27th
Sensor Blocked
These things promised to replace human cashiers. We took this in any of numerous ways, depending on things like how we felt about such jobs, our level of mistrust for technology, our love or hatred for our local grocery store staff, etc. Regardless of where we came down in the ideological debate over self-checkout, however, everyone assumed the introduction of the machines heralded the eventual demise of the human cashier.
Fast forward 10 years. I’ve made my way through my local mega grocery store, a few items in hand, to the self-checkout. It senses my presence and greets me. “Welcome! If you have your Giant Eagle Advantage Discount Savings Card, please scan it now.”
What do you know? I do have my Giant Eagle card. BEEP.
So now I can scan my groceries. Eggs. BEEP. Cheese. BEEP. Bread. BEEP. Sausage…
“Please stand by. Help is on the way.”
I look around. The place is packed, but nobody looks like help. Not a cashier in either direction, as far as I can see. The service desk is abandoned, a queue of lottery junkies patiently awaiting the return of the Customer Service Representative who can sell them tickets. I look up. My lane’s number - no joke, it’s lucky 7 - is flashing. “Help is on the way,” repeats the lady robot voice.
I check the monitor. There’s a picture and some words. It says the front safety sensor is blocked, and there’s an arrow pointing to a particular spot on the conveyor belt that transports groceries from the scanner to the bagging area. I find the point to which the arrow’s referring, and I realize it’s talking about my sausage. My sausage is blocking the front safety sensor. “That’s what she said,” I mutter to myself, picking up the package of sausages to see if removing them from the belt clears the error. No luck.
“Help is on the way,” the machine says a third time, but amidst a sea of fellow shoppers, I am completely alone. I pick up the sausages again, and return them to the belt with a little force. It makes a satisfying sound, I think, so I do it again - a little harder this time. THUMP. I chuckle. “Thump yourself,” I tell it, but it just sits there. I reach for it again, and repeat, “thump yourself,” as I basically slam it back down on the conveyor belt, beaming maniacally, prepared for this escalation right here to become my entire evening.
A pimply kid in a yellow, corporate polo - probably not even old enough to be a cashier - breaks the spell as he approaches, suddenly aware of my situation. “Sir,” he interrupts, his voice cracking with nervousness. “It says sensor blocked,” he informs me. “Slamming your item on the belt over and over isn’t going to… It’s not going to help, sir.”
“That’s pretty reasonable advice,” I reply. “But this is a post-reason situation. Because look…” I pick the sausage up from the belt, holding it between us. “The sensor isn’t blocked. It never was. And yet, there’s that message. So really, all bets are off in terms of what’s reasonable.”
I don’t even know if he blinked, this kid whom I’d just schooled in the practical application of Dada. He just reached his hand behind him, as if to pull a gun from his pants. And when it came back, he held in it a neon orange scrunchy from which dangled an all-too-familiar, bar-coded, plastic card with the word, “manager,” printed in plain white block text.
“Right,” he says, “but I have this.”
