low-end jobs

[cellio]

Automated alternatives to humans in the service industry have been around for a while. ATMs were probably the first widespread case of this. The real value of ATMs was the ability to interact with your bank at times when the bank wouldn't otherwise be available. I think ATMs are a real win for that reason, and the only time I visit humans in my bank is when I want to make a deposit.

More recently, I've interacted with automation that is designed to specifically replace humans rather than broadening service. The automated check-out at grocery stores is the big example here. Instead of one cashier per line, stores now need one employee per 4 or so lines. This isn't making things more convenient for customers; unlike ATMs, the scanners are only available when the store is open anyway.

There are practical reasons I tend to avoid the automated checkouts, mostly related to speed. The line for the human has to be about three times as long as the line for the machine before the machine looks like a time-saver. People may get more proficient at scanning and packing over time, of course.

But I find that even absent that consideration, I'm reluctant to use the machine. Doing so helps to eliminate a low-end job that might be the only job the job-holder is capable of doing. Most of the cashiers I see at the grocery store aren't college-age kids looking for spending money; they're middle-aged and sometimes visibly handicapped.

This is not wholly a compassion-based argument; it's also one of expedience. I think we as a society are better off if almost everyone has a productive job. And some people are only capable of the lower-end jobs that are most in danger of being automated away. (Aside: for this reason, requirements for high minimum wages are also a bad idea -- don't make it cost-ineffective to hire people at prices they're willing to work for!)

We cannot avoid automation, of course, and in many cases it's a good thing. I'm no Luddite (she says, typing on her computer :-) ). But I kind of wish that we could focus it a little differently sometimes.

And yes, sometimes the humans are annoying to deal with. Last night I lost close to ten minutes to an inept cashier, and there is one (mentally challenged) bagger who I will never again allow to touch my groceries because he seems utterly bewildered by ideas like "the bread goes on top" (multiple failures). People who aren't capable of doing the job shouldn't hold the job anyway just out of pity. (Giant Eagle was right to fire the guy who was partially eating food and then putting the package back on the shelf, and I don't care that he didn't understand that this was wrong.) But y'know, the machines aren't painless either -- just try to get a scanning error fixed. And for the most part, the people holding these jobs are quite capable and willing to work, and I find I'm rooting for the people over the machines.

Comments

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

I think you've seen a lower percentage of inept/apathetic cashiers than I have. ;-) I dread going into one particular grocery store after the self-checkouts have closed because the women who are on at night are always distracted, chatting amongst themselves, wandering around the front end far from the registers, or just otherwise dippy. They seem surprised when someone actually comes up the register and wants to buy something and doesn't want to wait for them to finish their conversation. I find similar cashier problems in places that don't have self-checkout. It's very rare that I get someone who's quick and competent and not bitchy.

There's also almost never a line for self-checkouts here, and always a line for cashiers during the day. I think the stores are unwilling or unable to hire enough people to staff the regular checkouts. Having dealt with stupid retail payroll policies (you can only pay X amount a week, so you can't actually put enough workers on to serve the customers you're having at certain times, even if you are making enough money to justify paying those workers), I'm not surprised.

It's too bad that people who are disabled/handicapped, who'd like to work and have something to do, risk losing their benefits and thus not having enough money to live by taking these jobs, though. There should be a better way to do it, I just don't know what. :-/

[cellio]

I dread going into one particular grocery store after the self-checkouts have closed because the women who are on at night are always distracted, chatting amongst themselves, wandering around the front end far from the registers, or just otherwise dippy.

I've certainly been known to take my business elsewhere in the face of crap like that, and to tell the manager why. Of course, that's easier in a sizable city; I don't know if you have that option.

I almost always see lines for both humans and self-checkout. The lines for humans tend to be longer but faster. It only takes one person ahead of you in the self-check line who can't figure out the code for some produce or who can't find the bar code on a package or who thinks there's a price error to ruin your "quick trip to the store", after all.

It's too bad that people who are disabled/handicapped, who'd like to work and have something to do, risk losing their benefits and thus not having enough money to live by taking these jobs, though. There should be a better way to do it, I just don't know what. :-/

Indeed. And I don't see why this is hard: if the state has said you should get $X/month, and your job pays $X-Y/month, you should get Y instead of X if you have that job. Ok, it's not really that tidy because you have to account for the deductions from the paycheck (income taxes, social security, etc), but these are known quantities.

