I like using the self-checkout when it's available, but only because most people don't --- and so the lines are so much shorter.


Don't get me wrong. I was a cashier at a few of my early jobs. But the truth is, "civilians" can do it. I can't see employers footing the bill for expensive labor when a machine will do the trick. I don't like that, but it's an economic fact.


The companies will only notice the problem caused by eliminating so many jobs when there aren't enough employed people left to be their customers.

But that's going to take a while. Till then, more misery everywhere.

As long as people give feedback regarding their service, and if the bosses pay attention to satisfaction, they'll work hard to make themselves heard clearly.

It's all out of Snow Crash. If this kind of stuff continues to escalate we'll have a second rise of unions, much as the industrial revolution brought on unions 100 years ago. Too bad this isn't the case in most other places in the world and will just make us even weaker in the world marketplace, as other countries continue to exploit their workforces.

As someone who works with self-checkout technology, I don't see this as an insult to my station. It would be an insult to everyone's intelligence if these jobs that have been rendered so simple anyone can do them still required salaried people to do them.

I've probably posted this before. I love it when I get a patron who comes to the desk and says "I came to you because I want you to keep your job." I smile, scan their card with one hand and pull their stack of books onto the pad with the other. After 2 seconds, I push the books back. "Due in 3 weeks." They blink and sputter, saying, "is that it?" Yes, yes it is.

It's easy for me to say, since there are still plenty of tasks at the library that require my help. But while I hate it when anyone loses their job, I'd also not want to pay for salaries when the jobs really aren't necessary.

I came up with a silly analogy for this. Let's say that there was no paper technology. All information had to carved onto tablets or written on slates or simply remembered. If you wanted to remember lots of things you'd have to hire people to remember them for you. A string of rememberers would follow you all day long. If someone invented paper, it would mean joblessness for all those employees, but it would be really stupid to ignore such an innovation.

On the one hand I would never work in a call center because for the most part unless you are in executive customer service it is most certainly soul sucking dehumanizing work.

On the other hand I understand the urge to drive every inefficiency out of call center operations. A department I work with (no involvement by me really) recently rewrote a simple script so that it is four seconds shorter. It is expected that this will save $300,000 over the course of a year.

I know it sucks but it is just like working an assembly line (which I have done).

As for McDonald's doing this for drive-thru, so long as it works I don't really care but it won't impact me much anyway. Regardless of quality of the drive-thru order taker I don't trust them to put my order together correctly anyway so unless that's all that is open I go inside and order so I can watch it come together.

I wonder if you'll be able to order Mango Lassi's or Channa Masala..

Hawai'i McDonald's sell saimin so that would make Lani happy.

Don't get the roquefort chicken sandwich that they sell in Italy. Lani said that was gross. But Japan's filet o' shrimp wasn't bad.

I'm not sure outsourcing to India would provide speakers that are any less clear than what the drive-thru already presents. In fact, it might be an improvement!

McDonald's in Nova Scotia sell McLobster sandwiches. They were interesting.

Now that I think about it my last McDonald's drive-thru experience was something like:

Speaker: Can I take your order?
Me: <gives order ending with "that's all">
Order has been displaying on monitor while I talk.
Speaker: That'll be $X at the second window.

A little bit of recorded audio and some voice recognition software and it may have passed the Turing Test for all I know.

Ditto. Mainly because they NEVER put enough ice in my drink.

Didn't fast food restaurants already do this before and gave up on it? The old two-window method? One person sitting at the first windows, doing nothing but taking orders over the headset and taking money. No one does that anymore. There are thousands of fast food restaurants with useless windows. I'm guessing there's a reason for it. I wonder if that reason will be rediscovered.