And they are even worse when shopping.
@User47

@georgepenney This is the funny thing I needed to start my day.
Brilliant!

@georgepenney For sensory and anxiety reasons I actually filed an accommodations complaint with Oregon when Safeway removed the ability for customers to mute self-checkout.

They weren’t interested, because Safeway can have a manager mute it if I ask…a process which itself becomes an anxiety problem and just draws attention to myself and further delays the people behind me, and so isn’t in any way much of an accommodation. 🤷‍♂️

@georgepenney This never happens to me, because I never use the automatic checkout.

It's not just that it's a machine that's replacing humans - but I once got dinged by a checker because I accidentally took 5 croissants instead of 4 (€0.25 cents each) because two were stuck together and I realized that one slip on my part could be a theft charge.

There in .nl, uptake was originally high but seems to have decreased dramatically.

Here in France they're worse... I never use them.

@georgepenney (Quickly scribbles this in notebook...)

@georgepenney Kia kaha!

@georgepenney

Legend.

My bugbear is that the self-service checkout won't accept my sell-your-shopping-data-for-a-discount card until I've punched the "Pay now" button -- at which point, without the slightest hesitation, it says "Don't forget to scan your club card!" And I'm like "I haven't forgotten, you just wouldn't accept it until Just F#$&*#$ Now!"

I acknowledge this is not entirely rational.

(Oddly, the staffed checkouts accept your club card at any point, not just the at end.)

@georgepenney goals!

@georgepenney "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" totally fits in this story

@georgepenney This gave me joyous laughter. The description was wonderful I felt like I was there. But o how grand it would have been to have had audio or video of this exchange. Thank you for sharing a smile for a Monday morning.

@georgepenney awesome! I've told the bloody thing to shut up in that precise situation but I've never actually taken action!

@georgepenney hero 🙌🏻

@georgepenney oh, gods, this is what I aspire to be! I mean, I'm too shy and introverted to stand off the machine, but I always beg it not to scream at me, and politely explain that rushing me only makes me panic and pack stuff slower. yes, I'm not even 40, and an engineer... 🙈

@georgepenney The first self-checkout machines around here also had a weight-sensing system until they realized it was both dumb and cost-increasing at the same time.

@georgepenney what a hero 👍

@georgepenney a true hero.

@georgepenney
Legend!

@georgepenney Khudos to him.

@georgepenney as i'm now old i will not be rushed by man or machine in fact rushing is a thing of my past

@georgepenney `CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN BAGGING AREA`

@georgepenney Cool story. I have never used these self-service checkout machines myself and I am not intending to do so. I also make an effort to pay with cash from time to time, to try to avoid a new sort of virtual society where the elderly generation and homeless people would suffer more.

-- Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. Lao Tzu.

@georgepenney I live here too and hate the machines. As soon as I start scanning it stops and asks if I want to continue on which I usually reply: I am here and busy and now it stopped to ask the question. Then it also bitches about having your own bag/s. My wife knows I can get into it and usually just tries to talk me down and ask to just ignore it and continue. Personally I hate the self checkouts. It’s more of a nuisance.

@georgepenney That's lovely!

@georgepenney Don’t mess with the Silent Generation

@georgepenney @assaf https://youtu.be/HbDnxzrbxn4

@georgepenney A beautiful and justified protest. We keep building "smart" machines that are more and more annoying, nagging, noisy, polluting our senses with obnoxious alarms and useless messages.

@georgepenney truly doing the Lord's work 🙏

@georgepenney
I will always take the manned checkout, even if there's a line, because it's very clear that self-checkouts are designed specifically around the expectation that I am a thief, and I am not a thief.

@georgepenney

I'm seriously surprised they did not respond with "We cannot tell the machine what to do. The machine is in charge now."

@georgepenney I would ask for the supermarket name, so I can send them every 15 seconds I reminder to change that machine

@georgepenney
First, I commiserate with the clerk who has to oversee 6+ checkouts instead of one
Then I complain about their training practices
…