the other day i went shopping at Albertson’s. it was just an ordinary trip to the grocery store… until i got to the check out lanes and noticed that in addition to the regular lanes, they now had this new self-checkout stuff. you basically go up to your own little station, scan all of your own items, bag them yourself, pay then machine, and then you’re done. you don’t have to deal w/ a human at all!! i was *so* impressed!! how tech, how futuristic, how modern! this means that we won’t have long ass lines at grocery stores due to there only being a few checkers on hand. nothing could be better…
… or so i thought, until this morning i read this post from steph: http://www.xtrinity.com/yosoy/archives/000052.html
wtf?! how can they automate starbucks like that!! it makes making coffee so impersonal. it made me think: if they took automation this far, they could very easily get rid of baristas entirely. why not just have the machine mechanically make your coffee from start to finish? grab a cup, pour espresso, add milk, etc etc. the sad thing about that… is that there will be no human interaction left. it seems so empty and sad. and that… is the same issue i have with self-checkout. there’s no more real people to talk to. no human contact. just you and the computer and your cheese.
as we advance, society becomes more and more fragmented. everyone walking the streets has a cellphone to their ear and is in their own little headspace. when calling 411 or other phone services, we are greeted by recorded computer voices that respond to us using voice recognition. bank tellers are replaced by atms. more and more places will automate like this, until you can go through your whole day w/out any interacting with a single live human. soon we’ll be stuck in our own private bubbles… only seeing strangers from behind the panes of glass of their cars during our commutes.
-v
can you imagine the agony of getting some little old lady in a self checkout line who has no idea how it works and accidently charges herself 50 times for a box of mac n cheese or tries to pay with 4000000 pennies?!?! ACK! the horror.
You just pretty much described my midterm thesis. I’m looking at the way new communication technology has impacted our culture. I great book on the subject is Eriksen’s Tyranny of the Moment: Slow and Fast in the Digital Age.
But it is pretty sad how everything is out sourced these days.. from IT jobs to freaking Starbucks.
I know it is extremely impersonal, but I hate waiting in line. Plus, I can’t remember the last time I had a meaningful conversation, or any conversation, with a check out person.
I’m all for the self-checkouts. There is nothing I hate worse than being stuck in line behind the retard who realizes at the last second they brought the wrong item or forgot something and send someone off to get it while everyone waits for his/her holiness. Or the people who can’t find exact change or take forever writing a check while fiddling with their screaming children. Then there’s the lonely people who have to tell their life story to the checker and those around them.
When I go to a place like that, I want in and out. I don’t enjoy shopping and I try to do it as quickly as possible. I don’t go to the store for fake pleasantries and simple conversation about the weather, I go to shop. I get plenty of human contact elsewhere or even in other areas of the store.
Besides, self-checkout is only for small purchases to quicken things up for those of us in a hurry. It’s like the express lane only better. There will always be people at checkout counters that you can talk to and spend time with, but if you aren’t into that, there’s the self-checkout for the rest of us.
My only problem with it is that even though it is set up so that a 5 year old can operate it, people often still don’t seem to have a fricking clue and it can take just as long as waiting for a regular checker. I have run across people at home depot trying to self-check huge items that obviously won’t fit onto the checking area, even though it is clearly stated and obvious that if you can’t stick your item on the tray and in one bag, you shouldn’t be there.
Then there are those people who have a full cart. They keep trying to put it into more than one bag and keep getting yelled at by the machine for taking the bag off the tray. Then they stand there looking dumbfounded ignoring the cries from the machine.
