Self-Service

We might not always realize it but the reality is that we increasingly work for big companies – without pay. We are now battling a world of self-service so corporations can operate with as small a staff as possible.

            All because of technology, of course. Companies are taking advantage of the fact that the public can do a lot of unpaid work and thus add to their bottom line. Think about it: while ATMs are very convenient they make us do the work of actual tellers. And we now have to pump our own gas unless we take the trouble of finding filling stations that still serve customers. And when we vacation we are actually travel agents as we search for deals on line; we even print out our own boarding passes.

And we have to book tickets to all sorts of events and concerts on line, and if we encounter a problem it takes forever to get an actual person on the phone to solve the issue.

In recent years, grocery stores have been installing self-serve stations in the hope, I suppose, of one day being able to do business without any staff. That day is already here because grocery stores that operate without any cashiers are actually being tested. Purchases are automatically registered through a hand-held device as items are touched. But be warned, if you help another customer put an item in their cart, you will be billed as if you had purchased it because your device will read it.

Is self-serve efficient? One day when the lines to the actual cashiers were long, I tried the self-serve option. As research has found time after time people scanning their own items takes forever compared with a trained cashier. I was no exception, and I had to wait for an actual person to enter the right code for a discounted item because the machine didn’t trust me. The gall! I decided that in the future I’d wait in line for a real live cashier. After all when spending money in a store, the least I should expect is being treated as a customer not an employee.

Many younger people have not known real service so they don’t miss it, but the end result is that they are losing human contact just as we all are. We may not think so, but even brief exchanges with cashiers and tellers do link us. The self-serve world is becoming much lonelier. It seems to me that there will eventually be a price to pay because I am old fashioned when it comes to our need to interface with other humans.

Experts warn us that healthy aging must include socializing yet life is becoming more and more home centered. Retired individuals who live alone or far from family will surely suffer the most from the lack of contacts, however brief, in our changing society. People don’t go out to movies anymore because there are so many entertainment options on their television. And shopping is done online and delivered, including meals, without our having to talk to anyone. Texting instead of phoning further reduces social interactions.

The experts have it right: chatting even briefly with others while shopping is socializing that is good for our mental health. If the trend continues and people hardly talk to each other I believe the world will be faced with increasingly poor aging.