I know this is a radical idea but I believe that if we can, via technological and logistical improvements, eliminate the need for people to sit (or dog forbid stand, like in the US) at a till for 8 hours per day doing the menial task of ringing up items, then we should do that. Even if it comes at the cost of people sometimes having to wait a couple of minutes in line.
Agreed about the standing for a while shift, that was likely one of the most grueling jobs, but making me do the job with zero benefits was not the correct solution. I do like the idea of grocery pickup, (delivery for those that can’t get to the store) that was a good improvement. My only gripe there is getting the worst produce available everytime. Making pickup viable only to prepackaged goods.
I’m also a social individual and have grown many friendships with cashiers through the years. Some greeting me by name as i enter a shop. Thats a level of welcoming that no technology will ever achieve. If a robot greeted me by name as i walked in a store it would be extremely creepy and off-putting. I’d likely avoid that place at all cost.
The benefit is that you are no longer paying for someone else to do something you can do yourself without costing any time (because you’d just have to wait for them to do it). Would you like to go back to having everything behind the counter so that the shopkeeper would relieve you of the task of getting things off the shelves?
I would not because I like to be able to browse all the available options and read the labels. I’m also fussy about my produce selection. I’ll only use grocery delivery for produce as a last resort , like if I’m stuck at home sick.
Self checkout doesn’t eliminate that need though. It just pushes the labor onto the consumer. The job still needs doing. Now you are just the one doing it, for free.
For a given number of cashiers on staff, having at least some self-checkouts makes everything move faster. If a self checkout takes twice as long while you’re actually at it but a single cashier can run six of them, that’s still three times as many customers handled by that cashier. Those numbers are made up, of course, but the point is that unless you’re hiring so many cashiers that there are never any queues, it’s not necessarily slower to have self-checkouts, it just shifts time from waiting in the queue to scanning items
Having worked as a supermarket cashier prior to self checkouts becoming a thing and in the early days of them getting established - early enough that some people genuinely demanded to see my manager because they wanted to be paid the 20 pence that they would have earned working as a cashier for the duration that it took them to scan their things - my experience is that they were staffing that low anyway. There were just longer queues.
I know this is a radical idea but I believe that if we can, via technological and logistical improvements, eliminate the need for people to sit (or dog forbid stand, like in the US) at a till for 8 hours per day doing the menial task of ringing up items, then we should do that. Even if it comes at the cost of people sometimes having to wait a couple of minutes in line.
Agreed about the standing for a while shift, that was likely one of the most grueling jobs, but making me do the job with zero benefits was not the correct solution. I do like the idea of grocery pickup, (delivery for those that can’t get to the store) that was a good improvement. My only gripe there is getting the worst produce available everytime. Making pickup viable only to prepackaged goods. I’m also a social individual and have grown many friendships with cashiers through the years. Some greeting me by name as i enter a shop. Thats a level of welcoming that no technology will ever achieve. If a robot greeted me by name as i walked in a store it would be extremely creepy and off-putting. I’d likely avoid that place at all cost.
The benefit is that you are no longer paying for someone else to do something you can do yourself without costing any time (because you’d just have to wait for them to do it). Would you like to go back to having everything behind the counter so that the shopkeeper would relieve you of the task of getting things off the shelves?
Yes. Yes i would. Thats my preferred shopping experience. Personal and social.
🤢
Better go to a fancy boutique then
I would not because I like to be able to browse all the available options and read the labels. I’m also fussy about my produce selection. I’ll only use grocery delivery for produce as a last resort , like if I’m stuck at home sick.
Oh, I’m still paying for it. Paying much more than I used to, actually.
Just now I have to pay for it and do it myself.
Self checkout doesn’t eliminate that need though. It just pushes the labor onto the consumer. The job still needs doing. Now you are just the one doing it, for free.
Hence the employee discount
BOOO!
Your idea is basically “make customers wait, not employees”
It’s not an actual improvement until they can eliminate human labor. Until then it’s just pushing work unto customers.
For a given number of cashiers on staff, having at least some self-checkouts makes everything move faster. If a self checkout takes twice as long while you’re actually at it but a single cashier can run six of them, that’s still three times as many customers handled by that cashier. Those numbers are made up, of course, but the point is that unless you’re hiring so many cashiers that there are never any queues, it’s not necessarily slower to have self-checkouts, it just shifts time from waiting in the queue to scanning items
In practice, stores just use it as an excuse to understaff.
That leads to some fraction of customers defending the corner cutting because it’s faster than the understaffing it caused.
Having worked as a supermarket cashier prior to self checkouts becoming a thing and in the early days of them getting established - early enough that some people genuinely demanded to see my manager because they wanted to be paid the 20 pence that they would have earned working as a cashier for the duration that it took them to scan their things - my experience is that they were staffing that low anyway. There were just longer queues.
People still need to earn money, though. You advocate for all cashiers to lose their job.
(I have been a cashier in an electronics store and loved the task, minus the customer relations.)
No, what I advocate for is a society where no one has to do labour. Very different.