Self Checkout

Yesterday I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things I needed for dinner. I was kind of in a hurry, so I ran in, got what I needed and hurried to the front of the store to purchase my items. To my dismay, there was not a single cashier working and the only lines that were open were the self checkout lines. Not like it's that big of a deal, but the people in front of me were doing their monthly grocery shopping and had about a million things in their carts. Now, we common folk haven't received the intense training that a grocery store cashier has gone through and thus it takes us a tad longer to find that tricky little barcode that needs to be swiped to ring up the bill. Needless to say, it took pretty close to forever for the people in front of me to finish ringing up their groceries and nearly 20 minutes later (not even exaggerating) I finally left the store. I know we're in an economic crisis and all, but aren't there supposed to be people working in a grocery store, ringing up our items, so that we don't have to...so it will go quicker?? Just wondering.