I noticed the other week in Sainsbury's that some self-service tills have made a sneaky appearance, which didn't bother me too much as I had no intention of using them.
"Are those...?"
"They're self-service tills," the assistant rudely interupted me in a bored way which made it sound as if she had been asked the question ten million times before, which possibly she had, but there was no need to be so rude.
The next week I noticed that the 'Baskets only' tills had been axed to make way for them, which I was rather annoyed about as they are very useful if you have only popped in for a few items (extra cake for Keith, for instance) and don't want to be stuck in a lengthy queue behind someone who has bought the whole shop and then some and wants to pay for it with their life-collection of pennies.
So with rather bad grace, I took my basket to an ordinary till and prepared to wait, only to be accosted by a 'customer service assistant' who did her utmost to persuade me to give the new till a try.
"No thanks," I said politely. Her persistence indicated that she wanted a reason for my refusal, so eventually I gave it to her.
"When I come shopping," I said, "I like some degree of service. I already have to go round the store and pick the items I want and then lug them all out to the car, but I don't think it's too much to ask for someone to actually scan the shopping for me and take the money. Oh and it's quite nice when they offer to pack it for me, which happens less and less these days."
She smiled and backed away and went to help the queue building up at the self-service tills which seemed to be having teething problems.