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

[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.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Yeah, everywhere I've been, there's a limit. Even when we lived in Baltimore. I can't imagine the system otherwise. The bags are on scales so they know you haven't shoplifted -- and there is a maximum number of bags (usually 3-4) that can be part of each unit. (The need to prevent theft is another aspect of "service" that I think puts a limit on how much these things can be used.)

Produce is not such a problem -- there are touch screens to go through to get what you want.

[cellio]

Ah. Ours are configured differently. Beyond the scanning area is a conveyor belt that leads to a bagging area. There is, apparently, a scale built into that belt (or the lead part of it). If the bagging area fills up you have to pause and bag some of your stuff to get it out of the way, but people can and do go through them with full carts.

Produce is slow because if you don't have the PLC on a sticker (or if you do but the damn print is too small to read, not that I'm bitter) you have to page through several screens to find what you're looking for, because (say) "N-P" is 4 screens and you can't jump straight to "O" for your onions, and sometimes you don't know how something will be listed anyway. (Green onions? Onions, green? Scallions?)

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Sounds unpleasant. Well, then people won't use them anyway. (Moral) Problem solved!

[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...

[cellio]

Here, the odds of getting a bagger at Giant Eagle are about 50-50 for me at the times I shop. Otherwise, the cashier bags and I help. At Kosher Mart the cashier bags during the time it takes for the credit card to be processed. (I don't know why their machine is so much slower to approve.)

Monica, do you use self-serve or full-serve gas?

Self-serve. I never really thought about the effect of that on the folks who pump gas. Not all gas stations around here even offer full-serve.