No Self-service Without Remuneration
Would someone care to explain when it became my responsibility to cater to myself when I go to a store? I enter an establishment prepared to pay good money for merchandise and find, in an ever-increasing selection of stores, that I have to go through a tortuous ordeal called self-service to pay for my choices.
I suppose it started with gasoline. Our parents used to get full service, check the oil, wash the windows, pump the gas and would you prefer a free set of glasses or a toy gas truck with that sir? All for a reasonable price. Then the stations began to go to self-service, ostensibly to lower the price of gasoline for us. We learned to pump the gas ourselves and watched as some fools continued to pay full price for service while we saved two cents a gallon. Two cents a gallon you idiots! I just saved twenty-six cents filling up my tank! Woo-hoo! This self-service stuff rocks!!
Anyone paid for gas recently? What do we get now? Pump it yourself if the pump is working or come inside and see the attendant if she is awake, check your own oil if you brought a paper towel with you in your car, try to wash your windows with the squeegee sponge that was left from the last time your father got full-service, and press here if you want to pay $6.50 for a car wash that might break off your antenna or dent your roof when the dryer wheel crashes on it. And what low price are we paying for this wonderful privilege? It’s all the way down to about $2.97 a gallon where I live, how about you? Woo-hoo! Thank you self service! I just paid $58.00 to fill up the minivan!!
Okay. Back to my point. Now I go to Target, or Lowe’s, or Home Depot, or Wal Mart, or any one of several grocery stores in my area and they expect me to perform my own checkout service! I DON’T WORK HERE! I’m not paying any less for this deodorant or these oranges, so why do I have to work in your store? I don’t remember filling out a job application! I don’t get health benefits! I don’t recall you asking my opinion! Meanwhile thousands of people are out of work because I am now expected to do their jobs. Please forward my paycheck to my home address, I don’t want the Army to know that I am moonlighting.
Now, I want to go on record as saying I’m not falling for this scam twice. Remember the thing with the gas pumps? Fool me once, shame on you and so forth. I will NOT check myself out.
Here’s the part that really gets me. Have you noticed that they started with one self-checkout? Then, as more than one person in a hundred could actually figure out how to use it (five in a hundred are scamming the store anyway, so get ready for the price hikes), they added more? Now some stores have one checkout aisle with a line to the back of the store and all the rest are self-service. I look over and see some teenager who doesn’t know what stores used to be like, and he’s looking back at me with a get-with-the-times-dude look of smug self-checkout-satisfaction on his face, and I’m thinking, just wait. Soon there will be outdoor, drive-thru, self-checkout mega grocery stores with one attendant in a locked booth is the middle of a parking lot. Is that what you want? And pull up your pants for goodness sake.
The Ikea in my area has gone all the way self-serve. There are NO humans left at the checkout lane except the one that stands between four registers helping the computer illiterate. When I get to the register I call her over. “Please check out my things,” I say. “You have to check yourself out sir.” “You didn’t lower my prices,” I say. “I don’t work for you,” I say. She stares at me. “Please call your manager,” I say. She stares harder. “Now,” I say firmly. Other people in line back away from me. They see that I have a new frying pan in my cart and fear that I may use it.
I move out of the way to allow the Lemming family to check themselves out as I wait for the manager to appear. “May I help you sir?” he asks in a friendly manner. “Yes you may,” I answer, “I want a human being to run my cash register. I don’t want to do myself in your store.” I wait. He looks to see if I am serious. “Certainly sir,” he says with a smile. “We want you to be happy.” “If you want me to be happy,” I say, “put at least one register back with a cashier.” Other people in line nod their heads in agreement, but don’t say anything. I pay for my things and rush to exit the store, angered that I have to deal with this on an increasingly more frequent basis. Before I can exit I am stopped by two other people. “I like what you did back there. I’m sick of these self-service things.” I nod thanks and smile. “Fight back,” I say. “Don’t be a lemming.” They laugh and walk away.
What if we started a movement? The “I’m mad and I’m not going to use self-service aisles without remuneration movement!” You want us to check ourselves out? Pay us! Reduce your prices! Give us the profits you got by firing all your cashiers! Maybe we could pick one day out of a month and refuse to use ANY self-service aisles. Maybe one day a year we could all stop going to stores that have no human cashiers!! Maybe we could actually get some human beings back on the telephone when we call the bank!! (Okay, that’s an impossible fantasy that I just threw in there for effect). Seriously though, how long are we going to allow ourselves to be dragged along to the self-service slaughterhouse without even putting up a fight? Are you with me?!!
January 16th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Hmmm.
I go through self check out lines by choice.
Why? One less human I have to deal with.
Over the last few years I’ve started having issues with personal relationships.
And, yes, I know what your thinking. I MUCH worse now.
Getting professional help for this is something I’m doing.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Sometimes we go through the self-checkout by choice. Fewer mistakes that way, and Jeff packs our bags better with less egg breakage. Besides, there are certain cashiers at the grocery store whose lines I refuse to go through because they annoy the hell out of me. Like the woman who will invariably lecture us about how we should use more coupons—I go to the grocery store for groceries, not an early-morning lecture. Mostly we use human checkout when we have lightweight produce that the self-checkouts don’t handle well, or some of the decent and nice cashiers are around.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Oh, pssst…. swap that ‘n’ and ‘m’.
(Remuneration.) Sorry; can’t help myself…
January 17th, 2008 at 2:38 am
ROTFL … you are complaining about gas prices. When was the last time you had to by gas in Germany. We currently pay 7.49 US $ a gallon. And thank god those self-service lines haven’t made an appearance (yet) in our area.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I also resent the trend toward me doing more work to save someone else money. You can see it in stores with self-service checkouts. You can see it at work with self-booked travel. The policies are still there, and we have a defined web site that restricts our choices, but there isn’t a person to call and tell “set it up”. Of course, now I get to charge them overtime for that foolishness. How about paying more for things that make it easier for them? “Electronic transfer convenience fee.” “Instantaneous transactions take 3-5 business days to post.” How long is a business day to a computer?
