Where have all the cashiers gone?

I just made a trip to the Home Depot. First, before entering the store, I was my normal otherwise happy self, well my normal grumpy self, as my wife likes to call it. Not too grumpy, just the normal day to day annoyances thus far. Let me tell you what, ever since Home Depot got those newfangled self checkout thingamajigs, it's damn near impossible to use a real person. Most of the time the only human running a register is the lady trying to manage those 4 machines which inevitably have a problem. Beep please place item in the bagging area, damnit! I did place the item in the bag. Beep please place item in the bagging area..take it out, put it back in the bag, Beep unexpected item in the bagging area...the lady gets the machine to acknowledge that yes the item was placed in the bag and no there wasn't anything else in the bag. That machine was starting get pushy with old Grumpy I tell you what. Next up, Beep please place item in the bagging area! Goldarnit! It's a shovel, how am I supposed to put this item in the bagging area??!!!??!?! It doesn't quite fit in the unusually-sized item area. Now the lady is busy cajoling another one of the registers-run-amok into realizing that the customers are doing what they're supposed to be doing. Now, I'm no Luddite, but they shouldn't be using these things to put people out of work, just make them an option for someone who's just buying a few items, to speed up the whole system. I for one have made every effort to use a human when I can. A polite smile from a cashier does a lot more to warm old Grumpy's heart than that infernal machine yelling at me Beep please place item in the bagging area!!