Re: Been there...
Used one at my local Tesco and ended up with a correctly scanned trolley full of shopping. Got to the self service tills and scanned the finished barcode under the watchful eye of the sales assistant. Shopping failed to load onto the till and I looked at her for help. She took the scanner and tried again but nothing on the till and the scanner says to put it in the stand.
Manager comes over to see what the problem is. There's now a queue forming because people need their age validating for booze they're buying. Manager once appraised of the situation apologises and whisks me off to the nearest non self service till that's unmanned. Opens it and scans all my shopping through very quickly. Then price corrects the last item (a 6 pack of cola) to 1p as a goodwill gesture. I didn't put the booze last on the belt which was obviously a mistake. He said it's a right pain when they go wrong and this incident would be reported and investigated.
When I worked near a Waitrose years ago they had the same system but it never went wrong for me. The only reason for using it there was it allowed you to jump the often long queue for the tills. The tills for hand scanners were exclusive to the scanners. This saved vital minutes in your lunch hour.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
