Second verse. Same as the first… also, this was a draft and was an unexpected post a few hours ago. So, we’ll do it again:

The question (rant?) posed elsewhere was as follows:

Self checkout nightmare
At the grocery store today the cashier just closed the register without warning right as it was my turn after I’d waited in line for a while. They were also the only staffed register option open.
The only other option was self checkout so I went there with a full cart which I always hate. In the end a few items wouldn’t scan, and I needed an employee to come and manually enter them into the system which took ages!
So not only was it made significantly more difficult for me than just keeping the register open, but they still needed someone to walk back and forth to me doing it which probably took just as much of their time as scanning them at the checkout would’ve to start with!
Why do they do this??

–rhymes with Fetid

The response I was going to provide there, but realized that the audience there wouldn’t appreciate my particular perspective, was;

Because, at scale, it’s more sustainable to have people — who have some semblance of personal responsibility — take a few moments to scan and bag their own groceries rather than have a single clerk with human physiology step away for 15 minutes every two hours or go to the bathroom… or lunch… or get sick… or go on vacation… or die without seeking the approval of the exceedingly small number of, although rather vocal, patrons who want to complain.
Or, and just hear me out here: scan your stuff, swipe your card, go about your day.