Humans

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

They can be dishonest, (woot wel) but I want to have them have jobs. I have to navigate systems that don't actually answer my questions, or want me to get to ask humans a question that isn't included on a voice menu. Because they'de have to hire and train.

Maybe, Egad, provide something like decent pay and health care. If we can't nationalize, bullying is the alternative. Let me know if it gets better. (Charles!? My smelling salts!

Re: Humans

[cellio]

Do you think nationalized health care is working well in Canada?

The problem with the idea of mandated "decent pay" (which we all callibrate differently) is that some jobs aren't worth much. But I'd rather people take those jobs at the market rate and, if necessary, collect the difference from welfare, than have no job at all and collect all of it. (I realize that our welfare system is broken and interferes with this; I'm talking ideals here.) Because not only do I want to lower the cost of welfare to the workers who fund it, but I also want people to have the meme of working being good. It's better for all of us.

But if you tell the guy who runs the Mom&Pop grocery store that he now has to pay all his people twice the market rate, the result is that he'll be forced to fire half his workers or close up shop. Either way, the service to his customers diminishes, and more people end up out of work. I want Mom&Pop shops to be out there, not just mega-chains, so I can support my local community. Anti-business laws don't just target Giant Eagle and WallMart, after all.

[ginamariewade.livejournal.com]

I absolutely categorically refuse to use the automated checkouts for this very reason. I also insist on someone to bag my grocerys and push the cart to my car. Usually it's a mildly retarded man doing this.

When I do get a rude cashier, like the first reply mentioned, I have occasionally been ugly to her and said "You know, the store is looking to automate jobs, that's why they put in those scanner things. It would be sad if they had to automate yours, too."
Usually that results in the cashier jumping up and doing what she's supposed to do, even if she does it with an attitude.

[psu-jedi.livejournal.com]

Wow. Don't know why that never came to me. Good reply. I'll have to file that one in the back of my mind.

[alice-curiouser.livejournal.com]

Good for you!

I don't like the "self-checkouts" anyway... if you buy alcohol or tobacco products, or if you're writing a check, you need to deal with a human anyway... and I almost always buy alcohol and tobacco products, and usually want to write a check for them.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I like the automated checker thing in theory, but that's probably because I have a distinctly non-sociable streak. (And bagging my own groceries is not bad either.) However, I think these arrangements leave much to be desired. My main complaint is that the stores in my neighborhood both require that you get clearance from an employee if you are paying by credit card before you can leave. In one, you also have to sign on a computerized signature pad and then wait to get clearance. Apparently, this was done as an anti-theft measure, which I understand. Nevertheless, the signature pads don't always work, and it's not always easy to catch the eye of an employee when you are trying to get out of the store.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

The self-checkouts are new here, and always unbelievably faster, because people don't use them. And I'm hella fast on them. They are a huge time-saver for me.

Anyway, it's an interesting issue. Maybe I'm rationalizing, but the way I look at it, the onus is on the store. The trend is for supermarkets to get bigger and bigger. With larger stores come more and more customers. The store has to decide how to process the number of customers. If the store is concerned about your experience as a shopper, they will add checkers and baggers to prevent the long lines. If they don't care, they won't. (The store closest to us (no machine) usually just doesn't have baggers, making the checker both ring up and bag the stuff, which infuriates me.)

As a consumer, I don't see how reinforcing the inconvenience already mandated by the store will make the store change its ways. The only way to do that would be to not shop there but to shop instead at a store where they have enough checkers and baggers (usually your high-end gourmet shops). But since everyone goes to the store with the most stuff that's convenient, we consumers don't really exercise that leverage.

That said, I think there's a "service ceiling" on these devices, since there are limits on how many bags they can handle at once, which is why they have limits of 20 items on them or whatnot. Their efficiency is thus really only aimed at the most efficient segment of the process (the express lines), so their overall impact on labor will probably be small.

