they make these things called bags. but hey stranger, i appreciate you and everyone like you - i can't remember the last time i waited in a checkout line because i'm in and out of self checkout in like 2 minutes even at peak hours. it's amazing. i've also noticed that even the parking lot is less crowded at stores with self checkout. i'm sure someone has simulated this extensively because i can see it with my own eyes.

yet another job where i can, in fact, actually do it better myself. i'm just as fast on the self checkout machines as the cashiers are on their point of sale systems. the buffered queue also helps tremendously, instead of the line lottery of checkout lines. again - simulated and optimized.

the other people that do self checkout are also basically young-ish, single/alone, and would rather be anywhere than the fucking grocery store checkout line. separating people who are interested in getting the fuck out of there with food from the people who are slow, clumsy, and deliberately take a long time to make sure all their tiny little nitpicks are addressed by a captive employee audience is the best thing to happen to groceries in the 30+ years i've been wasting my life 15 minutes at a time at stores.

In my local Aldi the scales are enormous - you can definitely fit a full trolley full of groceries on the scales. A local Tescos has two kinds - one set of self checkouts with small scales for people with baskets only, and one with huge scales for people with trolleys. They look like this, you can fit everything on it: https://ninanco.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/4a-blurred-11...

In other words - this is a solved problem.

For every self-checkout kiosk I have ever used, they do not have to stay on the scale. If you wanted to, you could remove each and every item and put it in the cart once it has appeared on the list of items.

Here In Switzerland self checkouts don‘t have scales, you just scan everything and pay.