What if Stop & Shop and Shaws had a suck-off?

Tim Jarrett cannot stand shopping at the Arlington Stop & Shop - lack of stock and poor service will do that to you. When he heard about a new Hannaford in Waltham, he was ecstatic - the Hannafords he'd been in down south were large, well-stocked stores. Sadly, reality intruded:

... The meat counters looked good, but there was no tuna at the fish counter, and the produce, while plentiful, left something to be desired in freshness and eye appeal. The rest of the store just felt cramped and low, and the checkout staff were too busy with their own conversations to actually make eye contact with us. ...

So for now he's going to be a regular at Johnny's Foodmaster.

Meanwhile, Rob Sama reports on his latest battle with the self-service checkout line at his local Shaw's:

... So I go up, scan my Shaw's card (which say’s I'm Bob Cringely) and scan my item (of course, there's no discount). I put the item in the bag and the machine yells at me to remove the unauthorized item from the bagging area, and then starts blinking a red light to call over a store employee.

You know, I'm tired of this crap. Seriously tired. EVERY time I go there this fucking happens. Well, maybe not every time, but it happens often enough to be a serious irritant. I'm using the goddamned machine in order to save myself time and now you're asking me to wait for a goddamned employee to make his way over to me to punch in a code to tell the machine that I'm not fucking stealing. Of course if I were stealing I would never have bothered with the whole bagging process, but never mind logic. ...