He'd've bought the book on Econ 101 but there was only a self-checkout

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Honeycombe8 (1000+ posts)        Mon Jul-04-11 02:28 PM
Original message
Check it out! Alberston's has done away with self-serve checkouts
 What does that mean? That means their experiment with replacing people with machines @ self-serve checkouts was a bust.

I just got home from Albertson's. When going to check out, I saw that the self-serve stations were gone. So I went thru the express lane & asked the young man checking me out....so they've removed all the self-serves? Yeah, he says to me. Turns out that they were super expensive to buy and maintain. They were always needing repairs and maintenance, and he'd heard that once the part for repair cost $1,000, and another time it was several thousand dollars...and the machine cost thousands of dollars to begin with. Wow! I had no idea they were that expensive.

I must say that I'm glad the experiment failed, and that it turns out for Albertson's to be more cost effective to have human beings back in the store for checkout and customer service. More jobs for part-time college students and retirees, more full time jobs for cashiers. Yay!

I hope this is a sign of things to come.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1413131

First, this is nothing more than obedient parrots squawking along after the president yammered about ATMs.

But more importantly, what has happened is: the skilled service technician earning north of $15/hour has been replaced by unskilled cashiers. This has added to unemployment and depressed wages for those remaining as well as disincentivized the cashier to become skilled. Why invest in skills if those skills are replaced on the cheap by your already unskilled--for free--ass?

Oh and BTW: no incentive for skills = no need for teachers

See how humans are inter-connected by the desire for wealth!

Then there are the customers who must now wait longer thus losing productivity, personal maintenance and recreational time.

peace4ever (313 posts)      Mon Jul-04-11 02:37 PM
Response to Original message
6. it's cheaper to have humans, hmmm... sounds a little depressing to me
 don't get me wrong, I am all for folks having more jobs... I just wished we could get much better pay for being human, and providing our labor to the rich.

Feel free to give your time to people with no money just don't bitch about the natural consequences.

Honeycombe8 (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-05-11 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #18
95. I usu. use self-checkout machines. But I'm glad to see more people will get their jobs back...
 It's a small thing, but important to those few people. and it helps the local economy.

That Alb. had several self-checkout machines, and always at least one was inoperable at any given time. They were always malfunctioning.

This idiot must think machines are self-creating, self-servicing beings.

If a conservative wants to keep out ilegals that depress wages with their under-the-table, unskilled wages they're evil.

If liberals want to destroy skilled technical labor with unskilled minimum wage positions it's holier-than-thou.

Citizen Worker  (1000+ posts)      Mon Jul-04-11 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
20. When the self check out machines appeared at my local grocery I vowed I would never go through them.
 Now there is a management type who redirects customers to the automated money snatchers. When she approached me a couple of months ago to use the machine I loudly said, "no thanks, I'm going through the Union check out line." Now when she sees me she looks away.

"Money snatchers"?

Paying for the goods and services someone else produced and you consume is having your money snatched?

WTF are a rich man's taxes to prop-up welfare then?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1413131#1413237

And it goes on like that.

[GOBUCKS]

All the grocery stores here in red state hell have them even though down here, with right-to-work laws, you can hire clerks for pennies an hour.
We also have them at Home Depot. I always use them if I have only a few items.

I did notice, during my disastrous trip to WalMart on welfare day, that the self-checkout there had been removed and a few extra express checkouts added. That was really disappointing and I sure hope it isn't a trend. They weren't as helpful at WalMart anyway, since they only had four stations, and it always seemed like every customer using them had to have help from a clerk. 

[Bodadh]

I loudly said, "no thanks, I'm going through the Union check out line." Now when she sees me she looks away.

Are these people always on?

I am glad my store has a self check out. Every time I would go there they would only have two people doing checkout, maybe 3 if the lines started to back up. I got real sick of standing there with a bag of cat food and shaving cream behind people with full baskets. And don't get me started on the old women who wait till everything is bagged and then start to SLOOOOOOOOOWLY write a check.

[compaqxp]

If minimum wage keeps going up here (I think it's at or near 10$/h) I expect to see these self serve checkouts any time. I'd welcome them though.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

If minimum wage keeps going up here (I think it's at or near 10$/h) I expect to see these self serve checkouts any time. I'd welcome them though.

If you're not willing to pay $8 for a gallon of milk to support an unskilled cashier earning $25/hour it just goes to show how much you bought into capitalist lies and hate the working poor.

Oh and BTW: even after they're making $25/hour you still have to buy their health care and put their kids through college to they can go on to be successful food stamp collectors/bureaucrats that issue food stamps.

[BlueStateSaint]

All the grocery stores here in red state hell have them even though down here

Same here in New York.

