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.
Faster, because real cashiers have strategies like item x 6, and the authority/passcode to use them. And because they do it all day they have muscle memory working for them. We look at a head of lettuce and my brain says “romaine” or “frisee” but their brain says"5046" or whatever the right code is. Or rather it tells their fingers to type the code without interrupting the more important things they’re actually thinking.
That’s one way of looking at it, and I respect it, BUT also think that self-checkouts are a way of eliminating jobs: stores just want to have fewer employees and more benefit. I avoid self-checkout not for convenience, but because I don’t want to contribute to the destruction of jobs.
I believe the goal should be to improve these worker’s conditions. Make checkout work as comfortable as possible, promote them taking turns and switching tasks so they don’t have to be doing just checkout for 8 hours.
Instead of removing the job, make it less annoying.
There are generally twice as many self checkouts as there were lines before, and they still have a few regular lanes in place with one or two available for those that want assistance.
Self checkout where I live is far faster than the old way.
Having to scan them at the station, yeah cashiers would probably be faster, but where I live you get the scanning tool as you shop so I just scan and bag it as soon as I’ve taken something off the shelf. All I do at self-checkout is pay what I scanned, grab my already prepared bag and leave. Unless those cashiers are walking with me around the store there’s no chance they’ll be faster than how I go shopping.
Thats something i could get behind. The only place around me that i know of that does anything similar is Sams club and you have to use your own phone to do that.
I remember when you stood in front of the counter and told the cashier what you needed and they had to bring You everything from the shelves one by one. Nothing ever was faster than self checkouts.
I’m pretty damn old but I don’t remember that personally. Just in movies. I do remember the glory days when every single register had a cashier, and a bagger, and that was much faster than self checkout. Especially as it is now, with a bunch of unstaffed registers and a line waiting for the self-service machines.
Most of the stores in my area pulled all but two lanes out to put more self checkout only to also close all but the boxed in sections on either end that were supposed to be 15 or less areas. At this point why don’t they just commit and have a single miserable worker at a single checkout right at the door? At least then they’d be honest about it.
You must not remember the time when enough cashiers actually were on hand. Used to be just as fast when all lanes had a cashier at them.
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.
Faster, because real cashiers have strategies like item x 6, and the authority/passcode to use them. And because they do it all day they have muscle memory working for them. We look at a head of lettuce and my brain says “romaine” or “frisee” but their brain says"5046" or whatever the right code is. Or rather it tells their fingers to type the code without interrupting the more important things they’re actually thinking.
That’s one way of looking at it, and I respect it, BUT also think that self-checkouts are a way of eliminating jobs: stores just want to have fewer employees and more benefit. I avoid self-checkout not for convenience, but because I don’t want to contribute to the destruction of jobs.
You’re absolutely right about that point.
I believe the goal should be to improve these worker’s conditions. Make checkout work as comfortable as possible, promote them taking turns and switching tasks so they don’t have to be doing just checkout for 8 hours.
Instead of removing the job, make it less annoying.
Unless its Walmart, it will have 10 lanes and 3 of them are open. Same with the self checkout.
There was a time they all had cashiers. Not just during busy seasonal rushes either. Sometime in the late nineties this became no longer true.
Not where I live.
There are generally twice as many self checkouts as there were lines before, and they still have a few regular lanes in place with one or two available for those that want assistance.
Self checkout where I live is far faster than the old way.
Having to scan them at the station, yeah cashiers would probably be faster, but where I live you get the scanning tool as you shop so I just scan and bag it as soon as I’ve taken something off the shelf. All I do at self-checkout is pay what I scanned, grab my already prepared bag and leave. Unless those cashiers are walking with me around the store there’s no chance they’ll be faster than how I go shopping.
Thats something i could get behind. The only place around me that i know of that does anything similar is Sams club and you have to use your own phone to do that.
I remember when you stood in front of the counter and told the cashier what you needed and they had to bring You everything from the shelves one by one. Nothing ever was faster than self checkouts.
I’m pretty damn old but I don’t remember that personally. Just in movies. I do remember the glory days when every single register had a cashier, and a bagger, and that was much faster than self checkout. Especially as it is now, with a bunch of unstaffed registers and a line waiting for the self-service machines.
Most of the stores in my area pulled all but two lanes out to put more self checkout only to also close all but the boxed in sections on either end that were supposed to be 15 or less areas. At this point why don’t they just commit and have a single miserable worker at a single checkout right at the door? At least then they’d be honest about it.