More and more stores around here have installed self checkout counters. On the surface, that seems sort of interesting, an attractive and maybe even intriguing use of technology.
But don't use them.
Think about it. What's going on here? Go into a store with self checkout counters, and what else do you notice? Fewer cashiers. Which is to say, fewer employees. Which is to say, people who used to have jobs as cashiers, don't.
What you don't see are lower prices. The prices are the same whether you use self checkout or go to a cashier. The prices are the same whether you're in a renovated store with self checkout counters, or in one of the same company's older stores which don't yet have them.
So ask yourself: In whose interest is self checkout? Obviously not the employee's; more machines and fewer humans mean more people struggling to find jobs, more people desperate to make ends meet, more misery in the midst of a terrible recession which has brought unemployment and underemployment to millions. It's not in the customer's interest either. Do you get a price break when you use self checkout? No - any money saved goes to the corporation. Do you get a person on the spot who can quickly resolve any glitch that develops during checkout? No - you have to wait until some employee notices. Is it faster? Doesn't seem so, from what I can see - fairly often, in fact, I see customers confused by the process, or stumbling over one sort of problem or another. So who benefits? The store, only the store. And they don't pass their benefits back to either the consumer or the employee.
On the other hand, if you go to a cash register operated by an employee, you're doing your part to keep that person employed. You're doing your part to tell the management that they need to continue employing cashiers. You're even doing a little to combat this terrible recession. And you aren't paying a penny more than you would if you were in the other line.
Send a signal to the corporations. Do what you can to keep people employed. What goes around comes around ....
26 October 2011
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