Posted on 03/01/2020 12:16:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In the 1960s, Milton Friedman reportedly visited a construction site in a foreign country. To his surprise, the canal builders used no heavy machinery and instead armed thousands of men with shovels. He questioned the bureaucrat about this odd choice and the bureaucrat responded that it was a jobs program. “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal,” Friedman said. “If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
Friedman’s absurd proposal illustrates the absurdity of make-work bias—the belief that conserving labor makes us poorer. Make-work bias was particularly popular during the Industrial Revolution, when legions of new machines upended the old way of doing things. No one was more famously upset than the textile workers of the early 19th century—Luddites—who railed against the automatic loom, the “job-killing” machines of their day.
Modern Day Luddites
We in the Information Age have our own Luddites. Among their ranks are Las Vegas culinary workers trying to hold back AI servers and bartenders and teamsters opposing self-driving vehicles and delivery robots. Luddites and their sympathizers heap a particularly large amount of criticism on self-checkouts, probably because their ubiquity makes them an obvious target.
Their apprehension is understandable. The proliferation of self-checkouts touches our daily lives so completely that it’s hard to imagine cashiers not losing their jobs or suffering smaller paychecks. Self-checkouts threaten cashiers as surely as excavators threatened shovel manufacturers. It is no surprise that protests erupted after a French supermarket used self-checkouts to get around labor laws or that the Oregon AFL-CIO backed a petition which limits the number of self-checkouts to two per store. Every supplier hates competition.
(Excerpt) Read more at fee.org ...
A congresswoman from Chicago has drafted a bill to require gas station attendants. She says it will create jobs. Not sure how marginal gas stations would handle the cost of several new employees.
Synopsis As Introduced
Creates the Gas Station Attendant Act. Provides that no gas may be pumped at a gas station in this State unless it is pumped by a gas station attendant employed at the gas station. Effective January 1, 2021.
-PJ
They attach individual labels with barcodes now to things like apples and onions. It would be a simple matter to add a chip in most cases. And when they cannot do that, they will package the items we used to buy loose.
Thanks
My take on self checkouts is that if I’m going to do the work then give me an extra discount on my shopping. I purposefully go to non-self checkouts due to this. I’m not your free labor - I’m your customer!
When it’s mentioned to me that the self checkouts are open I make it clear that I would use them but only if I get an extra discount.
There’s a store I use, mainly because it’s super convenient, that has acquired a robot that prowls the aisles looking for spills or fallen objects. The damn thing always seems to get in your way, it constantly makes an annoying beeping noise, and stares at you with stupid google eyes.
https://nypost.com/video/is-marty-the-grocery-store-robot-cool-or-creepy/
I must say I really preferred having somebody come out and pump my gas, check my oil and wiper fluid, etc. They were usually friendly and competent, and used to look over your car for things like a parking light that was out, a tire that was low, etc.
I actually like having contact with people, but I guess there’s other folks who don’t. Maybe just go back to having Some islands that are self serve and others that have an attendant. As I recall, you’d paid a couple of pennies more for the attended pumps. In Europe, you give them a small tip (usually a euro), and there actually aren’t a lot of pure self-serve stations.
‘He wondered for the briefest of seconds whether or not New Jersey was actually there or whether the construct merely ended at the river.’
as someone who grew up in in Jersey, I would guess said author is not particularly bright...
I never use self checkout, the bag boy sucks.
There’s a Wal-Mart in Kent or Queen Anne’s County in MD that has self-checkout only.
Theft from items INTENTIONALLY not scanned by the customer is a BIG problem with the scanning machines. I try and deal with a human cashier almost all the time.
You have to ask yourself about the value of your time. The regular check out lines seem to be understaffed with slow moving lines. If you have a smaller order, the self checkout is much faster, at least in my experience.
*** “A lot of people not only don’t want the hassle of self checkout, but they want to interact with the cashier as a way of making them feel human. A computer cannot chit chat or smile” ***
I am changing my Bank (Goodbye Bank of America) because they no longer have a physical presence where I live.
I can still do anything that B of A offered but I also have a place that I can sit down and visit w a real human, get Notary service etc.
For me there is no replacement and “Online” with No Human interaction for me is unacceptable (aka Please Hold for the next Robotic press some number response that they charge a monthly fee for)
Same thing applies at the Grocery store... just don’t have to cancel accounts.
Online orders are great for my wife.
She gets groceries twice a month.
Pull up, they load and off she goes to Aldi to finish.
One of my pet peeves is people using the line in the grocery store or the bank to get their human interaction fix for the week. Drives my crazy when they start their long winded story about what the dog, cat or grandkids did. I want to check out and go.
I want to go to the Wal-Mart where Walter is the Greeter...
“Welcome to Wal-Mart, get your s—t and get out!”
+.
Grocery Baggers, allows stores to hire mild disabled and Downs Syndrome people to have a use full job. I look for the isle Lil Joe is bagging when I grocery shop, I know my purchase will be pack carefully. As a disabled Senior I appreciate full check out. You can’t get a weeks grocery on one of those self check out circles that have no shuut for the groceries. Large items don’t fit, nor can you lift them. I can’t lift the items, and often have to have help from a stocker to load the items in the electric cart. And some one to take it and load it in the trunk. Hubby unloads them and then complains his Osteoarthritis ruined shoulders hurt for hours.
THEY GO ON FULL DSSI. WELFARE, AND NEED EMOTIONAL HELP COPING WITH BEING CONSIDERED USELESS.
We must be about the same age, I remember all that. A couple small items is the most I’d take through self check out.
Being disabled they are not very useful. And the foul up to often takes time to get help.
Re: “I’ll take the self check lane anytime - unless a cashier is cute - increasingly rare.”
Perfectly expressed in one sentence!
My thoughts exactly.
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