I'm also going to remark that this is an interesting train of thought for the libertarian-inclined. Service jobs are indeed the last jobs left for a lot of people because other untrained work (manufacturing) is gone -- the reason being that they are jobs machines can't replace that well (i.e. that 20-item bagging limit). Service jobs are increasingly interchangable, yet still necessary to attract a customer. So this is one place where a higher minimum wage would actually pose less of a threat to the worker, since the job is less likely to be eliminated (there will always be a lot of shoppers with more than 20 items; indeed the number will go up as the store gets larger and larger). BUT it's also a place where the free market is likely to drive down wages to the minimum, because any *individual* worker is interchangeable. So it's actually a situation where government-mandated wage and benefit standards are least damaging to competition and innovation, while most beneficial to workers. At least that's how it seems to me.

[cellio]

Yours have 20-item limits? That's not the case here. Either an item limit or a "no produce" rule would speed up the process, now that I think about it.

This is an interesting political/economic challenge, yes.

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

There's a nice guy at the grocery I most frequently. He's not retarded, but not bright. I bring two carts back to the store when I go in, and two carts back when I'm done. He likes me, I like him, and once in awhile he insists on taking my groceries out and loading them despite my protestations.

He also doesn't mind when I bring in gobs of recyclable bags once a month. I'm unsure about tipping when he does this, and I don't always have the cash. I have to rethink our non-relationship.

I once asked an ex-employee whether I'd ever made her feel like a barnyard animal. Produce or hit the knackers. Since that's what I got at LizArd. And the really dumb pet store She said no. So I was a good boss. She's also my adopted little sister and one semester shy of a Ph.D. in genetics. I'm so proud of her. Not that she didn't do it on her own.

We walk the earth caringly, but not always knowingly.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

. (The store closest to us (no machine) usually just doesn't have baggers, making the checker both ring up and bag the stuff, which infuriates me.)

The store I use most often usually makes customers bag their own groceries. Each cashier has two slides to send groceries down, so that even if it takes twice as long to bag groceries as to ring them up, the line keeps moving.

Monica, do you use self-serve or full-serve gas? When I'm in a state like New Jersey with no self-serve, it always annoys me to sit in my car waiting for the attendant to get around to pumping my gas and swiping my credit card for me...

[amergina.livejournal.com]

I blame Walmart.

Grocery chains have had to cut costs to compete with Walmart, and one way to lower costs is to have less employees... hence, self scanners.

(note: this is my theory. I have not done research to back this up.)

Reasons I use the self-checkout

[ironangel]

- Cranky/inept cashiers. Much like other people have stated, I dislike dealing with inept or cranky staff. I worked at a grocery in MA after I lost my first job; even though it was a brainless job I was still able to do it and be pleasant despite how little I was being paid. In general, I don't like dealing with people, though.

- I can bag my own groceries. This is a big deal to me; even though I try to send the groceries in the order I want them bagged (cold things together, meat separate, etc) they rarely get bagged right. and if I get one more heavy sigh when I ask for paper...

- it's faster, for me. I generally know the codes I need, and I can scan pretty quickly. combined with the bagging skillz of el_gecko, this makes the trip faster for us.

I never really though about the social consequences. thanks for giving me something to think about :)

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

Many people, even in the face of very convenient examples of automation, would rather deal with actual humans rather than machines. I don't assume that someone having such a preference for interpersonal interaction is a Luddite, nor do I assume that someone preferring the efficiency of automation is a misanthrope.

As long as the government doesn't intervene one way or the other, I don't have a problem with whatever choices anyone makes in this regard.

[cellio]

I also want there to be a human available to intervene if necessary. The last time I took my car to be washed I got ripped off; the vending machine took my $6 but didn't dispense a wash, there was no attendant on site, and the posted phone number led to voice-mail oblivion (no return call). Needless to say, I won't be patronizing that particular provider again.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I am not a fan of the self-checkout grocery stands. It's mostly fine in cases where all the items have barcodes, but with produce I found that the human cashier who had memorized most of the codes was always faster than me having to look them up. I really didn't like the self-checkout at Home Depot. IIRC it has some way of sensing what has been put on the to-be-bagged area versus what you've scanned, and it got confused. No amount of moving stuff around, cancelling and rescanning, etc etc would unconfuse it. It was a huge nuisance and if I'd gone to the human cashier I would have been out of there faster.

[siderea]

There's a problem with your economic premise, and it's a weird-ass, frustrating psychological problem.