Oriane:
The difference being that the prices were at about that level when we were in Germany 13 years ago (where does the time go?). The prices here have gone up in the neighborhood of 100% in the last 18 months. What kills me is that prices can go up in hours for current events, but the oil they are pumping out of hte ground now will be months before it gets to the pumps.
BTW: Hi! Good to see you. We have the MacQuaid organization now, and you can reach me there as Cian.
So how do you create machine obfuscated but human readable addresses?
January 17th, 2008 at 10:44 am
LOL. Heather, I didn’t even see the transposition until you mentioned it. Too much reading of other people’s writing, and not enough time proofing any more.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
So how do you create machine obfuscated but human readable addresses?
j dot michael dot looney at gmail dot com will work, for example.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Lord Michael reads for content.
Wait. Your going to an Ikea? What happened to make are your furniture from raw lumber, ideally from tree’s you cut your self?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
What transposition? I don’t know what you are talking about…
January 17th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Michael,
If it makes you happy, I did build three portable beds this year, several utility boxes, and am working with Olaus on plans for a portable Tudor mansion. I haven’t gotten around to making my own frying pans yet…
January 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
And you might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the URL naming scheme.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
CTE reads for obfuscation. The challenge with that address is it has a straight, and therefore recognizable and reversible, replacement scheme. I am trying to figure out a way to beat the address scrapers, yet be successful in communicating with humans. As if communicating with humans didn’t bring its own set of challenges.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
J Punkt Michael point looney a gmail punt com
Please use german french italian and dutch for every other word.
Odds are a human, at least one of us, could figure that out. Odds are against a computer scraper finding it.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I agree– I’m also not a fan of self-service in the way it’s commonly implemented. I don’t mind it as much at, say, Foodmax, where you’re checked out but bag your own groceries. I typically do see a better price on items, though I do have to assuage some guilt for eliminating another person’s job.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Scott,
Don’t feel guilty….just refuse to be used.
Oh certainly Mr. Store manager sir, as soon as I’m done checking myself out, bringing my own bag, bagging my own groceries, and carrying them to the car (since you’ve begun to downsize shopping carts), I’d be happy to mop up the spill on aisle seven…as soon as I go home and get my own mop. Resist!!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Like I said, I use self serve a lot. Mainly if I have less than 5 items OR my agoraphobia is kicking in hard. In my case the literal meaning of “a fear of the marketplace” is the correct effect. I have no fear of say, going out to a movie or concert. Sending me to WalMart on a bad day is asking for a meltdown and a freak out.
I think I’ll post a reply to this explaining why I use them on my blog.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
[...] In this post, “jervis” makes a strong argument, a very good argument against self check out in stores. [...]
January 18th, 2008 at 2:44 am
So far, the only place here in Seattle with self serve check out are Fred Meyer (a grocery & department store combined) and the home stores (Home Depot, Lowes). They don’t work if you have a large order as everything has to fit on the scale at once. So far, there is still plenty of human operated check stands. I’ve used the self serve a few times and at least 50% of the time they (NOT ME) screw up and a human has to intervene.
My theory on the reason….cost cutting due to competition from the evil empire (Wal-Mart).
January 18th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I also agreee ,whenever possible i will chose a person over the self serve check outs. This supports Jobs for people and also lets the stores knows what your prefrence is. Thank Goodness we can choose to help out other people.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
More reasons to choose a human cashier over self serve check-outs.
- You can’t flirt with a computer. (well, you might Michael, but…if you do, people will look at you funny)
- The computer won’t offer up store coupons you might not have known about, friendly cashiers do.
- You can’t ask the computer for a military discount (you could I suppose, but see bullet one above).
- The computer won’t be interested in seeing pictures of your ____________ (fill in the blank appropriately here: children, grandchildren, cats, boat, new car, new helm, new computer…etc.)
January 21st, 2008 at 11:56 am
You can’t flirt with a computer. (well, you might Michael, but…if you do, people will look at you funny)
I’ve got issues, but I’m not that off the deep end. Yet.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Okay so I got into this rant a bit late but hey man, there are days when you really want that self-service check out. Like when you’re checking out at the Trader Joe’s with literally just one box of tampons, and every single cashier is a young decent looking guy who looks alert enough to chit chat with his customers. Yeah, that makes me feel comfortable. Oh well, I found out a lot of my staples are cheaper there while circling the store and eyeballing the registers, hoping that some chick would relieve her coworker at a register…
That being said, Safeway. I don’t know what their training program involves (probably starts off one hot summer day where someone says they’re showing a free movie, you go in for the AC and come out a scientologist or something) but I’ve never seen such friendly cashiers in a supermarket - they even check your receipts as you go and will tell you “Have a great day Ms. Sugermeyer”.
Oh and we at Pier 1 (Springfield) are pretty rockin when it comes to customer service if I do say so myself… We’ll help you carry your stuff out to the car, hell I’ve even picked 2 dozen trays out of a five foot stack making sure they were all nice and free of splinters and such while a customer wandered around for other things. Gotta give the little shout out, can’t help it!
January 29th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
This is where we differ. I’d rather go through the checkout and have the young decent looking girl at the register say, “Uhm…why are you buying those tampons?” So I can say something like, “Oh my God! These are tampons? Gee, don’t you hate it when you come into the store for one thing and end up picking up things you don’t really need?” I mean, unless I was picking them up for a friend who was afraid to go through the register line…I wouldn’t need them. In any case, I stand by my original post, I prefer humans. Of course, to each his own.