Stores Want to Start Charging Us for Self-Checkout, Further Proving They Think We’re All Assholes

Jovanmandic. Getty Images.

We don’t want human interaction, we just want to get our shit and go and Walmart is using it against us like the evil geniuses they are. 

This post went viral over the weekend showing a self-checkout line being reserved for Walmart+ members only and the internet rightfully responded with universal hate. 

This isn’t “fast pass” at the most magical place on earth, it’s Walmart. A melting pot of misery, a white trash watering hole, a snapshot into the fabric of society that confirms: We’re only holding on by a thread. 

You’re telling me, not only do I have to scan and bag my own items so that you don’t have to pay some kid minimum wage, but now I gotta PAY YOU for the privilege? What kind of fucking dystopian future is this?

I think it’s payment and punishment enough that I have to sit behind an old-timer who barely knows how to work a flip phone, let alone the self-checkout station. 

(Allow me to be ageist for a second, but every time an old gets on the line in front of you, you just know that the “customer needs assistance” message is gonna light up faster than a LifeAlert. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one that we have come to tolerate. If you want me to pay, you better be setting age limits.) 

On one hand, I don’t want to make small talk with the cashier who judges me for declining to donate to the starving kids in Africa, on the other, I also don’t want to “donate it” to the richest family in America with a membership. (The Walton Family has an estimated net worth of $276 Billion)

So what prompted all of this, just a simple cash grab? On the surface it looks that way, but the deeper you dig the more pissed off you’ll get. 

It’s a perfect cocktail of backend bonuses, corporate complicity and shoplifting with the paying customer footing the bill for it all.

The Business Journal- Walmart shoppers across the U.S. have taken to the web with stories about finding their local Walmart self-checkouts blocked. It’s not related to the rollout of the Walmart+ membership program. Walmart Press Office – Global Communications Director Joe Pennington said the closure of self-checkout lanes in stores across the country is based on individual store manager decisions — not top-down orders from Walmart’s corporate headquarters.“Not every store is going to look the same – probably even within Fresno and the Valley – there’s going to be different solutions at every different store because the manager has been given discretion,” Pennington said.

Walmart has made it clear that this isn’t a corporate-wide policy and that it’s actually the managers who are implementing these “strategies” on their own, but why would they do that? 

Well, as far as I know, they don’t get a bonus for subscriber signups, but they DO get one for sales and productivity and those bonuses are being killed by the five finger discount. 

Shoplifters are living in a world without consequences. When they aren’t switching tags from bananas to PS5s, they’re simply loading up carts and walking right out the front door. 

It’s a lawless world where no one is allowed to stop them and many companies will fire anyone who tries. This is hurting store’s numbers and more importantly, manager’s bonuses.

The average salary of a Walmart manager is $128,000. From there they can earn a stock grant of up to $20,000 AND they have the ability to receive up to 200% of their salary in bonuses based off of output. 

THAT’S A CEILING OF $404,000 A YEAR FOR THE MANAGER plus now the additional money going into corporate’s pockets with these membership fees.

Once again, this IS NOT a corporate policy and that’s the evil genius-ness of it all! It never has to be. Walmart knows that once bonus season hits, all the other stores will get in line to do the same. No mid-level manager is leaving that type of cash on the table and the big wigs will see their subscriber base boom while their losses lessen. 

The rich get richer, the criminals keep getting their free pass and the little guy gets fucked. Seems about right.