Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech::When Walmart’s anti-theft self-checkout tech alerts an employee of a missed scan, it can cause some uncomfortable situations.

  • JDPoZ@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    67
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Ever since the pandemic, curbside pickup has been the norm at our house for groceries.

    We use Kroger, not Walmart, but I had a recent experience relevant to share.

    I was out running an errand and my spouse asked me to go grab a couple items from Kroger since it was nearby.

    I hadn’t been inside the store in like a year, so I was surprised to see gates at the door that opened and closed upon approach and walking away.

    Also, while shopping, at some point suddenly the wheels on the cart locked up, causing me to bang the ever loving shit out of my shins on the cart frame. That’s when I got to learn about the new “anti-theft” wheel lock tech being used on all carts now.

    I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wanted to flip the goddamn cart over and kick the absolute shit out of it… but I knew that wouldn’t help.

    …But if I read a story about someone going and drilling holes in every single one of those cart wheels, or setting fire to them all, or breaking the gates, I would laugh.

    I imagine as soon as someone gets something worse than bruised shins and brings a lawsuit against these stupid companies, we will see these stupid things go away… but until then, I’m not fucking stepping foot inside any store that has that bullshit.

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      36
      ·
      1 year ago

      The grocery store in my city became straight dystopian. It was always a sort of sketchy area but nothing that bad. After the pandemic, they added a second armed, vested private security in black, one-way turnstiles going in and out, increased cameras with screens on every aisle that showed you with the words “RECORDING IN PROGRESS”. They even added locks to the frozen section, so you had to get an employee to help you buy ice cream. The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.

      • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.

        Cops can generally get away with that. Store security guards assaulting customers open the store up to a lawsuit.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          True, the store security usually didn’t actually do anything, the police would be doing that while the security talks to them, but on two occasions I did see the security tackle a person.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The “bad” grocery store near me has taken to posting security cam pictures of people they catch stealing which is a terrible, awful, extrajudicial thing to do, but I would be lying if I said it does not make for some hilarious pictures. It’s a big wall of shame right as you enter the store.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        Jesus Christ that all sounded (unfortunately) normal until the locked freezers. That’s a step too far. I mean, all of it is, but that’s actually a ridiculous concept lmao

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          I wonder if that’s a response to that stupid internet trend of opening ice cream containers to lick it and then put it back.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s pretty funny to think, living in the US, nothing is odd about a privately employed person with a gun guarding groceries or people being violently arrested when they steal said groceries out of necessity.

      • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ru
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        My wife’s creepy racist incel uncle had a fit once when we went into a store and he saw himself on the security camera. He said he doesn’t like seeing himself. My sister had the same reaction to seeing herself pre transition and apparently it’s a common theme among trans people who haven’t realized it yet.

        I know it’s a bit of a tangent, but he’s rabidly transphobic up to the point just short of being blatantly hateful. He’s obsessed with my sister and other trans people and made a lot of obsessive and creepy jokes about dating them.

        This post triggered my PTSD.

        • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s more a body dysmorphia thing than specifically a trans thing. For instance, I hate seeing myself too, and I’m just fat, not trans. I disapprove of the appearance I have, and dislike being reminded of that. Yes, I’m working on it.

          • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ru
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            He’s a completely out of shape incel, so that’s a possibility. Considering everything else, he seems deep in the closet. He started mentioning trans stuff all the time before he found out that my sister is trans, which caused him to have an existential crisis, because he was obsessed with her and trying to get her to date him. He also has a creepy latent obsession with Russian women. He constantly talked about other trans women and joked about dating them and went through an entire hypothetical situation of introducing a specific trans woman he was obsessed with to his family.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m surprised it locked up like that. About 15 years ago I was a frequent customer in a store that had these and I never encountered any problem with it, nor did I hear of anyone else encountering a malfunction while using them.

      That store implemented those locks because they were the closest supermarket to a college campus. Some students were taking the carts back to their dorms and chaining them up to a tree with bicycle chains. They would also use those carts to go shopping in a nearby supermarket of another store chain.

      Different continent though, so it’s probably not entirely the same technology. People like reinventing the wheel.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        My wife once ordered some dried basil or similar herb, they said they were out of stock and substituted it with an actual live potted basil plant. We both thought it was hilarious, but also annoying.