Showerthought: My local coffee shop's self-serve kiosk barked at me for taking too long

I was at Brew & Grind in downtown Seattle last Tuesday morning, half asleep, trying to build my usual oat milk latte on their big touchscreen. The line behind me was maybe four people deep, no big deal. But this kiosk has this timer that pops up after 30 seconds and a voice that says "please make your selection quickly" in this overly cheerful tone. I swear I felt my face go red, and I just jabbed at the screen to finish. Later I thought, who decided a machine gets to rush me like that? It's not like a human barista would ever talk to a customer that way. So now I go out of my way to order from the actual person behind the counter, even if it takes a minute longer. Has anyone else had a system or robot straight up scold you for no good reason?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewkim1mo ago

Man that is so annoying, I totally feel your pain! There's a self-checkout at my grocery store that literally yells "unexpected item in bagging area" if I even breathe near the scale. I purposely stand there and take my sweet time now just to spite the thing.

king.derek1mo ago

Just mash the skip button or cancel out of the timer before it starts. Those things are programmed with that nag feature by default and nobody at the shop bothers to turn it off. I had the same problem at a kiosk in Portland and learned you can tap the corner of the screen twice and it resets the countdown. Might work on yours too if you test it out. Machine can't rush you if you know the workaround.