Yup. I’ll use an ATM or a self checkout when the company refund me the money they saved by me doing the work myself, instead of just padding the bottom line. Until then, it’s live person for me - even if I have to wait in line a little longer.
You do get a (sort of) discount for using ATMs here- the banks charge an “Assisted Transaction Fee” if you go to a teller (depending on your bank and account type).
Incidentally, banks here post massive profits as well- largely from transaction fees of various kinds, but they still have plenty of tellers on duty because lots of people like to deal with an actual person when doing their everyday banking.
Also there are infinitely more ATMs than there could ever be branches of that bank, so (IMHO) it’s not the same kettle of fish as self-checkout in a supermarket. And ATMs have been around for over 40 years now, so it’s not like they’re this new technology that appeared last year and put all the tellers out of work.
In the U.S. there aren’t typically charges for live teller use. I have heard of accounts where you can only go a few times a month, but as a practical matter, there are so many banks that offer free checking I don’t know why anyone would ever put up with having that kind of account. Like you said, the banks are already ripping us off in every way conceivable; the least I expect is to be able to use a teller when I want to.
No question ATM’s offer other things that make them worthwhile. But if I’m near my local bank and it’s during its operational hours, I’m going inside unless I just need to get quick cash. (It also doesn’t hurt that my local bank has a bunch of hot tellers.)
I would use it if all the other lines are long and there’s nobody in the self-checkout line. Otherwise I don’t like the computer voice yelling at me to do things. And once I forgot to scan my supermarket card at the right time and there was no way to back up and do it.
Locally, the fad is dying. The local small chain store had them for a while and took them out. Now the refurbished WalMart has taken them out. So apparently it’s not a big economic win everywhere.
And most places drastically cut back on cashiers when they put in the self-service ones. So you are forced to use them unless you want a long wait.
The worst example for me recently was a Home Depot where the self-service ones were out of service. And there was one cashier for the whole store. One. That’s not even enough for when they are working given all the piddly stuff they sell that doesn’t work for self-serve.
I think that is an example of poor deployment strategy rather than an indicator of the technology not working as intended. Retailers who don’t know how to deploy the solution aren’t going to be happy with it.
As for Walmart, they might have realized that their shoppers often buy large items or many many items and the “express” checkout isn’t as much of a need in those stores. At local Targets, I don’t see self-service checkouts nor do I see “ten items or less” lanes staffed with people. Probably because there are upwards of two dozen lanes at Target and most of them are staffed anyway, making them all “express” lanes.
Agreed. The current systems are based on a flawed approach:
[ol]
[li]The customer is required to locate and scan a printed UPC[/li][li]The only way to confirm that is via weight[/li][li]The system has no way to verify that every item is scanned[/li][/ol]
As I said, universal RFID tags will eliminate all three of those limitations. You can leave all the products in the cart, you can have them already packed in a bag, you can shove it in your pockets - doesn’t matter, everything will be passively scanned and totaled. The only employees needed will be security guards to keep people from rushing the checkout. And that will be just one guy right at the door.
The fact that they have deployed them prematurely indicates just how much the corporations want this technology and the accompanying reduction in staffing. The Home Depot I shopped at yesterday had one person working a check-out lane, and one person manning a set of 4 self-check-out kiosks, replacing the four people people who would otherwise be required. Even as ill-suited as UPC-based self-check-out is to their business model (huge number of SKUs, wide range of prices and sizes, many unscannable items) they are pushing hard for it.
Currently, Walmart is using RFID tags on the pallet level, and has managed to “reduce it’s out-of-stock situation by 30%”. The current price of the tags prevents them from being used on items that sell for less than $1, but we’re talking about something that is on the same technology track as integrated circuits and is subject to Moore’s Law. Aside from raw materials costs, RFID tags should keep halving in costs every 18 months.
Employees by contrast, are expensive and keep getting more so. They require breaks, they get injured, they make mistakes, they commit crimes. Most corporations that employ people are trying to figure out how to employ fewer people.
Of course, that leads to the problem of the scanner picking up that item in your purse or the shoes you bought last week, etc. that have an RFID tag still on them (they have to be hidden of course, else people will tamper with them …). And not everyone will notice an extra item being rung up, and since they are probably bad at Math, not notice the increase in price. Fun, fun, fun.
RFID tags are a panacea for self-checkout in the same way that listening to ABBA is a panacea for hiccups.
Not the case, since, unlike UPC, every single item for sale will be distinct. The shoes you bought last week have a different ID than the shoes you’re buying today. Even if they’re the same model, color and size and you bought them at the same store. You’re thinking that RFID is as limited as UPC, and is only specific to manufacturer and model. Nope, the scanner won’t ring up anything that wasn’t already in their database as being in stock.
Not all ABBA songs. Only Take A Chance On Me. SOS does no good at all, and Fernando just makes them worse.
Here it thought this was about suicide…
No, I will not use the do-it-yourself check-out. This is a political issue - I will not do anything to get another person laid off. We are now supposed to pull our own soda and bus our tables at fast food joints (I usually leave the mess - it creates work for somebody) - firing the checker is a bit too much for his boy.
As the OP said:
If you shop at Fresh and Easy, you have no choice in the matter. It will become like finding a full-service gas station and paying more if you don’t want to smell of gasoline.