I'm speaking with both my anthropologist/psychologist hat on, and my Unlike Most People I Really Did Sell My Labor On The Open Labor Market Like Some S ort Of Libertarian Dream For Eleven Years.

In our culture (and for all I know other cultures as well) there's a deep, pre-conscious mapping of social status "worth" to the monetary "worth" of someone's time.

This flies in the face of High School Economi cs 101, which tells us that the price of something (such as labor) is a function of supply and demand. If the demand goes up, the price is supposed to go up.

Unfortunately, enormous number of people -- including employers -- have emotional resistance to the idea that a low status job earn over $x amount, where $x is personally determined. By "emotional resistance" I mean "would rather see their business go under".

There was a great example of this in an exchange in the Anne Landers column years ago. Someone had penned a rant about how little teachers are paid, pointing out "even" garbagemen are paid more. The wife of a garbageman wrote back a letter explaining, what a brutal, hard job it was, and how he earned his money. Yeah: more people want to be teachers than garbagemen, because it sucks even worse as a job; if there are fewer garbageman-labor-hours on the market they should cost more. Supply and demand. Labor is a commodity, too.

But people don't think that. They think the higher status a job is, the "nobler", the "more important to our society", the "better" it is, the higher it should be paid. The want the abstract value judgment of the worth of a position to society (or in society) to dictate how much that position sho u ld pay.

I cannot tell you how many times I've had the conversation with employers/clients, where they rant about the high costs of labor -- "She's only a secretary! How can we pay her more than a vice president!" -- and I've have to explain "welcome t o supply and demand". Especially during the tech boom. It was during that time that I became particularly enamored of the saying "Nothing offends an American businessman more than the sight of someone actually daring to practice capitalism."

Up the str eet from where I live, over the border into Arlington, there was a restaurant with a fantastic Sunday brunch, served buffet style. It was %50 more expensive than the average Sunday brunch in the area, but was full up both times I went. The second ti me I went, I inquired about their hours, and was told, "This is the last time we'll be open for brunch, we're giving up on it." I was agast (hate to lose a quality brunching spot) and asked why. "Can't afford waitstaff."

Hello, what? If your restauran t is full of customers and you need to pay your waitstaff more, raise your prices. But, no, apparently the thought of paying the waitstaff more caused the owner to feel "I can't afford that" instead of doing the obvious.

And (need I say it?) a couple of months after they stopped holding brunch, the business closed its doors for good.

Since these attitudes are widespread (and they are, apparently, widespread) it effects price collusion -- without any actual conspiracy. If everyone is emotionally unwilling to pay their low-status workers the market rate, to the point of being willing to go under instead, then you have de facto price fixing.

This is one of the two reasons I have come to appreciate unions. There's so much bellyaching about how unions force their industries to pay higher wages, but look what they're up against: an irrational prejudice against paying some sorts of workers in some sorts of jobs what would really be the market rate, which deforms the so-called "free market".
[more]]

(continuing to resist the urge not to argue)

[sethg]

There is a theory that employers of low-wage workers have monopsony power, i.e., there are far more people looking for work than employers looking for workers, so the few employers can hire workers for less than what they'd have to pay under perfect competition. If this theory is true, and if employers under perfect competition would be paying low-wage workers at least the minimum wage, then the minimum wage is just compensating for employers' monopsony power, and it is not responsible for unemployment.

The book Myth and Measurement argues for this theory with some empirical evidence: looking at what happened to employment statistics when one state raised its minimum wage and a neighboring state did not. Of course, not everybody is convinced.

I report, you decide.

continued

[siderea]

This is also one of the points of evidence in my observation that "the problem with expecting 'enlightened self-interest' is not merely expecting enlightenment, but that most people have trouble figuring out what their own self-interest is." Wh en it is a widespread phenomenon that businesses would rather commit hari kari than engage in a free market of labor, capitalism cannot work.

As usual, the problem with a beautiful abstract system (in this case capitalism) is humans.

I like the spirit of your idea of guaranteed income (mandate X, govm't pays the diff between X and Y) instead of a minimum wage. I would expect Libertarians to scream bloody murder about that sort of social program (it has a cash handout and everything), but you're the second one to come up with it in my hearing.

