I thought this was self checkout...

why - I WANT them to help me if I need it!

hate those things.

and another middle aged man, as he scanned his tomatoes, the machine barked at him "ASSISTANCE NEEDED"

The man's face drooped and he looked up and threw his hands in the air while exhaling deeply "Ughhhh"

The assistant told him "Scan your tomatoes again sir, the machine never makes mistakes"

I went to a store once, did self checkout, and an employee messed me up by bagging everything for me, so I was in the mindset that I was in a normal lane, but whatever, when I was done, I just strolled the cart a way to the liquor department, and the guy came after me and said "Sir you forgot to pay". That was fucking hilarious.

I used to be a sentry at one in a poor neighborhood.
Store shit just goes flying out of those things. Stores think they save money by paying less cashiers then complain about losses. really dumb. self checkout is just a really bad idea all the way around.