ASDA Self-Service Tills

[silentP 10]

But when you are stood there for ten minutes whilst a machine shouts at you just because you have the temerity to buy a bottle of wine or some hayfever tablets and the "staff" are too busy chatting or generally being rubbish then technology ceases to be an advancement of society and becomes a curse.

 

Not me, I'm blessed with an abundance of patience and my days of rushing have been kicked in to touch

[cytine 40]

Anyone who believes that supermarkets are using technology to benefit the customer by cutting prices are deluding themselves. Job cuts and technology are being used purely to increase profit nothing else.

[Guest makapaka]

Anyone who believes that supermarkets are using technology to benefit the customer by cutting prices are deluding themselves. Job cuts and technology are being used purely to increase profit nothing else.

 

Absolutely - they've basically taken out a big part of the service they provided and given it the customer to do.

[silentP 10]

Absolutely - they've basically taken out a big part of the service they provided and given it the customer to do.

 

Hotels do likewise at breakfast time, restaurants and pubs do self serve meals, petrol stations gave up using pump attendants years ago, we have auto car wash. We take all these for granted now.

[Robin-H 11]

Hotels do likewise at breakfast time, restaurants and pubs do self serve meals, petrol stations gave up using pump attendants years ago, we have auto car wash. We take all these for granted now.

 

Breakfasts are traditionally self service. 'A gentleman is never waited on at breakfast'. (Gosford Park)

[Core 10]

First world problems

 

Many used to say self-checkout was the future..

 

Well how about no checkout?

 

Feast your eyes on this:

 

That's some freaky <removed>

Thank you for the link. I never heard of this before.

[Guest makapaka]

Hotels do likewise at breakfast time, restaurants and pubs do self serve meals, petrol stations gave up using pump attendants years ago, we have auto car wash. We take all these for granted now.

 

Just because there are more examples of the same thing doesn't make it ok though does it?

[Guest]

And that it is quite right and proper that jobs become obsolete when technology enables things to be automated. Stopping progress due to someone having to retrain or change jobs will result in stagnation.

 

Using your example, digital camera technology has resulted in hundreds of benefits - the following from a very quick google search:

 

Medical research & diagnosis (instant imaging, analysis & non-invasive imaging),

Entertainment industries (digital distribution),

Citizen journalism,

Environmental / weather monitoring (satellite imagary & transmission) which saves lives through advanced warning & crop prediction

Forensics & law enforcement

Physics & astrophysics (with massive knock on benefits to pretty much every other area of life)

Manufacturing processes of pretty much EVERY electronic device

 

Quite apart from the massively reduced environmental impact of personal photography by eliminating the processing of camera film itself.

 

The same will apply to every technology advance. If they hid the technology because some people would have to retrain or change jobs, we'd be worse off.

 

Looking purely at supermarket checkouts, the supermarkets are under significant cost driven competition. If they can cut their costs and offer lower prices by using more self scan checkouts, it's the consumer who benefits.

 

I'm all for efficiency but I don't want us to become a society of automatons.

 

The last sentence of your final paragraph is the funniest thing I've read all week btw.

[the_bloke 17]

Asda at Walkley don't always have someone on the tills, so you have no choice and have to use the self service check out.

 

You do have a choice, you can shop somewhere else.

[silentP 10]

Just because there are more examples of the same thing doesn't make it ok though does it?

 

Nah! Probably not but it's all I had

[JIMMY8008 10]

Sometime back the self service till at Asda Chaucer short changed me £2!

The assistant said oh it happens all the time it will have run out of change! Then left the till open for the next customer, without refilling the change and went off doing something else.

[Lex Luthor 10]

My dad always says what he thinks lol. In Morrisons he had a full trolley and was told to go use the self service tills. In his no holds bared way he informed them either they open a till and process his shopping or they were putting the stuff back on the shelves lol. They opened a till lol

 

Good on him! I think everyone should do the same.