I don’t know if the letter is real, but this was my parents. They refused to use the self-checkout because they didn’t work there and it might take away jobs. Meanwhile, they’re the same people who complained that pretty much any basic customer facing job shouldn’t pay a living wage.
They exist.
The letter isn’t real in the sense that it says Malwart at the top. Otherwise it does exist.
I can’t believe my brain didn’t catch that. I instantly saw the walmart brand symbol and looked no further.
You know you can take the good part and discard the second one?
Remember that multibillion dollar corporations are pushing you to self checkout because they are too cheap to pay someone minimum wage to work a register. The boomers are right.
Alternatively, self-checkout is a great way to shoplift from big corporations destroying civilization and the habitability of the planet.
Doo Doo Doo… Doo! 🌠
I refuse to voluntarily pay for bags. How many bags did I use? Zero, motherfucker!
some people don’t want it wait for a million years for the person in front of them with 600 items to get through.
Some solutions are not just about solving one thing or a personal attack.
That is definitely one of the reasons to skip self checkout.
Tell that to people that could have had jobs as a cashier that those machines have taken away.
May the hammer of Enoch do it’s work.
Doing less work has been the primary motivating factor behind basically all of human progress. The problem is that the savings is lining shareholder pockets instead of reducing employee workload.
Yep, hence the Luddite reference.
I will, no problem. Luddites have no place today, thank you.
Heck, cashiers are still wprking where I live. One of them just gets assigned to 6 or 8 self checkouts instead of normal register.
Oh no, automation getting rid of shit jobs people didn’t like already, the horror
Just learn to code right bro. You dumb ass libs always assume everyone is as skilled as you and every job you don’t want to do is lesser. Some people like being cashiers.
Get back at me when you learn some labor theory and intersectionalize more.
Just learn to code right bro
Lol, no, don’t put words in my mouth, dickhead
You dumb ass libs
Swing and a miss
assume everyone is as skilled as you
Even BIGGER miss. I’m an asshole and assume most people are far less skilled than me, and am regularly proven right
and every job you don’t want to do is lesser
Your words, not mine, I don’t consider cashier’s to be lesser to me in any way unless they, as an individual, give me reason to
Some people like being cashiers
Yeah, you’ll notice you said “some” and not “most”, so what’s your point, exactly?
Get back at me when you learn some labor theory and intersectionalize more.
Get back at me when you learn how to discuss what was said and not prop up a shitty strawman
Like you’re not waiting for the person in front of you in self-checkout to fumble their way through scanning those items? Who do you think is faster at it, the boomer in front of you in line or someone who does it all day? You’re just buying into the bullshit narrative you’re being fed.
Self-checkout has almost always been faster for me. No bullshit narrative, just actual experience.
When’s the last time someone checked you out?
Don’t remember. All I know is that the average time I’ve spent waiting for when doing self-check is shorter than the average time waiting when not.
Next time your feeling social or not it a rush have someone check you out. Hell you can even do it if there’s a cute bean working.
And that is why I stopped using them. Actually, I just order online for most things and curbside pickup.
Just wait until bots or drones just deliver it to our doorstep. I will never need to see another human again!
Edit: /s, to be clear. I want to see how many people actually agree/disagree.
People can deliver to our door without us having to interact.
I have mixed opinions on self checkout… but the best is when I go to buy beer, and only beer. Someone that works there has to ID me and plug my birthday into the computer anyway so it’s like shrodingers self check out.
On a more serious note, I enjoy not having to make small talk with the cashier but also would rather not be watched like I’m a thief when I ring out my stuff.
Also, it’s kinda nice to eat all organic fruits and vegetables and only pay the prices for the GMO versions.
Surely you can find human connection than just at a checkout. We don’t have to inconvenience everyone and refit everything in our world just so someone can have a conversation with someone else. I mean we still have public areas other than a shopping place that’s meant to stand around and have convos that doesn’t plug up everyone else’s time.
They make you let them scan your ID half the time anyways, why not just let you scan your own ID?
In case it’s someone who looks plausibly old enough but who “borrowed” Mom’s ID. I doubt they have facial recognition to match ID to face on those cheap POSs.
Did shrodinger also buy beer at self checkout? Maybe all that drinking made him forget if the cat was dead or alive
Haha like the ONLY good thing about self checkout is the potential for stealing. As for the small talk thing: the most I’ve ever had to say to a cashier was “hello” and “thank you”. I can handle that.
I hate the self checkout at my local Kroger because it works like fucking dog shit. Always playing a patronizing voice telling me to put the item in the bagging area even though it already is. Always has an inadequate amount of space in the bagging area.
If the purge happens everyone is going to be looting and murdering. I’ll be the person burning down Kroger.
I went to self checkout at Costco cause I was borrowing my sister’s card and didn’t want the cashier to check it, unrelated but self checkout does gave uses
My experience with self checkout at Costco is very much that they still do 80% of the work if you have more than 2 things. Like they’re flipping things and scanning them in my cart and I’m just handling pushing buttons and paying on the touch screen. It’s kinda bizarre but not bad imo.
The real trick is they don’t have the weight sensor and cameras that flip out over every move. Like damn I told you I was putting 3 bags in the bagging area; they are not unexpected items.
Never understood why people struggle with the bagging area thing. You’re doing something wrong. Here’s a hint: Every item in the store is weighed, and the bagging area has a scale on it that measures that weight. If you accidentally put more or less weight into the bagging area, it’ll complain.
Scan, immediately bag within 3 seconds, and don’t let anything touch the bagging area, not even your hands. Utilize the “skip bagging” button for items that take more than 3 seconds to bag (but don’t hit "skip bagging more than 3/4 times or it’ll complain). Immediately remove any excess weight (such as your arm or a bag) after bagging. I promise you’ll almost never have another an issue again.
