[esun]

I remember clearly the day when I decided the work of pushing my items through the shitty self-checkout scanner (the clerk's scanner is way better) and bagging my own stuff was a waste of time vs saying four or five pre-rehearsed words and letting the nice clerk do it for me.

"Hello!" <clerk something something pleasant> "It's nice outside"

Now I understand the clerk would also rather just jam my shit through the scanner and point at the payment total and grunt.

I think of it as the chatter when two modems connect. Some noise and then a little signal then we are done.