Fast food joints have been “bus your own” since my early childhood in the '70’s. Except Wendy’s. It was always neat to go to Wendy’s because we didn’t have to bus our own table. I’ve not actually eaten inside of a Wendy’s since I was a little kid, so I don’t know if it’s still that way.
Overall, though, I don’t really care one way or the other about preserving unskilled, minimum wage jobs. I guess for people in weird states like California where bag-boys are unionized may have a different perspective.
Why not, out of curiosity? As the demotivational poster says “Not everyone gets to be an Astronaut when they grow up”.
And even the people that do grow up to become doctors, lawyers, firemen, police officers, engineers, World Leaders, and so on need part-time jobs while they’re in high school or university.
Oh, don’t get me wrong; I had my fair share of part time jobs. But they’re just that: not careers. I’m not suggesting that we get rid of all of those types of jobs, just that there’s no good reason to take special steps to preserve them. They’re abundant and plentiful, so who really cares if a store hires eight fewer part-time cashiers next year because they’ve put in self-scanners?
I love, love, looooooove the scan as you go system. LOVE IT. The adoption of this system has pretty much guaranteed my loyalty to this chain. When I go to stores that don’t have this technology the shopping experience feels much more burdensome.
For large shopping trips, I can get a cart, put my open shopping bags in the cart, scan and bag as I go, then simply scan the barcode at the register, swipe my customer card, scan any coupons and drop them in the receptacle and pay. LOVE IT. I never have to deal with the finicky weigh station. Absolutely ADORE the machines in the produce section that let you print the label right there. Fantastic tool.
All my bags are packed the way I want to unpack them when I get home. All the bathroom items are in one bag, pantry (separated by cabinet), refridgerated, frozen, cleaning all separated - makes unpacking so much faster and easier to assign to the kids. Plus, it’s so very much easier to stay on budget with the scanner adding everything up as you go. Love that you can remove an item from the scanned order by simply pushing a button and rescanning it.
The biggest plus though, is that when I’m running in for ‘just a few things’ it’s so much better to take one shopping bag and the scanner and bag as I go. It is a much better limit on impulse buys - once the bag is full or a dollar amount has been hit, it’s way easier to stop picking things up. Plus the tiny check out stands that work best for this system doesn’t have have candy bars, sodas and magazines right there so I don’t have to deal with my kids wanting it.
The only thing I don’t like - and I might petition my usual store manager to change the policy - is that the scan as you go system at my usual store is only available between 7 am - 10pm. Sometimes I’d like to run in earlier in the morning if I need something for my kids lunches or to shop later at night after they’ve gone to bed. But it’s not a huge deal because the store is really slow then so lines are short.
My local Wendy’s has a kid with Down Syndrome busing the dining room. He’s friendly and does the job far more competently than any of their other employees of presumably average intelligence.
Actually, every fast food place has someone who will pick up the trash in the dining room. Eventually. I always throw away my own trash because that’s how I was raised. Large family, and you were expected to pick up your own plate and rinse it off even if it wasn’t your night to do the dishes.
Why not? Is it just because you are not personally affected?
Not everyone can be trained for a high-skill job. There are as many people of below average intelligence as there are with above average and those people need jobs.
It’s hard physical labor, and I think it’s weird that hard physical labor is valued far less than sitting on one’s ass in an office all day. People who joke about ditch-diggers have presumably never actually dug a ditch. I dug a basement stairwell for my brother with another guy one day, and hurt for a week afterward. I can’t imagine doing that every day. I have no problem with ditch-diggers and bag-boys getting paid well.
Not everyone is suited for a “career”. Few people thought, growing up, “I want to be a cocktail waitress!” It was just where they wound up.
Because, job by job, they are being eliminated. Right now, we have huge numbers of post-college twenty-somethings living with their parents due to underemployment. Presumably they would have taken lesser jobs while networking and trying to get work in their field. But due to modern management techniques, the the jobs they can get don’t provide a full 40 hours, don’t get any benefits and the hours they do get a gerrymandered to make a second job difficult to find.
Love them, use them all the time even if it means a longer wait. For several reasons:
[ol]
[li]My essential anti-social nature. The less I have to interact with people the better.[/li][li]They’re great for getting rid of all your small change (I don’t like doing this with a human cashier because when I was a cashier I hated when customers did it). Or for when you have a large bill to break and you’re only spending a small amount.[/li][li]Bagging isn’t an issue because in Ireland you always have to bag your own groceries - except that sometimes local youth sports clubs send their members in to do bagging in exchange for donations. Since the self-checkouts are small and close together, there’s no room for the little extortionists at them.[/ol][/li]
I do feel a bit guilty about the putting-people-out-of-work aspect, but there’s a downside to everything.
There is always something that goes wrong. The item doesn’t scan and you need to wait for a person to come and fix it,
Right now that’s accurate. It’s the description of a recession. Even good jobs are hard to come by. But in normal periods of economic expansion and growth, there are always new jobs being created, including these unskilled, minimum-wage jobs. Just because it’s no longer available at the Kroger you’ve been shopping at for 10 years doesn’t mean that it’s not available at the new Macaroni Grill that just opened up down the street.
It’s just plain illogical to protect unecessary jobs, when new ones will always be available. For people that make a career of unskilled jobs, they actually have it better than us middle class folk, because they can do pretty much anything while maintaining the quality of life to which they’ve become accustomed.
(Note that “unskilled” is a technical description relating to formal training. In general when talking about jobs, it should be understood that it doesn’t imply that doing a particular job takes no skills.)