Are you sick of self serve check out being crammed down your throat?

Drove to my local grocery for my weekly shopping trip last night 1 hour before closing time. No brand new carts though. Hardly anyone there, giving me time to check best before dates on almost all my items, even the packaged and frozen ones. Yeah, I'm a bit anal on that. Bought the freshest green pepper I could find from the back of the rack, not a wrinkly one from the front. Added a couple good fresh yellow onions after ensuring no rotten ones were waiting to fool me.

A nice, friendly young lady was waiting at the checkout counter to scan and bag my items, plus ensure I'd be back next week. Then I drove home.

Today I'll drive to the gas station to fill my SUV, use pay at the pump, and drive away. Won't be tempted into impulse junk food purchases by going inside.

This thread presents an interesting dichotomy.

 

Really , if it was to happen Id run it myself after I retire from doing what I've been doing for over 20 years. Would be a fun change of pace. Could that special delivery be coming my way?

 

Share if you're a lamb.

 

As someone attempted to clarify earlier, the thread is about being forced to use a self checkout in a retail, brick and motar setting.

Some have tried to bridge the conversation over to self serve gas stations. Even there, I still have the option of going in and waiting for all the Joe blows to get the right cigarette or the right lotto ticket while I just want to pay for fuel. It's supposed to be a convenience store, and going in the store is not convenient as far as I am concerned.

PAY at the pump is a beautiful thing! I am not being corralled into anything on most days. Its always just one item no matter how many gallons!

 

I gotta say - I love self-service / self-checkout whenever possible.
1) I don't go away feeling like I've dealt with an idiot
2) If I can do the job myself then I probably do it better
3) If a machine can do a job instead of a person, then let the machine do that work which frees up a human for "real" work (I could use a new back deck, and no machine can build that...)
4) By using self-service, I am lowering costs of the retailer. This means some combination of lower prices for me or higher profits for the business owner, and I'm fine with both.
5) Usually the computer I engage with for self-service is faster and more efficient and accurate than a human.

Do I like being FORCED to? Not if I need a human involved in my transaction. And that will always inevitably happen to some extent or another. I do get sick of a website saying "call 1-800-### for more information" then when I call I get the "see our website for more information". That makes my hair stand on end.

-Bob

 

All of Bob's statements are true, but there is one major problem; The checkers that lose their jobs are not going to find employment as underwater welders. The money that might be saved is likely going to find it's way into unemployment benefits.

 

Or, in the case of teenagers working for some pocket money, we’ll all spend that ‘saved’ money on policing, pretrial diversion, insurance premiums and other costs of kids with idle time and no money.
Patrick

(My issue with a $15/hr minumum wage is the fact that my son (and his friends) all want to work when they’re legally able but none are worth $15/hr. They are worth hiring, training and growing; which won’t happen at $15.).

 

The reality of the situation right now, is employers simply cannot find enough bodies to fill entry level positions. The labor shortage is a huge deal, affecting every industry.
Anyone that wants a job, can get one, or two.. right now..

While I agree that all automation does cost human jobs to some extent, right now, that point is moot..

This is nothing new.. been to you local blacksmith shop lately?

Believe it or not, you have... it's called a hardware store/home center now, and nearly every product in that store, once made by human hands, is now a product of automated manufacturing.

JW

 

Of course not. But someone who doesn't work at a supermarket checkout might get a job at a pizza shop instead. Then the pizza shop guy might apply at a food distribution warehouse. And up and up the chain goes until the underwater welder gets a job.

Additionally, as fewer entry-level jobs become available, people tend to try to further themselves (either through education or other jobs).

I don't think anyone expects a minimum-wage supermarket clerk to get a job as a welder. But it's the way the whole "food chain" of labor is filled out.

-Bob C.

 

I think I mentioned this.
My local "7 - 11" went from being only open from 4 AM to 11 PM to now 5 AM to 10 PM.
Many talks with the manager and there is only 1 more employee, a young kid out of high school going to collage near by.

 

I've argued with people that minimum wage is a training income. The real minimum wage is $0.00 if you don't have a job. Anyone that thinks working minimum wage for minimum effort is making a living is severely limited in capabilities. At 14 (1976) I was being paid more than minimum wage because I went to work at 2AM flipping donuts because grown adults wouldn't do it.

I also argue that social security is supplemental and should never be considered the primary source of retirement. Anyone that didn't plan for more than SS planned very poorly. I don't intend to draw SS until I'm 70 if I can help it and only then because it doesn't earn me any more.

 

Every time I go to stores like wallmutt I get more enraged! I really don't think they deserve my hard earned income! When I managed a store if there were three customers waiting you opened another register! Period no excuses, exception! What we have now is not customer service! It is a piss poor examples!