The School of Self-Service Voiceovers

It never has any idea what you've really bought, how it's pronounced, and whether it's even in a 50-foot radius of the bag... 

Such is the Wide and Wondrous World of Self-Service Grocery Checkout.

But you don't think those are just simple mistakes, do you? Oh, no. Voiceover folks are trained for that sort of thing.

This is how it goes:

The instructor stands at the front of a packed room of aspiring self-service voiceover talent. A sample register is set up beside him, and a young woman is poised before it with a basket of groceries...


INSTRUCTOR: "Okay, class. Welcome to the School of Self-Service Voiceovers. I'm Mr. Stuffinsak. 

"Experts have realized self-service registers break the moment a customer looks at them cross-eyed. Meaning, it's actually more cost-effective to return to an earlier service model...

"The one where we hire cashiers to talk around the customers,  relaying tales of bad dates and drunken evenings out, who's on break now, who's going on break, and when their next break might be."

"So: with this new shift in goals, your job as voiceover for the self-service system is more important than ever. You need to make customers desperately want to go back to being completely ignored by real live human beings.

"Since today's our first session, we're going to start with the main principles of self-service voiceover. And to make it easy, you can remember them by the word: ' BUNGLE.' That's...

"Be Courteous
"Unsettle
"Nag
"Grab
"Light Flash
"and Expedite

"Be Courteous, greet them warmly. It's important to really set the customer up for the ultimate disappointment, make them feel at home... Ursula, can you read from that script there to show the class?"

(The Instructor indicates a stapled set of papers in the hand of an assisting student.)

URSULA: "Welcome to GroceryGuru Self-Checkout! Please scan your first item... now."

INSTRUCTOR: "Excellent! Very warm, very friendly! So now that they feel like a part of the GroceryGuru family, you hit 'em with 'U'-- Unsettle 'em. Ursula?

URSULA (reading): "Weigh your... vidaria onions."

INSTRUCTOR: (chuckling) "Now I bet you've noticed, what our grocery store shopper there has is not onions. It's a 20-pound bag of charcoal. But it's going to scan up as onions. That's very important. See, now the shopper isn't sure whether she's getting the right price on the charcoal...

"She's also confused because she knows it's actually VIDALIA onions instead of vidaria. And we like to have those little mispronunciations on all our commonly-purchased items. They'll never get it out of their heads once they hear it five, ten times...

"It's just that extra little push to get 'em back to the regular checkouts...

"Ursula, go on with the next graph of the script, please?"

URSULA: "Please put your... vidaria onions... in the bag."

INSTRUCTOR: "Okay, now here's where we hit N. That's for Nag.

"See, there is just no way that big bag of charcoal is going to fit in that little thin recyclable grocery store bag.... So, with these systems, we like to wait... oh... (looks at his watch)... five, six seconds or so... just to have 'em looking around wondering what to do... before we queue up the voice over again. Ursula?"

URSULA: "Please put your... vidaria onions... in the bag... now."

INSTRUCTOR: "Ah, see now, how our shopper has gotten frustrated and put the charcoal bag just randomly in the bagging area? Now we can move on to G. That's for Grab.... Go ahead, Ursula."

URSULA: "I'm sorry. There is an unidentified item in the bagging area.... There is an unidentified item in the bagging area.... Please remove all unscanned items from the bagging area, and bag your scanned item... now."

INSTRUCTOR: "Notice how confused our poor customer is? She knows she's scanned the item and it doesn't fit in plastic bag. So what we do is let the customer stew a minute, and then we start with the flashing lights.... Ursula?"

URSULA: "Service needed in the check out area. Service needed in the check out area."

INSTRUCTOR: "Ursula will repeat that... oh... 60 or 70 times before someone comes to help. And notice how that light will keep flashing. Studies show it embarrasses about 82 percent of users and the other 18 are already on the floor from epileptic convulsions, so all our bases are covered...

"Okay, lastly, we have Expedite. Once you've got your customer blushing and confused-- or, you know, medics are trying to keep them from swallowing their tongues-- then you try to shove 'em out of the store. Let's give 'em Expedite, Ursula."

URSULA: "Thank you! Please remove all bags from the bagging area, and don't forget to take your receipt. Remove all bags now. This will help us keep the line moving, and provide the quality service you trust to all of our customers...

"Now. Quicker. Now. Faster. We don't have all day.... Move, move, move, Maggots! And thank you for shopping at GroceryGuru."

INSTRUCTOR: "Very good Ursula. That will be all for today. Next week, we'll learn how to do fake British accents to be used in US grocery stores, and we will practice sounding like unfeeling robots."

--------------------------------------
Humorbloggers
Humor-blogs