Wednesday 6 December 2006

How very dare they?

I was the first to reject the concept of the "Fast track" checkout. You know the ones. You scan all of your shopping as you put it in the trolley with some kind of gun thing. You take everything to the checkout and pay for your goods once they've downloaded the information about what's in your trolley.

I thought it was an outrageous attempt to reduce staff numbers so, since the introduction of Fast track, I have refused to sign up.

I've ignored the fact that the fast trackers have zero queues and I've stuck with plain, relatively old fashioned, checkouts.

Well this evening I came across the next level. I read about this in someone else's blog but I didn't quite believe it.

Customers take their items to a checkout. The shopper has to scan them and pack them and all the while there's an annoying computer generated voice giving you inane instructions.

And then the customer has to pay, a machine, either inserting card or cash. And the machine spits out the card, or change, and a receipt.

How dare they get rid of people? It's not like these people were working in a soulless manufacturing environment in isolation, they were in a social job, helping people.

Anyway – I won't be shopping there anymore.

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