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The story
A thread on 5channel’s “Live Everything” board (nicknamed NanJ) blew up over customers who line up at a staffed register even when self-checkout machines are free. The original poster asked, “What’s the deal with people who go out of their way to line up at a staffed register instead of using self-checkout?” and the replies poured in. Sympathetic takes like “I just want to ease the staff’s workload” and “some items, like cigarettes, can only be bought at a staffed register” clashed with efficiency-minded opinions like “if the price is the same, you should pick whichever line moves faster.” The discussion also branched into talk about security cameras monitoring self-checkout stations.
What people said
Probably a shoplifting hotspot
Sometimes I see rough-looking guys in their 40s–50s using it, and it makes me want to ask if they're board regulars too
On top of that they play the overhead security camera feed on a big-screen TV, talk about thorough lol
How little do they trust us lol
If anything they should give you extra points for using it
Board regulars one-upping each other over which register they use… what a life 😭
That's their whole identity, you know
The kind of mind that thinks bragging about registers or PayPay makes them superior to others
They're not one-upping anyone, they're just being looked down on
These days there are even self-order machines for hot snacks. What a great era
"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your work, but could you please ring me up?"
Don't people have any shame, coming in to shop and cheerfully doing the work themselves, beep beep?
You even scan it yourself going "one item, 120 yen, beep!"
ATM threads blow up just as much. Such a pointless thing to argue over
Re: #92
The pointless ones are you guys who can't even operate a self-checkout lol
But honestly everyone shopping gets watched anyway
If it gets me out of the store faster, a little extra effort is fine by me
Background and key points of this topic
Self-checkout has spread rapidly in recent years amid Japan’s labor shortage, but some products — like cigarettes, which require age verification — and certain transactions can only be handled at a staffed register, so people’s reasons for choosing one or the other vary. In the thread, opinions split between “it’s odd to make customers do the work for the same price, so there should be a discount” and “people should just use whichever line is open, no big deal,” with no clear consensus emerging. Self-checkout stations staffed with monitors or security cameras as an anti-shoplifting measure also came up, but it’s worth noting this applies only to some stores rather than being a feature common to all self-checkout systems — an easy point to misread. It’s also worth remembering that self-checkout isn’t a cure-all, since certain operations still require a staffed register, as several posters pointed out.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5channel (Live Everything/NanJ board) thread “The truth behind the fools who insist on lining up at a staffed register like idiots when self-checkout is wide open.”
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