I’m sorry, but I don’t work here

by Brandon Mayer

Have you ever had occasion to wonder why we don’t get paid to use selfcheckout machines? I mean, we’re doing a cashier’s job, right? This is a common argument that I hear about self-checkouts, but when you really think it through, this argument doesn’t hold much weight in the grand scope of human history.

Decades ago, I can only imagine how many people complained when elevators became self-serve. After all, that was an elevator operator’s job. And what about telephones? All of those hard-working operators who put calls through to the correct telephone exchanges, using switchboards with utter grace and skill. Surely when people began having to memorize longer numbers and complete calls themselves, phone bills went down to compensate them for doing the operator’s job. Right? Well I certainly wasn’t there, but my guess is “no”. The same can be said for advances in how we do

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

With monarch butterflies now on the global endangered species list and most of our pollinators declining by at least 48%, one has to question the roadside mowing that continues in our region. This cuts down wildflowers essential to pollinators and plants like the ever-morerare milkweed, which is essential for monarchs. I understand the trimming on highways so that wild animals cannot approach the road without being seen, but on secondary and back roads, it may be time for us to do a rethink. Our environment is in urgent need of our support, and this is one activity that could be stopped, save some money, and leave the plants intact.

Mrs. Janice Atkey Videto Wincheste

our banking, how we fill up at the gas station, and any number of other common life tasks in which jobs were eliminated by automation to save money for businesses. Self-checkout machines are just the next phase, and decades from now, they will dominate retail stores without anyone giving them a second thought.

Personally, I prefer to interact with an actual human when making a purchase. For years, I refused to go near self-checkout machines in support of workers. Then came the point when selfcheckout machines started being installed in the dozens in big box stores, while often a single checkout line would be available for those wishing to use the services of a cashier. The strength of our moral convictions can apparently be measured by the degree to which we are willing to be inconvenienced by them, and in my case, that threshold was reached the day a self-checkout allowed me to leave a store in three minutes, rather than 30.

Being a social person, I will always prefer the ca- shier experience, but I can adapt. The world changes every day, and sometimes it simply doesn’t pay to crusade against everything we dislike. At least this was my thinking before one particularly bad self-checkout experience a few months ago.

After forgetting to buy a few grocery items at one store, I happened to be passing by another large local grocery store that happened to have self-checkout terminals. I stopped in and picked up the few items I had forgotten, and was in one of those dreaded situations where the line up to visit a cashier seemed to be a mile long, while all of the selfcheckout machines were empty. Being in a hurry, I decided to be “that guy”, and check myself out.

This particular selfcheckout machine judged me before I even pressed any buttons. Presumably preprogrammed with the exact weight of every individual grocery item, it was fitted with a scale in the bagging area to weigh each item after scanning. The logic? This machine will be sure to