Checkout Chick

At the grand old age of 14 and nine months I started working as a checkout chick at Coles Supermarkets, Glenroy (your Flybuys store!). I was trained by a formidable Front End dragon, ahem, supervisor.

I was taught how to pack the plastic shopping bags, with no less than 8 items. The cost of each bag was something like 8 cents per large bag and 4 cents per small bag. Heaven help you if you were caught under packing a bag – the cost to the company would sink us all! At the end of the shift, we carried our cash drawers up to the counting room, bagged up our coins and sorted the notes before putting into a green bag with a red security clip on it. We then handed it over to the ladies in the cash office (always ladies, the men did the managing down in the store ahem…) .

If you were naughty, or talked too much to customers (never!) or were too slow scanning, you would be put on register 13 far away from the action. But quite close to the good looking boys lounging over the counter in Liquorland…sorry I digress!

We were paid in cash on Tuesday receiving a little yellow envelope, with the standard and overtime hours written on the front. You could pick up your wages between 4.00 p.m. and 6.00 p.m. At Christmas or Easter it happily bulged, and overtime paid for my first pair of cherry red Doc Marten eight ups (I know, I know!) and later my bright blue 1969 Ford Cortina.

I loved being a checkout chick. Like really loved it. I loved sorting the groceries as I scanned, chatting away and I had loads of regular customers who would patiently queue up with their regular shop to put it through by me. Years later I was in a lift in Nauru House and a man kept looking and looking at me. Finally I said to him “I was your checkout chick at Coles” …it was at least a decade later!

Anyhoo, the faster you got at scanning the more likely you would be put on the Express lanes, 12 items or less. At 6.00 p.m. of an evening, you would get the harried commuters who had just gotten off the train from the city. Much less time for chat, and you needed to scan fast. Much more transactional.

It was 1992. But did you know that the first item ever marked with the Universal Product Code (UPC) or barcode, was scanned at 8.00 a.m. on 26 June 1974? It was at Troy’s Marsh Supermarket in Ohio. The Smithsonian describes the event:

“The night before, a team of Marsh staff had moved in to put bar codes on hundreds of items in the store while National Cash Register installed their scanners and computers. The first "shopper" was Clyde Dawson, who was head of research and development for Marsh Supermarket; the pioneer cashier who "served" him, Sharon Buchanan. Legend has it that Dawson dipped into his shopping basket and pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Dawson explained later that this was not a lucky dip: he chose it because nobody had been sure that a bar code could be printed on something as small as a pack of chewing gum, and Wrigley had found a solution to the problem.” Source:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/

I remember clearly the distrust some people had of items being scanned. Proudly displayed at all of our registers was the price promise: if the item scanned higher than the price on the shelf, the customer would get the item for free. It very very rarely happened. I don’t know the percentages but guess it would be less than 1% of the time.

But back then people didn’t trust the scanners as much as they trusted people, who laboriously would have priced individual items with a pricing sticker gun. My Mum refused to use her ATM card at the supermarket declaring that we were all being spied upon, always ahead of her time Mez was!

How times have changed and how consumer expectations differ. 

Nowadays we have self-service checkouts, a dozen or more at larger stores, overseen by one staff member. They have pretty much replaced the Express lanes as customers rush through with their own bags, scan their items, pay via contactless payment methods and disappear off at anytime of the day or night. And it’s not just supermarkets; it’s Bunnings, K-mart and Ikea too.

If you have a big shop (and haven’t done it online for whatever reason), you will most likely head for a check out with an operator. They will efficiently scan your items, pack them in your own bags and send you on your way. Slightly more involved but still pretty straight forward, and relatively transactional. There is slightly more time spent doing your shopping and you might have a chat with your check out person but most likely you will be scrolling your phone.

It is a relatively straight forward, standard experience. The majority of the work has already been done for you and is verified in the background. The registers, scanners, and payment methods all integrate seamlessly.

But If you are looking for a non-transactional experience you approach the task differently. 

Perhaps you are having a fancy dinner party or celebration. You might look to shop at a range of speciality stores speaking to experts to help you select the produce, wine and dessert. You may choose to design the occasion to your exact dining specification because it isn’t just about grocery shopping, it is about a bespoke experience.

This is exactly how we at BVT feel about providing you with options for your engineering solutions. It can be standard or bespoke. Both options have touch points with our team, but as the client you can choose how much or how little you want to have – and pay accordingly.

BVT’s new software platform Prenguin, takes all of the standard elements of engineering, verified in the background, and makes it easier for the users to serve themselves. You can still speak to an engineer or book them in to visit your project, but they are there to help you with the hard bits. Not the elements you already know how to do yourself, because you’ve repeated them a hundreds or thousands of times before…and you are bloody frustrated at paying a consultant every time you need a design element changed. 

Just like a self-serve check out, you can do it yourself! Prenguin frees you up to do better things with your time, like working on engagements that you are passionate about or hanging out with your kids. More of the good stuff. Less of the drudgery. Don’t believe us? Have a look for yourself at www.prenguin.com.

And yes, that is my real life ‘Ceinwen’ checkout chick badge, please don’t do the maths on just how old that makes me now!