Buying alcohol can be a bit tiresome as well when the person running the self-check area is busy or doesn’t seem to want to give you the time of day as their job requires them to do.
yeah… i’m guessing stuff will probably be fine in our lifetime… but i really worry as to what life will be like a couple centuries from now. everything is soooo becoming geared to not having to see people in real life. from voice-conferencing, to webcams, internet chat etc etc.
even scarier, i have this book called something like “the age of the spiritual machine”. it talks about how the progression of technology keeps speeding up more and more and how soon enough, surely computers will be able to outpace the human brain completely. then, it’s really just a question of time until scientists come up w/ a way of connecting microchips to our brains for extra processing power. “humans will have neural implants to improve their vision, hearing, memory, and thinking skills”. after that is the case, humans who are poor etc and can not afford these, will find it nearly impossible to keep up w/ life in society. etc etc…. so freaky.
-v
well, i totally agree that self-checkout is pretty cool. it definitely is nice to be in and done really fast… i’m just saying i worry about what happens as more and more things become like this.
-v
>>There will always be people at checkout counters that you can talk >>to and spend time with, but if you aren’t into that, there’s the >>self-checkout for the rest of us.
that’s the thing though… i dont think “there will always be” people to talk to. slowly but surely these people will be phased out. i’m not necesarily anti self-checkout… i just worry where changes of this sort will eventually put us.
>>My only problem with it is that even though it is set up so that a 5
>>year old can operate it, people often still don’t seem to have a
>>fricking clue
well… it’s new technology. not everyone is familiar with it. i consider myself failrly good w/ technology, but it still took me a tiny bit to check ot the machine and see what to do. for example.. i had no clue that you shouldn’t have a full cart when you use it. luckily, the only time i tried it out, i had just a little bit of stuff, but if i had a full cart of shit, i probbaly would still have tried it and been one of the people to “stand there looking dumbfounded ignoring the cries from the machine.”
-v
Whoa! I have that book, too. I dunno though, look at how many jobs have been “eliminated” in the past few years alone… Think about call centers: now we can talk to a voice recognition software to get bus schedules, airplane arrivals, information. It’s slowly getting to the point where I can’t even get a real life operator anymore.
And the gap in the digital divide is getting wider and wider. The interesting thing about that is that a different argument can be made… there’s another book I’m reading, and the argument there is that “pretty soon, the poor will have online classes and the rich will have teachers.” Kind of a weird thought. With all these colleges automating classes online, there’s no more teacher/student interaction, which is sad. Human contact is one of the ways we learn and teachers and student alike are being robbed of that experience.
Ok, I’m totally rambling, maybe I should go write my thesis. Hehe.
<i>that’s the thing though… i dont think “there will always be” people to talk to. slowly but surely these people will be phased out. i’m not necesarily anti self-checkout… i just worry where changes of this sort will eventually put us.</i>
I doubt you have anything to worry about. If people are going to be phased out of everything, it likely won’t happen for a very, very long time.
Besides, you don’t need checkout people for human contact, there are plenty of ways to get that. Well, at least I get my contact other ways. I’m just not into hanging out with checkers. I want convenience, I want in and out.
<i>well… it’s new technology. not everyone is familiar with it. i consider myself failrly good w/ technology, but it still took me a tiny bit to check ot the machine and see what to do. for example.. i had no clue that you shouldn’t have a full cart when you use it. luckily, the only time i tried it out, i had just a little bit of stuff, but if i had a full cart of shit, i probbaly would still have tried it and been one of the people to “stand there looking dumbfounded ignoring the cries from the machine.”</i>
Okay, well to myself and others I know who have been through it, it seems obvious. I wasn’t familiar with it the first time I used it, but I read the insructions and didn’t have a problem. I have always seen clearly stated signs and instructions explaining exactly what to do, particularly that if you can’t fit everything on the bagging area, you shouldn’t be there. It seems like a simple step by step process to me and it frustrates me to no end when something seemingly so easy and convenient ends up being completely the opposite.
My only real complaint about the system itself is it’s not clear what to do when buying things like alcohol, which was part of my first purchase at a self-checker. The machine just yells at you over and over saying “invalid item on bagging area” when it should specify “hey dumbass, you need to show id to the nice person running this area.” heh.
I rarely ever use self-checkers though. I am usually buying too much, not in a big enough hurry or it is crowded with people who can’t read and take too long.