Retailers in Europe, like Booths supermarkets, and the United States, like Walmart, are pulling back on having self-checkout in light of complaints and shoplifting.
I’m autistic. I always apparently seem weird to people. That means any time I use a self checkout, the minders stare at me because they think I’m about to steal something. It makes me nervous, and I start getting uncomfortable and self conscious, which I’m sure makes me seem even more suspicious. And either security or the automated system have triggered the “please wait for an associate” so many times. But they always look at the video and tell me “Sorry, this thing is just sensitive/weird/whatever excuse.”, then leave me alone.
I’m not going to call it discriminatory, because I don’t think it is? But it feels like I have to be on my best behavior or I’ll get arrested because I was so focused on trying to pass as “normal” that I missed scanning a tomato. And for the record, I’ve never stolen anything, even when I was low on food and really needed some stuff I couldn’t afford. Hell, I have forgotten to scan something once and went back in to pay for it.
Self checkout sucks, but it’s normally still better than waiting in line and interacting face to face with a cashier.
I feel like a criminal the second I enter a store, I’ve felt like this for at least the past decade, it’s like everyone is a suspect… Like damn I’m just here to buy milk and bread…
It’s easier said than done, but once I learned to stop giving a shit about what NTs think about me, my life in public got a lot better. I still get that from time to time but it’s a lot less often these days.
I’m autistic. I always apparently seem weird to people. That means any time I use a self checkout, the minders stare at me because they think I’m about to steal something. It makes me nervous, and I start getting uncomfortable and self conscious, which I’m sure makes me seem even more suspicious. And either security or the automated system have triggered the “please wait for an associate” so many times. But they always look at the video and tell me “Sorry, this thing is just sensitive/weird/whatever excuse.”, then leave me alone.
I’m not going to call it discriminatory, because I don’t think it is? But it feels like I have to be on my best behavior or I’ll get arrested because I was so focused on trying to pass as “normal” that I missed scanning a tomato. And for the record, I’ve never stolen anything, even when I was low on food and really needed some stuff I couldn’t afford. Hell, I have forgotten to scan something once and went back in to pay for it.
Self checkout sucks, but it’s normally still better than waiting in line and interacting face to face with a cashier.
I feel like a criminal the second I enter a store, I’ve felt like this for at least the past decade, it’s like everyone is a suspect… Like damn I’m just here to buy milk and bread…
It’s easier said than done, but once I learned to stop giving a shit about what NTs think about me, my life in public got a lot better. I still get that from time to time but it’s a lot less often these days.