Confession time. Am about to do an about-face* on CVS’s self-service, checkout stations. When I first wrote about their sudden appearance in CVS stores in October, I was not thrilled about taking on the role of cashier and working for free. Nor was I enthusiastic about dealing with cobbled together self-checkout stations that always seemed to be breaking down. Lastly, I’m big on simplicity and the whole self-checkout process felt like just another unnecessary annoyance.
So I continued to stand in the lone human cashier checkout line while other customers steadily gravitated to the self-checkout stations. Then one day the line waiting for our Homo sapien cashier appeared to snake half way to the Bronx, while the adjoining self-checkout stations were wide open and free. So boom — I waltzed over and began my relationship with the one-note, female robot voice who guides customers through the check out process.
There were of course early glitches — not inserting the CVS card to register the discount sale price, inserting coins AFTER bills contrary to mademoiselle robot’s instructions, etc. But once the talking robot and I got on the same wavelength, the checkout process turned out to be smooth and surprisingly, happily FAST. Way faster than the old days of one lone, slow motion cashier languidly servicing a long line of cranky, impatient customers.
These days, those human cashiers have pretty much vamoosed. Instead, a single student- age employee usually hangs out around the self-checkout area to assist customers with any problems. Their training seems limited, however, as far as being able to answer any questions about store products. Sometimes too, they mysteriously vanish, leaving no CVS representative at the front of the store. It’s just a few customers and the checkout robots constantly repeating their spiels. A dull, listless, even draining atmosphere–like all that empty space in so many other stores when you’re trudging up and down aisles in vain search for sales help. And even when you finally dig up a sales clerk (or sales “associate” in those stores putting on the Ritz) they’re often chatting among themselves or into their cell phones. Which is the same thing as not being there.
Is that what’s heading our way? The eventual extinction from stores of all sales clerks? Is it going to be just us and the robots?
*On the subject of consistency, Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
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- Does Lack of Love Lurk behind a Big Spender?
- Hocus Pocus Food Prices and Packaging
- Tales of Big Apple Shoplifters
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