Grocery stores removing self checkout lanes

 The concept is great but when anything goes wrong you have to wait for someone to come around and fix it. Finding them is usually the start to the problem. It's faster and easier to go through the old fashioned but effective lines where actual people are working.

Albertsons LLC, which operates 217 stores in seven Western and Southern states, will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in the 100 stores that have them and will replace them with standard or express lanes, a spokeswoman said.

"We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more," Albertsons spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said. "That's the driving motivation."

Wilcox said the replacement of automated checkout lanes with human-operated lanes likely would mean more hours available for employees to work.