You can't just cut someone off driving the same way when you can when walking.

Maybe you can't ;-)

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Ye gods...do all of the stations in your area have that crap?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

No, only the ones I don't go to anymore, thank god. They're nearly as offensive as the televisions on the bus.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

You folks have friggin' t.v.s on the buses!?  That has got to be one of the signs of the endtimes.  

Hell, I thought it was bad when Shaws market installed t.v.s in the check-out line.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Yeah, believe or not the worst part about it is honestly the programming...they show the weekend weather all the way until the following Tuesday plus things like tips on child rearing that amount to little more than don't leave your kid in the car on a hot day. Insightful and applicable!

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Wet sand the area beneath your gascap and then throw a couple coats of clear on there.  The gas actually doesn't do that much damage to clear, but if it starts getting fucked up you'll notice it and it's easy to fix (wet sand and another quick shot of clear).

Careful if you don't know anyone who knows paint, though- especially with the discount painting companies, you get what you pay for.  This is more true for paint than any other automotive subject, in my experience.

In my gas-pumping experience, I had many customers complain that we were one of the last true full service pumps in town (most still had attendants, but the attendants only pumped, and everything was up to you). This was right in the middle of the switch-over from full- to self-service. More explicitly, many people wanted full-service at the time, and were upset that full-service was disappearing.

Now that it's essentially gone, no one seems to mind. Maybe what truly bothers consumers is fundamental change.

Anecdotally, I had a customer come in from Detroit and he explained that full-service had disappeared in his city many years prior (while my small Ontario town still featured 3/4 of the pumps as full-service) and how nice it was to not have to get his hands dirty, or spill/splash gas on his hands and pants.

It would seem to me that the real motivation for removal of full-service was not to cater to customer's concerns or desires but rather to save money. The profit margins for the small-time franchise owners are not exactly massive, and the supply price increases don't really help them earn more money at the local level. Having you pump the gas yourself saves the franchisee a little bit more money.

I, personally, love the self-checkout line at the grocery store as well.  I can almost always scan and bag faster than the cashier, and I can make sure that things are bagged appropriately (i.e. no the heavy orange juice bottle does NOT go in the same bag as the bread).  I can also make sure that all the coupons actually get scanned (I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell the cashier to scan a coupon again because he or she just ran them in front of the scanner and assumed they scanned through, even though they didn't).  My only real complaint about the self-checkout lines is that they need some refinement.  Some stores don't give you enough room to bag all your items, and then there's those stupid systems that try to judge if you put the item in the bag by weight, but are often poorly calibrated and end up requiring you to get a cashier to come and override them anyway.  As as idea, though, I think self-checkout is perfectly fine - they just need to work on refining it a bit more.

When I used to go to a sketchy* locally owned grocery store across the street from my old apartment they didn't feature self checkout. What they did feature was surly cashiers who would accessorize by wearing sunglasses or 50lbs of bling while at work. Anywho, long lines would invariably result as people tried to get their beer allowed for food stamp use, or buy non-approved WIC items, or simply dump 6.02 * 10^23 items on the belt, and then tell the cashier to stop when the total hit $30 and re-shelve the rest**. This resulted in you getting Hustled (not hit up for subscriptions to the magazine or asked to join in a spontaneous act of the group dance made up by Van McCoy) for cigarette money, buy somebody's stolen food stamp cards, bus passes, help my boy Schmitty out, etc. Furthermore, attempting to use coupons would frequently get you accused of counterfeiting or whatever excuse there was that day to avoid doing work. What was even sadder was that while they were quite adept at processing benefits cards, people paying with visa was a rarity to the point where it often resulted in a supervisor needing to help the hapless cashier. You would figure it would be better because the time it took them to count cash and make change was sad.

After we bought a house and that old grocery store closed down we went to a slightly better one. Although I was scared when a state trooper got run over in the parking lot in broad daylight a few months ago after a drug deal gone bad, the security guy tends to limit himself to one firearm so I figure its better. Plus they accept coupons without hassle and have self checkout. Which is actually the point of this reply, but I kind of got carrier away. Probably because I used to have an onion on my belt. It was the style of the time.

Anyway, self checkout is clearly the way to go. On average I tend to be about the same speed as the average cashier, but as port pointed out, stuff doesn't get broke. The advantage is you get to do it yourself and the coupons generally always get accepted, and if they don't then you can have the cashier override the machine, which they will 99% of the time, which sometimes results in unexpected doubling action. That and watching people get busted for trying to sneak extra items through without paying is sometimes funny. Sometimes not.

*The security guard had to be 6'4" and 250 lbs, but still felt the need to carry two pistols in plain view (one in a holster, the other down the waistband ftw!), plus who knows what else as a backup.
**One time I saw somebody go the extra mile and try to return sliced ham to the deli. That was classy.

Are you saying fewer stores are bagging groceries for you? I hadn't noticed this at all and I'm one who frequently goes out of my way to bag for myself.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

    Well, since I only visit two stores on a regular basis, my personal sample is rather limited. But the anecdotal evidence, and what I've seen on vacations, is that the number is higher than zero, and rising. Now, consumers may have reached the saturation point for self purchasing and packaging, and so grocery shopping will never reach the same degree as self service as gas stations. The initial reactions to having no (or little) choice were strongly negative in my experience, and the big chains may have done enough research to decide that the option simply being there is enough, and any desire to save money by cutting staff would always result in lost revenue.
     I always self pack, mainly because 1) I have a nice canvas bag that does just fine- paper or plastic, bags pile up in a hurry when you live alone- and 2) I've usually been on a bicycle in the past, and so packing the load for comfort and balance the first time made more sense than repacking once I got outside. Most cashiers are more than happy to take at least a minute away from bagging, though I get one or two a year who aren't hip to the idea. Takes all kinds, I guess.

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

I initially wasn't even thinking about the fully self-serve check out lines. They do have those at Home Depot around here and the only reason I don't like them is because the people using them in front of me are always completely incompetent at getting through them in anything approximating a reasonable amount of time. One would think as such things proliferated, this would improve but I have my doubts.

Someone else checking you out while you bag your groceries is different in my mind...most places I've been to outside America the cashiers expect you to bag your own and I've always been a little finicky about what gets packed where anyway.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

TV on the bus?   That would seriously chap my ass.

Full service gas stations  haven't meant much since they stopped checking under the hood and airing your tires.  My idea of full service is when I meet my husband at Costco and he fills the tank for me. ;)   It's lame, but I hate to pump gas.

I wish the people at my grocery store knew how to bag groceries. I'm not sure they teach them anymore.

In theory, I love the self-check-out.

In practice, I hate it with a white hot passion.

I don't know if I'm electrically charged, or what, but they alway malfunction when I use them, and the flunky who is supposed to be available to help me when it happens is invariably chatting with a coworker, on break, or in some other wayunavailable and it ends up being a bigger pain in the ass than if I'd just stood in line and waited in the first place.

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."