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 ...
Nope. My parents were dysfunctional - one didn’t drive and the other didn’t let me touch anything around his car. Didn’t have any older friends to show me, either.
I, however, having more than two neurons to rub together, read something called the “instructions” printed on a sticker displayed on the pump. I had also previously reviewed something called a “manual” found in the vehicle’s glove box. Was cheerfully pumping gas in about two minutes.
Dunno, when I visited NYC in the late 80s, early 90s, that was pretty much the actual view of Jersey from the various skyscrapers I found myself in. He had a point. :P
I agree - and you can make sure that your order went in correctly. The kiosks are for people who don’t have the app or for some reason can’t use it.
And for those whinging about how they should get a discount for using the app or kiosk - well, many restaurants run special deals (the free stuff you mentioned) or even outright discounts if you order using the app. Jack In The Box is offering me 15% off my order for using the app right now, for example.
“A computer cannot chit chat or smile.”
Says the guy currently using his computer to chit chat with other people.
Also? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FaceTime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyfaJR7BilQ
You can indeed use your computer to speak to another and get a smile.
If you want human interaction, you can use your computer. Please do not hold up the line at the store to get your weekly human interaction - it’s rude and disrespectful to the people behind you in line whose time you are wasting.
Isn't that the truth? It's rare that I go through a self-checkout line and something doesn't get fouled up requiring a person to come over and help. UPC codes missing; UPC code brings up wrong product; Sale prices not coming up; accidentally enter something twice and have to take one off; package has multiple UPC codes on it and you can't figure out which one to read.
Home Depot and Walmart both do a good job of having a person there to help fix things, but that person is often fixing somebody else's problems and I have to wait. Home Depot has almost no lines with a real cashier so they are forcing you to self-checkout. At least Walmart still has lots of cashiers, but for how much longer?
Amazon is experimenting with stores where you just put your products in the bag and walk out the door. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Hate to tell you, but I do remember this “service era” you are waxing rhapsodic about. Unfortunately, my experience with it was that it was filled with incompetent boobs that would screw up everything and even cause damage. I can screw things up on my stuff for myself without paying for the privilege, thank you very much.
You used your brains! Good for you!
I guess living here in NJ I am just plain lucky to be able to sit back — in all kinds of weather— and just let someone else do it for me. And — I do tip.
We have had self-checkout in Seattle for at least 10 years.
One person handles 8 registers easily at my Safeway store.
At my QFC store, they have one person on 13 registers - with a second helper sometimes at peak hours.
It all depends on the customers. If they know how operate the equipment and use a card, it works flawlessly.
If the customers are staring at the screen for 15 seconds between swipes and paying with cash, then it really is absurd.
*** “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” ***
Mine too! I don’t like most people and I have feeling I would like you less than most.
I don’t slow any line with small talk
The last time I took my old classic to a full service station, the attendant caused over $1500 worth of damage because he ripped the license plate off the trunklid (ripping the sheetmetal in the process) when he couldn’t find the fuel fillers on the flanks of the car and he didn’t bother asking me where it was. Then I had to spend several months time recovering it, eventually having to resort to suing the station and attendant to get repaid.
This is pretty characteristic of the full-serve stations I’ve experienced over the last 35 years. I can destroy my own hardware on my own without having to pay someone else for the privilege, thank you very much.
Yes! A lot of cheap banks set up a low-price hardware spec for their ATMs years ago and only grudgingly update it when they are forced to - by parts going out of production, etc. It is not uncommon for a brand new ATM to be powered by a crap old Celeron.
The cheaper banks also usually spec minimum RAM and a slow cheap hard drive. The bank I use is a large regional (as opposed to national) bank, and they actually paid for i5/SSD ATMs recently. They’re as responsive as one could wish.
That's bad news, lol.
RFID May soon eliminate the need for checkers and any customer participation in the payment process.
Ha! Back in the days of 10 key manual checking my checker GF would give me real good deals. Extra good deals, lol.
I can’t help but think of Clark Griswold and the Wagon Queen Family Truckster at the gas station.
One of my classics is beyond stupid proof. A 65 Willys jeep. The tank is under the seat. Except for now, I had to remove the current one. Typical leak from rust. I hope to order a new one next week. Off to powdercoating on arrival.
Bump
In that case, they’d just pour gas all over the floor.
A popular pastime among attendants at some of the last full serve gas stations in Los Angeles was to strategically overflow the fuel all over the tank of your motorcycle. Fun.
That was no fun!! What is your old classic? You had better stay out of NJ!!
“Before Your Breakfast
This Morning”,,,
.
I’ll use that at work
Tomorrow,
Thanks.
My old jeep is all metal where there is any.
I was not aware of a war on self-checkout. Perhaps in liberal cities? Not here in Peoria.
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Nor in Pekin either.
“Where do those people go when checkouts and such are fully automated?”
They can be employed to dig canals with spoons./s/
Seriously, the author’s comparing excavator to shovels and self check outs to a cashier operator is a poor example.
The excavator is a powerful machine that can with precision carve away tons of dirt in an hour. It’s benefit has more to do with saving time to get the job done faster than it does in saving money.
I personally own a backhoe and can dig a 22 foot deep ditch in about 20 minutes for a cost of about $3.00. I could do the same with a hand shovel and take a few days to do it for free.
The self checkout is just a money saver. It has nothing to do with creating a better product.
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