The War on Self-Checkouts Shows the Make-Work Bias Is Alive and Well

The Foundation for Economic Education ^ | February 26, 2020 | David Youngberg

[Elsie]

I picked up a much smaller one at Harbor Freight.

I may get another - one for SAE sizes and the other for the millimeter stuff.

(I like the fact that you can get color coded sockets there!)

[kalee]

There is still one full service station in the town where I live in NC. He mostly caters to the older folks. The men gather there to have a coffee or Coke and gab and the women come in for gas and car check ups. You can trust him to not fix things that don’t need fixing, do a competent job on the work he does, and do it for less than other places.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

That really works?

It works for me.

[Spktyr]

Sadly, he would be an outlier; his competence is an exception to the norm that many experienced with “full service”.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Heh...yeah, those locals. History repeats.

There’s a good exhibit at the Coeur d’Alene Casino about what happened to the first locals. It isn’t pretty.

[webheart]

Personally, I don’t ever use self checkouts. In fact, I will demand a human cashier to open a lane. I don’t like the machine telling me to scan your next item, unknown item in bagging area, scan your next item, insert cash or select payment type. It has no Shut Up I Can Do This Without Verbal Prompting button. As far as waiting in line behind someone writing a check or paying with coins, I am so much better than other people. I have patience, because my day is going to proceed just fine no matter what inconvenience a trivial delay at a checkout causes me. Patience used to be called a virtue, but people don’t have that any more.

[wardaddy]

That made me chuckle out loud

[Pocketdoor]

I use a teenager and a 10 year old. Works great. I’m in CA and it’s against the law. Read the fine print on the pump, you have to be a certain age to pump gas. I can’t remember if it’s 16 or 18. Just more nanny state BS.

[gogeo]

So here’s where I have a problem with the author. Where do those people go when checkouts and such are fully automated?

That's not my problem...or yours.

[Spktyr]

"It has no Shut Up I Can Do This Without Verbal Prompting button."

This is true, there is no button with that label. However, if you had actually LOOKED at the control screen, instead of just huffily dismissing it like most boomer Karens, you might have noticed a rather large VOLUME button. Most self checkouts have them.

Here is a common Kroger self-checkout. What's this in the lower right corner?

Oh look, it's a volume control.

If you press it once, it increases the volume to aid the hard of hearing. It makes it quite loud.

But if you press it again... why, it turns the speaker off!

Imagine that. It has an easily accessible volume control. It's almost like the designers had decided to give the user to operate the machine without the voice prompts, but knowing that many users would be stupid they had left the voice on as default and assumed that users that didn't need the assistance would be smart enough to turn the speaker off through the clearly visible control.

If only overly-chatty human cashiers and little old ladies (of either actual biological gender) telling them rambling stories that make no sense (or worse, extolling the virtues of Beto or Obama) were so easily and quickly silenced. Tell me, do you also run around in your car complaining about the volume of the stereo being too loud? Or having content you don't want to hear?

As for the "patience" thing, I remember when people had something called "consideration for others" and avoided "wasting others' time", thus "respecting other persons". You don't show respect for others and their time, you don't get patience in return. It's one thing if the older person had the checkbook out already and was pre-filling the fields but simply is a slow writer due to age - understandable - but when the older person is so entitled and inconsiderate as to leave their checkbook in their pants or purse and not even try to pull it out until the cashier speaks the total to them? Sorry, no, now they're just disrespecting everyone else in line behind them. If you can't respect others, you don't get the benefit of patience.

I have several friends who are in the 70+ range (sadly missing a few as of last year) and even the ones that refuse to use the self checkout or debit cards from admitted technophobia always have their checkbooks out and the check pre-filled save for the final amount by the time the cashier has finished ringing up the merchandise. One of them is 84. Taking up everyone's time and acting as if you are surprised you have to pay for your goods is not an "old people are slow" thing as I've just mentioned, it's a "stupid inconsiderate entitled jerk who happened to get old and shows no respect for others" thing.

[Exit148]

That’s a lot of driving!!!

[Exit148]

Hey you two! Be nice to each other. You are both FReepers for heaven’s sake!!

[Spktyr]

Albertsons in DFW decided to do that.

Albertsons is no longer in DFW.

[Spktyr]

Yup; I’ve had it a long while. Amusingly, it’s held together a lot better than contemporary American cars owned by friends and family; it’s also held together better than the low mileage Bronco I bought a few years ago that tried to eat me out of house and home. Or the Ford F-350 that predated it. Or the Ford Crown Victoria before that.

I replaced the Bronco with a Toyota 4Runner and problems in that direction have ceased.