The checkout situation alone has made it so I haven’t gone to my local Safeway in almost two years except to use the DMV registration machine. The self checkout is almost unusable, and ever since the private equity buyout years ago I’ve never seen more than two normal registers open at once.

Private equity is synonymous with “customers and employees will suffer” in my mind.

I get really miffed at how our system of economics seems set up to destroy rather than promote the common good.

I’ve walked out of more than one Safeway because the self checkout refused to let me proceed and nobody was helping. Those machines are so shitty, they’ve gotten better but I still try not to use them.