Powercut in Waitrose

Was in Waitrose yesterday, queueing for the self-service checkouts, when the power went off - lights (most) and all the chiller/freezer cabinets all stopped. Only for a few seconds, but long enough to reboot anything which wasn't on a UPS, so it was interesting to see what was on a UPS.

All the attendant tills and the self-service checkouts carried on without noticing. The self scan checkouts (where you carry a hand scanner around the store with you, and just download it into a dedicated till at the end) all died and people had to wait for them to reboot.

Initially I though that a bit strange, but actually it made sense. The tills where you take time to scan each item through were obviously on a UPS, so staff didn't have to unpack the scanned goods and start again. The self scan checkouts which are a single operation to upload all your goods were not on a UPS, but in this case you still don't need to unpack the shopping, as it's all held in the battery powered hand scanner.

Anyway, interested me that someone designing the system had given it this much thought.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel
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What check is there that you scanned everything ?

all died and people had to wait for

Reply to
Hanny Z

UPSs are useful devices. We had a powercut a few days ago and I could shut down *this* PC gracefully with ample time to spare (about 8 minutes on battery - I needed 30 seconds). But the other PC running Windows 7 *doesn't* have a UPS and I had to run chkdsk on two hard drives later, finding several correctable errors.

MM

Reply to
MM

One of the nicest things about laptops is the built-in UPS.

Reply to
polygonum

Took the words out of my mouth.

Reply to
Bod

In message , Hanny Z writes

A lot of it is trust I guess.

Tesco sometimes ask you to scan the stuff through as normal as well as a check/deterrent I guess

Reply to
Chris French

I got pulled a week last Saturday in Waitrose. I have been using the self s can for some time (probably >10 visits). When I went to the till to check t he shopping in and pay, a message came up on the screen to say I would be h aving a check. Basically they had to re-scan all my shopping. The assistant couldn't tell me if what she had scanned matched what I had (I couldn't remember exactly how much the shopping was). She told me that if there was a discrepancy the n next time I used the service I would have to have it checked again and on ly when there was no discrepancy would I be able to check out myself again (which I was able to do the following week so I must have been OK). When I used to shop at Tesco I would randomly get picked and they just used to scan 7 items to check if you were being honest. If you weren't would be easy to bury the non scanned items at the bottom of the shopping as the as sistants would not normally dig around to find items. When using the self pay checkouts in Ikea (Milton Keynes) after they first opened I asked them why they were now being supervised after customers were initially being left to do it themselves, the assistant told me they had h ad £15k of goods stolen in the first week of unsupervised operation.

Reply to
Kevin H

Once burned Twice Shy as a wellknown song proclaimed , I'd imagine. Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

Probably an accountant involved in keeping installation costs down.

Reply to
Nightjar

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