Self-service fatigue, why supermarket checkouts are wearing us down

When convenience becomes a part time job

Self service was sold to us as a modern miracle. Fewer queues, more control, a quick in and out so we can get home, feed the family and pretend we’ve still got energy for arm day at the gym. Instead, three times in a row at a major supermarket, I have earned the dubious honour of a bag check. Three. Consecutive. Times.

I now approach the checkout with the energy of a woman trying to look innocent while carrying a scanner gun through the wine aisle. My face says “I’m guilty”, my posture says “please do not inspect my trolley again, I’m one trigger away from abandoning my entire shop and living on baked beans”.

The worst moment arrived during an especially thorough inspection. The checkout assistant, halfway through scanning my hundred items with world-weary resignation, dropped a jar of pasta sauce on the floor. It smashed. She then knelt right into the glass. I gasped, she winced, the sauce and her blood oozed, and pasta went firmly off the menu. Cyrus asked why we were having omelette again. I just blamed the cost of living.

The guilt of being innocent

There is nothing quite like a bag check to make you feel suspicious even when you know your biggest crime is buying too many lemons. They haul everything out of your trolley and you find yourself over-explaining, and then having to stuff it back into the trolley flustered.

“No, that steak isn’t hidden, it just fell to the bottom.” To be fair, steak is always tagged, always expensive and always ends up wedged next to my purse and car keys at the bottom of the shopping bag. 

Then there’s the rewards card. I find the app, the Wi-Fi drops, the screen freezes and I start tapping like a mad woman. The queue begins to twitch. Someone younger next to me just sighs. I mutter something about perimenopause brain fog while frantically scrolling. Nothing. By the time the card loads, the checkout assistant has already finished the test scan and is looking at me with pity.

The burden quietly passed to shoppers

Bring your own bags. Pack as you go. Scan your own items. Manage the glitchy app. Troubleshoot your own errors and just smile while doing it.

Some weeks I feel like I deserve an NVQ in supermarket logistics. We were promised convenience. What we got is unpaid labour wrapped in the illusion of efficiency. There’s a creeping exhaustion at the self-serve tills, especially in the run-up to Christmas when we’re all running on caffeine fumes and festive guilt.

Tech that was supposed to help us is quietly shifting the emotional and physical work on to its customers. And yes, it actually feels like working at the weekend.

As someone juggling midlife hormones, an energetic nine-year-old and a gym habit that is both my therapy and my struggle, the last thing I need is a retail system that demands more admin on a Saturday afternoon.

When the system abandons people

During one shop, I noticed an older woman at a self service till, helpless in front of a frozen screen. The machine had decided it was out of order mid-transaction and simply left her there, stranded with her basket and dignity slipping. No staff in sight. Not even a teenager on a headset pretending to supervise.

It hit me in the chest. We’re replacing humans with machines that cannot tell when someone is confused, overwhelmed or about to cry. As someone bullied as a teen and still carrying that tiny bruise inside, I have a soft spot for anyone who looks lost in public. Watching her made me wonder how many people now avoid shopping because they feel unsteady in a world that’s become a touch too automated.

Why companies are obsessed with self service

I’m not an economist, but I do work in PR and spend some time analysing trends. The push towards more self service is simple:

• Labour costs rise
• Technology seems cheaper
• Customers adapt quicker than expected
• Speed looks good in a quarterly report

On paper, it’s efficient. In real life, it sparks micro-stress. It chips at wellbeing. It adds friction to my health, mental load and everyday life. Self service fatigue is just low-level draining.

What a balanced approach could look like

It isn’t complicated.

• Keep self service for quick shops
• Staff at least two human tills at all times
• Provide trained support rather than one poor teen responsible for 18 machines
• Build tech that works without Wi-Fi 
• Design systems that don’t treat every customer like a suspect

Above all, stop pretending customers want to do everything themselves. We don’t. Not all the time. Sometimes I want a real human to scan my pizza and ask if I’m having a good day. Even if the truthful answer is “not really”.

Where this trend is heading

If nothing changes, we’re heading towards a shopping experience where:

• Labour is offloaded entirely on to customers
• Social interaction disappears
• Retail becomes emotionally draining
• Older people and overwhelmed parents become excluded

That last one worries me most. I don’t want a world where an older woman (that will be me) at a broken till is shrugged off as inevitable.

The hidden cost to customer loyalty

Loyalty hinges on feeling valued. And nothing says “we do not value you” like repeatedly making a customer scan, pay, bag, troubleshoot, check out and then submit to a trolley-wide interrogation.

People tolerate inconvenience, but they do not tolerate feeling disrespected. At some point, shoppers will vote with their feet. Even I, a creature of habit, have been flirting with the idea of switching supermarkets. Someone offering staffed tills and working Wi-Fi could win my loyalty with alarming speed.

Over to you