It’s not hard for me to argue that our technology has run away with itself, which is completely our fault. I have been warning of the scourge of social media for years, there are debates about exactly where AI might take us (as if anyone can really predict) and I complain all the time when there is a simple break down of some machine or modern service, how the common man/woman/enter-pronoun of your choice can’t deal with life or business when suddenly needing to use their brain (your Wave’s App suddenly doesn’t respond, ‘What will you do, what will you do?!’)
So, when I read this week that a Walmart in South Philly is switching back to cashier-led checkouts, I was heartened. The store’s spokesperson said the decision was made by reviewing feedback from both customers and workers, local shopping patterns and what the store’s local community was asking for.
The store has not removed every machine, a small number of self-checkout lanes will remain for Spark drivers (these are independent drivers delivering orders for the store), but the article I read claims this marks a major shift in retailer thinking. I have no idea if that is the case, but from what I have as much read over the years about retailer growing theft concern over the self-check out lanes and personally being ever more frustrated by the overflow lines snaking from the self-checkout corral as much as the fact that my local stores (Stop in Shop and Home Depot in Allwood, Clifton, NJ specifically) providing less and less human-cashier lanes (what I call the ‘regular check-out lanes’), I see the above as a victory.
Look, I get it. Retailers want to decrease their employee staff to lighten their payroll load. And in providing customers with what is seen as a more expeditious shopping experience, customers do not come to notice, or care about the smaller population of actual human employees in the store. And, being the dumb, little naked apes we are, most folks will take convenience over quality and human interaction (and human interaction is something we dumb little naked apes seem to want less of anyway), even superior goods and services.
I don’t damn anyone who uses the self-checkout lanes (although I can count on one hand the times I have…yes, I am just more evolved than you). But what I do bristle against is what I always damn runaway technology for; the further demonization of our culture, the sudden Future Shock everyone falls into when a machine suddenly doesn’t work and how there are less and less options for doing things another way when we think only the one and newer way has to be the best way.
Or how about what has now become so frequent an occurrence I have actually taken to going into my local Chase branch to deposit my check with a clerk, so as to make sure the amount on the check reflects the amount of my deposit. The bank’s very own ATM machine outside has shorted me twice on check amounts, which requires me having to call the bank (yes, I tried going in the second time this screw-up happened, but the clerk told me the ATM division is different than the brick-and-mortar bank…an argument for another time surely) to get them to recognize the amount I deposited was different than they indicate, which on one occasion, it took a month to correct!
Really, don’t get me started.
Goodbye self-check out if that’s where you are headed, I won’t miss them at all.
