OneAndOneIs2

I hate shopping.

Now more than ever.

Now as in "Every year in December" - not as in right this second. Although this second is in December.

Firstly, they don't do the sensible thing and divide the shops into a "Normal shopping" section and a "For the seasonal herds" section. So even if you're only after a loaf of bread, you have a mob of frenzied buyers to get past.

Then there's the "Hurry up and wait" issue - everybody is bustling around in a huge hurry to get everything bought before everybody else buys it, and yet they somehow manage to do it slowly. So it's impossible ever to find a pace that matches the crowd - you're always going too fast and having to shove everybody out of the way, or too slow and people are trying to shove you. (Emphasis on "Trying", because I don't really shove easily...)

But the real jewel in this year's Xmas shopping crown is the DIY checkouts at Sainsbury's

Where do I start?

It will come as no shock to anybody that I'm quite comfortable with technology. A scanner and a touchscreen interface poses no real problem for me. I can even figure out how to get items with no barcode to work. No problem.

So it's not much of a testament to the usability of the system that every time I use it, I still have to grab a member of staff to fix some issue, is it? Especially when it's never a "Oh, you should have done..." solution, but a "Hang on while I log in as admin and bypass that" instead...

The modern world, gadget-infested though it may be, is still well-populated by people who can't program their VCR and have issues with the complexities of using a credit card with chip-and-PIN. These people have neither the confidence to want to use these blasted machines, nor the knowledge to know when the machine is the thing at fault rather than themselves.

So what genius decided that the best way to roll out these buggy and unfriendly machines was to have them completely replace all the "Basket only" aisles?? Not offering them as an option to the techno-savvy shoppers with a small number of simple items to buy, but forcing everybody without a trolley to use the damn things whether they want to or not.

And so they have to bumble their way through, apologizing to the staff members when the machines break, hesitating and having little discussions with each other as to what buttons to press, and generally spending an age on navigating their way through the whole damn process.

Which means that the rest of us have to stand around in a queue and wait for them, because we can't use anything else either!

And when did they decide to roll out these untried-and-untested thing?

The end of the year. Just in time for the Christmas rush.

Genius.

If not for the ever-popular entry from the "Signs you've watched too much Star Wars" list: As you come up to an automatic door, you wave your hand to make it look like you're opening it with The Force, going into town would be too grim a prospect to even think about.