I used to feel sorry for the checkout staff at major grocery stores because most of them worked for minimum wage, and were restricted on the number of hours they could work each week, in some cases forcing them to hold two or more part-time jobs just to make ends meet. Then I looked at the self-checkout lines and for the first time realized that they were worse off than the part-time employees.
The shoppers going through the self-checkout were actually performing this service for the grocery store for no compensation. In other words, they were performing work that the regular checkout staff were paid a wage for, but they got nothing in return, other than a vague sense that they were saving time by doing the checkouts themselves.
Here is a case in point.
Go to the grocery store with a friend and each of you buy the same item. Then one of you go through the self-checkout and one go through the cashiered checkout. When you meet on the other side one of you will have done all the work necessary for the self-checkout, and the other was provided a cashier, and a bagging service etc.
So the obvious question is who benefited from this little charade. The grocery store is the winner because at any given moment they have their customers working for them for nothing. To the best of my knowledge, there is no price reduction for customers who check out their own groceries. At the very least, they should be compensated a percentage of the savings by doing this work for the grocery store. The idea that by doing this work yourself you are saving time is only true some of the time. At other times when it is busy, you can actually spend more time in a self-checkout line than in a cashiered and bagging service line.
If the major grocery stores have done studies on self-checkouts, and I am sure they have, then it would be nice to see the results, so we can determine if this process actually provides any service to customers.
My take on the whole situation is that it is nothing more than a convoluted way to get the consumers to do the work and maximize the profits for the companies.
What really makes all this so much worse is that it is not just the grocery stores. We have governments having us fill out all kinds of forms to get benefits and other services that used to be done by government staff. Buying your car insurance online and filing for your homeowner grant are just a few of the many things we do on a regular basis for no compensation and to make matters worse, there is no indication that we save any money by doing this work. Getting any reduction in taxes, government fees etc. is rare indeed, as it seems this saved money just goes into the black hole of government spending.
It seems that these days we spend most of our time waiting in a line somewhere for a service that we have paid for in the price of the product we are purchasing but the service no longer exists. This includes banks, major stores, government entities, fast food outlets, etc. We have been reduced to nothing more than a pain in the butt by the very people who should be looking after us through the concept of customer service.
We need to get back on track in this country and start to create meaningful work and wages that allow people to actually buy goods and services. Quality jobs and good wages will drive this economy much more than having people standing around in line ups all day to provide a service to themselves, that they have already paid for in the cost of the product they are purchasing.
One would hope that the business sector in Canada would take the initiative and do the right things to get this country back on track. What’s the chance of that happening? If they don't, then I suggest we stop doing their work for nothing and insist that we get a portion of their savings.
Eric Allen is a Prince George writer.