But doesn't guaranteeing an income mean that employers will start to rely on it to make up the difference, and become even more unwilling to pay a living wage? If you think (and I don't know you do; many Liberta rians do) that people are lazy and will suck on the public teat instead of working, given half a chance, just wait till you see how businesses behave. At least people have shame about taking charity, and out of pride will try to get themselves off it. Businesses have absolutely no such compunction.

s

part 1

[cellio]

Hmm. I wonder how common this meme of "go out of business rather than pay market labor price" is. It comes as a surprise to me (because it's really pretty stupid and self-destructive when you examine it), but I haven't been part of that dynamic (on either side of the paycheck) so I could well be out of touch.

Did the buffet owner who wasn't willing to pay more than $X/hour for waitstaff consider hiring more waitstaff (rather than paying the existing ones more)? Or was there also some meme about the "correct" number to have, in addition to the "correct" price?

But people don't think that. They think the higher status a job is, the "nobler", the "more important to our society", the "better" it is, the higher it should be paid.

And yet, if you ask them which professions are "noblest" or "best for society", they'll rank teachers and nurses much higher than, say, IT professionals. While there's some correlation between salary and perceived worth, I think it may be more complicated than what you're describing.

You have a good point about non-conspiratorial price-fixing. If this "worth ceiling" is widespread, it would produce that effect.

There's so much bellyaching about how unions force their industries to pay higher wages, but look what they're up against: an irrational prejudice against paying some sorts of workers in some sorts of jobs what would really be the market rate, which deforms the so-called "free market".

This is complicated by unions' job-protection-in-excess-of-demand tactic, though, which is a perversion of the free market in its own right. Locally, the unions are getting very cranky because the city, which is shrinking in population, wants to eliminate some public-service positions. This has nothing to do with wages and everything to do with keeping now-superfluous police officers (etc) on the payroll.

Unions do have a real problem to contend with -- low wages in the face of "disposable people" (there's always a pool of cheap labor somewhere if you don't care about churn). Overall, though, in the last couple decades I'm not sure they've been a net gain for workers.

Sorry; that was a tangent.

[continued]

[sethg]

requirements for high minimum wages are also a bad idea

must ... resist ... urge ... to ... argue ...

:-)

[cellio]

You might find the discussion siderea and I are having (above) interesting, then. :-)

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a line from an old humor article:

"Real Programmers insist on scanning their own items at the grocery store checkout, because you just can't trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time."

I admit that I like the self-scan express lanes at those few stores near me that have them. I know how to use them, so it can be a major time-saver for me. But if there are lines all round, I'll go stand in line for a real cashier.

And I *would* be willing to pay higher prices for places that hired enough people to keep the lines moving smoothly. The supermarket industry is one of the most cutthroat in the country, though. Sigh.

[cellio]

And I *would* be willing to pay higher prices for places that hired enough people to keep the lines moving smoothly. The supermarket industry is one of the most cutthroat in the country, though. Sigh.

Me too. My requirements of a grocery store are, in order:
- be open at the times I want to shop
- have almost all of the stuff I want under one roof
- have human staff
- be cheap

self checkout AND real people

[murmur311.livejournal.com]

I probably use the self checkout and an actually cashier equally. If I just have a few items and I'm in a hurry, I usually go for the self checkout- I can use my check/ATM/credit card without having to sign anything and can thus be through the line in about 2 minutes. When I do my actual weekly shopping, I use the cashier because I think there's an item limit at the self checkout and I don't wish to hold other people up.

I'm not sure that the self checkouts have cut down on actual humans in my store- where there would normally be two staffed checkout lanes with two cashiers (there are rarely baggers, except for peak times on the weekend), there are now 4 express self checkouts staffed by one person, thus, in my opinion, actually freeing up another cashier to be at a regular lane.

I don't think that automation in this respect is a bad thing. I think it keeps tempers down and allows people to move through stores much quicker. I find that I'll use a store more often if I know they've got a self checkout.

That's just me, though. I realize I'm from a generation where things have always been more automated than previously- I personally have never had to deal without ATMs and the like.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

"How can you think about installing flush toilets - do you know how many chambermaids you will put out of work???"

[cellio]

I hope you will grant that the value-add from flush toilets over chamber pots is rather more significant than that from automated grocery scanners. :-)