While living in New Brunswick, I was used to only half a dozen self-checkouts at the superstore near my apartment. But in Australia, self-checkouts are an outsized part of the grocery landscape. Many locations of Coles and Woolworths outlets – the country’s dominant grocery chains – have double that, if not more.
On a recent visit to a central Melbourne Coles, I counted nearly 40 self-checkouts, and only two employees were circulating among them to help customers. Even at grocery stores in large Canadian cities such as Montreal and Toronto, I haven’t come across self-checkout sections as grand at grocery stores.
Satan’s handiwork nothing less.
