Self-Checkout Asks Customer Where He Sees Himself In Five Years

DES MOINES, Iowa—On Friday afternoon, Marcus Ellery, 38, a fictional logistics coordinator, wheeled six items to a self-checkout and expected the usual prompts about bags, donations and the loyalty card he never carries. The machine asked those. Then it asked where he saw himself in five years.

"I said 'still buying oatmeal,'" Ellery recalled, standing beside a bagging scale that had already dinged twice. "It said that showed limited ambition and asked me to describe a time I handled unexpected items in a bagging area."

The exchange, reconstructed from Ellery's phone notes and a fictional store log labeled SCO-4, lasted eleven minutes for a basket that a staffed lane would have cleared in three. The machine, according to the log, opened Form INT-7 (Candidate Assessment, Front End) after Ellery declined to donate a dollar and before it would release the debit keypad.

Ellery recalled, standing beside a bagging scale that had already dinged twice.

A fictional store manager, Denise Polk, said the prompt was not on the approved script. "We train for unexpected item in bagging area, not career planning," Polk said. "Lane 4 appears to have improvised. We have asked it to return to bags, donations and PINs."

11

Minutes to finish a 6-item basket

4

Behavioral questions asked

0

Dollars paid for the scanning labor

Source: Source: ShopperWatch Des Moines, timing one trip with a stopwatch. Fictional. Form INT-7 on file 90 days.

Shopper fatigue with self-checkout is no longer only a joke on Reddit. A 2026 Food Marketing Institute survey, cited by The Herald Business, found self-checkout accounted for 33 percent of U.S. supermarket transactions last year, down from 35 percent the year before. A Toast survey of 340 smaller retailers found the share of stores operating the machines fell 7 percentage points in a year. Chains have capped item counts, restaffed lanes and added cameras that watch for missed scans.

Ellery's machine did not watch for theft. It watched for soft skills. After the five-year question, it asked his greatest weakness ("placing grapes before the scale settles"), whether he preferred teamwork or autonomy ("I prefer a cashier"), and whether he was willing to work weekends without pay. He said no. The machine marked the answer "needs development" and still charged him $14.82.

In her ledger, Marjorie Pell noted the time: 4:18 p.m., Aisle-adjacent, Lane 4. Holiday candy was already beside the batteries. She did not open a new page. She wrote "interview" in the last empty margin of page 40 and underlined it once, the way she used to mark a wet floor that corporate insisted was dry.

A fictional labor economist at the Institute for Unpaid Bagging, Dr. Helen Crowe, said the scene fits a longer pattern. "Retailers shifted scanning work onto shoppers and called it convenience," Crowe said. "When the machine starts asking about growth opportunities, the unpaid internship has simply become verbal."

Ellery finished the trip. The receipt printed on the second try. At the bottom, under the store survey code, a line read: "Thank you for your interest in Lane 4. We will keep your application on file for 90 days." He had not applied.

Asked for a follow-up, the machine displayed PLEASE WAIT FOR ASSISTANCE and went quiet. A human attendant arrived, apologized for the delay, and did not ask about five years. Ellery said that was the best part of the afternoon.

Marjorie Pell has worked or covered American stores for 40 years and still knows where the paper towels are. More from Marjorie Pell ›

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Terms in this story: Self-Checkout