Stephen McGinty: They also serve who stand and wait

When my local branch of Morrisons introduced the self check out, they did so in a rather sneaky manner. As a customer, one (are you permitted to use "one" outside of Waitrose?) is usually greeted by at least two to three of the ten tills in full operation, allowing one (yes, you are) to make that crucial calculation between old biddy with the half empty trolley but the dexterity of a badly oiled suit of armour and the limber family with the heaving trolley, as to which qu

After you have made your choice, and spent approximately five minutes, according to the most recent research, regretting it and covetously eyeing up the other one which is now shuttling trolleys through like luges at the Winter Olympics, a member of the human race asks you if you would like a hand packing and, unless you are a complete cretin, or said old biddy, you say: "No thank you" and fumble with the unopenable plastic bags or your own coarse-grain shopping satchel.

Now, on this particular morning, there was no such choice, just one till open with an ever-growing queue. There was, however, a member of staff ushering customers towards the new self-service check out. Did I wish to try it? No, I replied, rather than serve myself while you watch, I preferred the old system in which she served me and I watched, could she oblige? She smiled, but sadly no. Her new role was that of oversee-er, we, the customers, were the new staff now. On that morning I pondered when we, the customers, would soon be required to stack the shelves, round up the trolleys or even Tarmac the car park, all for a few more loyalty points and a greater claim to self-sufficiency. Would our own employers accept, as a legitimate excuse, the fact that we have innocently popped in for a pint of milk on the way to work only to find ourselves dragooned into an eight-hour shift loading pallets of Robert Wiseman's finest? So my first response to shopping's Brave New World was to ponder the words of Bartleby the Schrivener: "I would prefer not." I was stubborn, over-the-top, conservative, I had contempt prior to investigation, as it is known. However, today I'm not so much trapped in a love/hate relationship as a sadomasochistic one with she who must be obeyed. Forget HAL, each of our supermarket chains are being taken over by HER.