I know how to bag groceries, you fucking condescending asshole. The Walmart and Home Depot self check work every time for me. Kroger has defective ones. Maybe their scales suck. Maybe they need different values for their timers. I am not going to debug it for them unless they pay my software consulting fees which seems highly unlikely because they’ve broken for more than five years.
Sometimes they are just broken. Bad scales, sensors, etc. Kroger’s converyor style checkouts are especially bad.
I heard they are trying to charge for self checkout now, it was already a no thanks, now it’s a fuck no.
If I hear that, I’m dropping my shit where I stand and going to the grocery store down the street.
Don’t do that, it’s not effective feedback. Ask for a manager, explain to them that you’re dropping your shit where you stand and going to the grocery store down the street, and why. Should be a brief conversation, and if multiple people do that then it’s more likely to trickle up to corporate.
Upvoating because it’s funny. Not because I agree with Walmart.
Malwart
The fear of employment replacement through automation hinders creativity which would actually provide safer, better and more meaningful employment.
If people (workers, consumers, neighbours) would own or have a foot in their workplaces (i.e. cooperatives), they would care more about that.
Because in reality these businesses don’t offer better, more meaningful employment for the people they replace by making the customers work.
It’s just more people in the unemployment fodder.
My local coop refuses to add self-checkout lanes and this is why I shop there even though it’s more expensive than the alternatives.
Fuck corporate greed.
It’s not really automation though. The store is outsourcing labor to the consumer.
The automation are the API and the security cameras.
Which, as a customer, provide absolutely no value to me.
Yeah, surveillance steals value from consumers.
Self-checkout seems better to me, because it decreases monotonous and forced public interaction (thus somewhat automated anyway): Beep. Beep. Beep. Do you want loyalty points? That’s 21.46€. Do you want the receipt? Goodbye! Beep. Beep. Beep…
It uses less space.
It is parallel instead of serial.
The work is not much more than putting groceries on a checkout lane anyway, except for unlabelled fruits and vegetables.
Self-checkout allows for smaller stores and coops, for example in villages or as kiosk.
Oh no, you had to answer two yes/no questions
The worst inconvenience in the world.
Parallel vs serial: there’s usually more than one check out lane open so idk what you waffling about.
Less space is not a convenience for me so idgaf
My local coop has regular check out lanes and it’s in a small town so idk what you waffling about.
The major supermarket chain where I live has a “shop and go” system. You get a battery powered barcode scanner that you take round and scan items before you put them in your trolley, then hand it over to an operator at the end. They can download the list of items to the till, then you pay and leave.
They have a “random spot check” system where sometimes they pick a few random items out of your trolley and check that they are on the list. I’m imagining that some people get away with theft, but it’s probably not a lot more than people who are going to steal normally anyway
I’ve tried those a few times, what trips me up is that they don’t do well (or I don’t know how to) with -30% and the nightly -60% stuff. That stuff is vital to me
Self-checkout lanes are anti-union machines. Theft was the only way we are getting rid of them
Burn all the self checkouts, what do I get out of this lazy " automation " I’m not touching one till I get a discount for don’t someone else’s job
PS let me smash those stupid one way gates at the entrance with a hammer
You transport yourself to the store, walk around the store, pick the items up off the shelf, take them around the store, take them with you to checkout, take them to your car, bring them into your house, and put them away. But moving the item 36 inches from your basket to your bag is something you’re too enfeebled or important to do yourself?
Sorry man but what do get out of that extra effort how ever small it is, “oh no I’m going to wait a bit longer while I’m on my phone”, maybe it’s because in from a small town and such things are pretty recent but they just feels like there’s dishonest about them
Ok, boomer.
I don’t want to be a 30 year old boomer
Ok, bitch.
They’re way, way, way faster for me and funny enough at the same time I have peace of mind in that the person next in line isn’t breathing down my neck while I’m putting stuff in my backpack.
You know these things are for Your convenience, right?
I’d rather walk out with nothing
These things are so they don’t have to pay people to check out your groceries anymore. There’s not much convenience in them when you’re buying produce and have to go through multiple pages to find the item you’re scanning in or god forbid the barcode doesn’t read or put something in the bagging area too quickly and then you have to stand there looking stupid while an employee comes over to help you because the machine encountered an error and won’t let you continue scanning your stuff.
You know, You don’t have to go to a self checkout, right?
Sometimes that’s all they have open (Home Depot) so you do have to go to them. If these companies can save a buck by having you ring yourself up, they will.
Hey, I don’t work here, but if I did, I would not sell you shit 🎶
I actually like the Self-Checkout, it’s faster for me. The people who have difficulty with them just don’t want to put a single thought into things.
I can also self-check faster than waiting for a cashier but I do put thought into it; the thought is “these things cost jobs”.
While a noble goal I’m sure, same as that not allowing pumping gas yourself thing, I expect the companies behind the actual decision to give exactly no shits about your preference. Theoretically they should, realistically they don’t need to.
Please consider that saving someone’s job is worth the 2 minutes more that you spend waiting in line at the cashier.
The cashier job is obsolete. By using self checkout I give them the opportunity to work somewhere fulfilling
Just a pick a new job from the magical job tree, where jobs are free and plentiful and ripe for the taking
I have never saved time at a self checkout unless I had 1 item. I am absolutely not interested in looking up the code for a poblano fucking pepper using their shitty menu.
Almost every time I’ve been given the choice, the cashiers were faster. People using the self-checkouts are slow as fuck.
It only is faster if few people with few items use it. It is not feasible to be used by every customer with a shopping cart.
Please consider that people suck.
If you ever hear someone tell another customer “i don’t work here”, immediately call over to that person and tell them to restock isle 5.
