Good Thing or Bad Thing

[tpack]

Local Kroger in Granbury has increased their self-checkouts by 50%. They have almost 25 registers for you to do their job. I asked the lady that was overseeing them how long they had been there, and she seemed upset about losing her job due to the increased self-checkouts vs. ones with cashiers. Grocery chains aren`t keeping food prices down by replacing cashiers with self-checkouts either. They`re just adding more $$ to their bottom lines by reducing labor cost, and all the benefits they would pay an employee. Self-checkouts don`t get overtime, holiday pay, sick pay, always on time and never calls in sick. I spent 31 years in the supermarket business and labor costs was the one thing you had to keep down below a certain % or cooperate would be all over your ***. It`s not just the grocery stores either. These are jobs that are going away forever and not coming back. Kroger operates 2720 store alone and no telling how many cashiers these self-check outs have replaced (2720 x 10= 27,200 jobs). My bet is these self-checkout registers have already replaced 100`s of thousands of jobs nationwide.

[Johnny Dangerr]

You are seeing the tip of the cascade that is coming. Five years from now my AI Lawyer will be suing someone's AI Lawyer...

[Bill M]

It is unfortunate for people to lose their jobs but a grocery store's business is to provide groceries for a price. Nothing more. Checkers have been a service that they feel automation can replace. As I said, unfortunate but it has happened across countless industries. No one talks about robot welders replacing auto workers anymore but there was a time when that was the uproar.

[Geezy Rider]

I refuse to work for the store I’m shopping at. I will not do self checkout. Now if they want to pay me by giving me a 15% discount for checking out my goods then I would try it but until then they can pound sand.
I’ve had many checkers thank me for using them a helping to save their jobs.

[Philip-TX]

........"Filler 'er up with ethel, check the oil & tires, and wash the windows, Pls"

[bbbuck]

There’s a reason we don’t deliver mail via horse and wagon anymore. Checkers are replaced by service technicians. Actually I prefer checking out myself. Change is a coming.

[hopedale]

I despise the ones in Wal-mart.

[JhuntsAlot]

Bad thing.

I have heard there are some places that have already gone 100% self check out. People hate it.




J

[CTR0022]

I see what your saying, but how many of those cashiers/checkers have been moved to filling online orders?

That's all we do now, place our weekly order online, go pick it up, they bring it to your car and we drive off.

The wife and I will go into the store every once in a while to pick up a handfull of items and the self check out is very convenient and easier for the few items we are getting.

[Radar]

I went home delivery to avoid the store completely and it has been working very well.

[Bassdeer]

Yep still waiting on my 1099 for all the work I do at the checkout.

[tpack]

Yep still waiting on my 1099 for all the work I do at the checkout.

I had 2 HEB employees shooting the **** and watching me at the self checkout last week. I asked them if I could go on break after I got through checking myself out. They didn`t have a response.

[tvc184]

I like shopping on my Lowe’s app and paying when I order. At the store I don’t even talk to anyone. My merchandise is in a locker and I scan my cell phone. The door opens automatically and I walk out with my purchase.

At Sam’s (an evil Walmart subsidiary) I don’t even self checkout at the register. I scan the items on my cell phone as I put them in the basket. I pay on the app and walk out without having spoken to a cashier or even getting in line for the self check out.

But do I feel bad about the many thousands or millions of telephone operators that lost their jobs because of computers, including the cell phone I am typing on now.

How many high paying jobs were lost in the auto industry and similar jobs because of computers doing the welding?

How many full sized banks are there today and how many thousands or perhaps millions of bank tellers lost their jobs simply from direct deposit of paychecks, etc?

I suppose that we can go back to hand picking cotton, talking to an operator (on a rotary phone) to call a city only 20 miles away, waiting on someone to put gasoline in our cars, paying $75,000 instead of $18,000 for an economy car because it is hand assembled, having to sign a paper check to get our salary deposited (after you drive to your job to pick up the check), have to go to the bank before the weekend to make sure that we have cash in your wallet or purse for any minor emergency on the weekend because stores don’t accept out of town checks, etc.

All of those things and others were part of daily life (except the car prices) until I was probably in my early 30s and I am 67 now.

Literally many millions of people have lost a way to make a living due to technology in my time on Earth.

I don’t want to go back to giving up my cell phone, having to check messages on a cassette recorder attached to my corded phone, going to my car every few months to check the gap on my plugs and points, making sure that I have cash in my pocket because there was no Visa or MasterCard and there sure weren’t any ATMs and so on.

Store cashiers will fade into history just as so many other jobs in my lifetime. If people refuse to self checkout to delay the inevitable to help people stay employed, okay. God Bless you for the effort but it will not stop what is coming.

I wonder how many people now demand a 1099 for pumping their own gasoline/diesel because when I was driving in my early 20s, it was expected for 25 cents a gallon gasoline that you did not have to leave the driver’s seat and your tires air pressure was checked and your windshield was cleaned.

[Greenheadless]

I avoid self check outs and stores that only offer self check like the plague.

I will pay more and wait longer for a checker.

[boy wonder]

I like self checkout, my 93 year old uncle refuses to use it. However, I prefer a cashier when buying larger quantities. Automation is the answer for a lot of tasks and eliminating employee issues (retention, attendance, theft etc….).