[jukin]

I hope this is a sign of things to come.

Luddite much?

How is it that everything and every action that progressives espouse is all about actually destroying progress and returning to the dark ages?

[Karin]

It's the same thing with the word "liberal".  Liberals are dictatorial and nanny-state.  Don't do this, don't do that.  This is banned, that is forbidden.  We have prohibited this and proscribed that.  Forget about thinking this and saying that. 

Along with the stupidity, hypocrisy, and heads-in-the-sand/up-the-ass, I don't see why anybody would want to be a liberal, let alone "Proud2B" one.  Yech. 

[jukin]

It's the same thing with the word "liberal".  Liberals are dictatorial and nanny-state.  Don't do this, don't do that.  This is banned, that is forbidden.  We have prohibited this and proscribed that.  Forget about thinking this and saying that. 

Along with the stupidity, hypocrisy, and heads-in-the-sand/up-the-ass, I don't see why anybody would want to be a liberal, let alone "Proud2B" one.  Yech. 

Each day, I find it more and more difficult to not think Liberalism is really a mental disease. In a few decades it will be clinically accepted in psychiatry.

[zeitgeist]

Our Wally World here has the longest line of unmanned manual checkout lines I have ever seen.  Cashiers must be super hard to find around here because it is the same at a new Target.  Lots of unmanned stations.  Ditto the new Lowe's ( although they do have two DIY checkout lanes that see more action than a flea a hound convention and have an attendant just in case something goes whoopsie).  

My favorite supermarket has two self serve lanes which I use when I pick up a few items to greatly speed up the in and out.   Unless there is a liberal moroon doing each peach, pear, and persimmon individually from their eco friendly hemp sack. At the local BJ's I almost always use self checkout.  

Sadly, as Sparky can confirm, this area has an over abundance of liberal dolts who just can't understand normal thinking when it comes to time saving devices such as self checkouts.  I suspect the majority of them spend large amounts of time engaged in hand to gland combat while listening to Imaginary Lover when not clogging up the self checkout lines.    They also like to drive drive in the passing lanes ten miles under the posted limit, road warriors I guess, in Priuses festooned Obie, Kerry, and Co-Exist stickers.  Quite a show.

[GOBUCKS]

Our Wally World here has the longest line of unmanned manual checkout lines I have ever seen.  Cashiers must be super hard to find around here because it is the same at a new Target.  Lots of unmanned stations.  Ditto the new Lowe's ( although they do have two DIY checkout lanes that see more action than a flea a hound convention and have an attendant just in case something goes whoopsie).

I know nothing about retail store design, but it seems they design their checkout capacity for the day after Thanksgiving, and the week before Christmas. For the rest of the year, they just have three or four times as many checkout lines as they need, but retail survival depends on Christmas shopping volume.

The ones I can't stand are still Academy Sports and Barnes & Noble. They have all those unmanned checkout lines, but they also keep enormous headcount, a huge number of employees, just standing around, shooting the breeze, cruising the aisles in small groups, chatting and giggling among themselves, while the one or two open checkout lines have customers waiting in long, long lines. It's been unavoidable that I've had to visit both of them many times, and the situation never changes. Why they survive is a mystery to me. They're the two most poorly managed retail concerns I've ever seen.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I know nothing about retail store design, but it seems they design their checkout capacity for the day after Thanksgiving, and the week before Christmas. For the rest of the year, they just have three or four times as many checkout lines as they need, but retail survival depends on Christmas shopping volume.

The ones I can't stand are still Academy Sports and Barnes & Noble. They have all those unmanned checkout lines, but they also keep enormous headcount, a huge number of employees, just standing around, shooting the breeze, cruising the aisles in small groups, chatting and giggling among themselves, while the one or two open checkout lines have customers waiting in long, long lines. It's been unavoidable that I've had to visit both of them many times, and the situation never changes. Why they survive is a mystery to me. They're the two most poorly managed retail concerns I've ever seen.

They're just extra employees who have plenty of time to hide the conservative books and/or change the book jackets.

[Ballygrl]

Who says the store is going to hire new cashiers?

[Chris_]

a bag of cat food and shaving cream

Things must get interesting when you get home from work.

[Bodadh]

Things must get interesting when you get home from work.

DUDE! That was.....well it WAS pretty damn funny.

[Skul]

Citizen Worker  (1000+ posts)      Mon Jul-04-11 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
20. When the self check out machines appeared at my local grocery I vowed I would never go through them.
 Now there is a management type who redirects customers to the automated money snatchers. When she approached me a couple of months ago to use the machine I loudly said, "no thanks, I'm going through the Union check out line." Now when she sees me she looks away.

Liar, liar pants on fire.