Having a moan!

[joe cassidy]

Strange, I've never seen beer or wine for sale in any bakeries or butchers around here...unless I've been distracted by the cakes!
Dave

You should visit Paris now and again.

The shops don't close at lunchtime here either.

[njee20]

Sorry, I am. Just like Nick's example I'm also happy putting petrol in my own car, making phone calls without the operator helping, and producing my own documents at work without calling on the typing pool.

Absolutely nothing personal other than replying to your particular post but I'm sure many are of the same opinion and some modernising certainly make things quicker and easier but I wonder how many would have the same opinion if it was their boss that decided their customers could do their job just as well and for free and subsequently make them redundant.

How far are you prepared to go with doing things yourself? Let's use petrol as an extreme example as it has been cited twice.

You're happy to pay at the pump as well as filling your car yourself, fine, but lets take it a step further.

The petrol company sees these economies are working so thinks to themselves how else can they save money. People want petrol and are prepared to do things themselves and it costs us millions every year transporting the petrol from our refinery so how about stopping that so the public have to come to the refinery themselves to fill up. People need petrol so they would have no choice.
We spend millions refining our petrol so lets stop. The public can do it themselves.
We spend millions shipping the oil from overseas. The public can do it themselves.

Yes, I know it's extreme as I mentioned but where will things end? Where is the line when people will say enough is enough?

Going back to supermarkets all I see are long queues at the few remaining tills as people have full trolleys whilst the self service ones remain underused as they are not practical for trolleys and those that are using them are constantly seeking assistance to solve problems.

I think the key thing is that it's about convenience. I get that there's a cost saving, and that's the underlying driver, but I use self service checkouts because I find them more convenient for the handful of items I'm nearly always buying; when I'm buying a sandwich at M&S it's quicker than going to a manned till. There's no obligation. I fill my own car with petrol because I find it more convenient. Slightly bizarrely the Shell garage on the A3 at Liphook still had attendents to fill your car a year or so ago (and presumably still do), but by the time they've walked over, asked which fuel you want, and started pumping I prefer to do it myself. It's not like I can do anything else with that time, so you just stand there slightly awkwardly while they do it for you.

Making you go to the refinery (or refining the petrol) isn't convenience, and I get it's a daft strawman for effect, but it's not a realistic evolution IMO.

I'd like to hope that I'd see it coming if my boss decided my job could be done by the public, but it seems futile to resist it in the interests of nostalgia and personal motivation. I have been made redundant several times (not replaced by the public attmitedly), and I've moved on, got a new job, and got on with it. There are a load of roles that I'd be concerned about right now; no point pretending it's going to stop. I don't mean that to sound callous, I totally get why it's an emotive topic, and evidently I don't actively want people to lose their jobs!

[ntpntpntp]

I work in IT for a holiday company, so you can imagine the predicament we're in     

We'd just had a round of company-wide restructuring/simplification redundancies just before Covid kicked in, then had to furlough loads of bods as well.   I've lost several good friends/colleagues and tbh the company has lost a lot of valuable experience in the job roles which the remaining staff will take a while to gain back.    The core of us still actively working are pretty much all working from home, and the company see this as the way forward anyway.

[Adam1701D]

I used to work in IT for a major travel company until exactly a year ago when Thomas Cook went bust. Being the wrong side of fifty, I've found it really hard to find more work since but am currently on a contract performing IT support for a retail chain.

We've been working from home since late March and it is great. We have a shared Citrix environment, so we can do everything from home we could in the office, but the loss of face to face interaction is a shame. Looks like this will be ongoing for at least another six months. Thank god for Railcam

[woodbury22uk]

A bit late to the party on this one. I have been out doing the shopping. Shop and scan using the handheld terminal. Picked up and scanned 66 items, and packed them in my bags so they could be conveniently unpacked when I got home. So all the chilled items together. Salad items together. etc.  Checking out took a minute, and I did not have to handle the stuff onto the belt and then pack it in the bags as the tide of items came towards me. Extra side benefit is picking up frozen items last and putting them into a freezer bag so they are out of the freezer environment for the minimum amount of time.

I cannot think of a good reason to do it another way. My time has a value to me, and queuing, loading a conveyor belt, and loading shopping bags haphazardly at the other end of the belt, is not an enhancing experience. The store has increased staff numbers almost every year, whilst introducing self checkout, and shop and scan, so I do not think I am having an adverse effect on people's jobs.

I recall back in the 1960s and 1970s when you joined a queue to be served at Sainsbury's counter. The assistant took my list and gradually put together what I wanted. If it had been 66 items, I cannot imagine how long it would have taken. Today's shop took 60 minutes from the moment I left the house to when I returned, including the 6 mile round trip in the car.

People have been losing their jobs and finding new ones since forever. I was made redundant 7 times in my first 20 years at work - though not once in the last 18 years. I would prefer not to waste my time hanging around in a supermarket in case scanning myself will one day lead to someone having to change their job. Maybe someone will suggest that I should drop litter in the street to keep the street cleaners in a job. But then maybe not.

[themadhippy]

the difference in diy petrol and self scanning in a supermarket is most  petrol stations are run as a small independent company,even if they sell the same flavor of fuel ,not a countrywide chain whos only intention is to wipe out the competition and decimate local independent traders.

[guest311]

I always use self scan, as apart from anything else, it allows me to check that the price on the item is actually the same as the price on the shelf, certainly on our local Tescos I've found a few differences.

the other advantage is that I can check that promotions come off when they should, again not a forgone conclusion.

[steve836]

A bit late to the party on this one. I have been out doing the shopping. Shop and scan using the handheld terminal. Picked up and scanned 66 items, and packed them in my bags so they could be conveniently unpacked when I got home. So all the chilled items together. Salad items together. etc.  Checking out took a minute, and I did not have to handle the stuff onto the belt and then pack it in the bags as the tide of items came towards me. Extra side benefit is picking up frozen items last and putting them into a freezer bag so they are out of the freezer environment for the minimum amount of time.

I cannot think of a good reason to do it another way. My time has a value to me, and queuing, loading a conveyor belt, and loading shopping bags haphazardly at the other end of the belt, is not an enhancing experience. The store has increased staff numbers almost every year, whilst introducing self checkout, and shop and scan, so I do not think I am having an adverse effect on people's jobs.

I recall back in the 1960s and 1970s when you joined a queue to be served at Sainsbury's counter. The assistant took my list and gradually put together what I wanted. If it had been 66 items, I cannot imagine how long it would have taken. Today's shop took 60 minutes from the moment I left the house to when I returned, including the 6 mile round trip in the car

People have been losing their jobs and finding new ones since forever. I was made redundant 7 times in my first 20 years at work - though not once in the last 18 years. I would prefer not to waste my time hanging around in a supermarket in case scanning myself will one day lead to someone having to change their job. Maybe someone will suggest that I should drop litter in the street to keep the street cleaners in a job. But then maybe not.

I'm totally with you on this, or at least would be if I were not isolating and doing my shop on line because of covid. Am thinking, perhaps will not go back to physically going to the shops even after this is over. Perhaps this will save me time and give someone a job doing my shopping for me.