this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
1453 points (96.4% liked)
memes
10217 readers
1605 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The 'job killers' argument is kinda bullshit. I want to kill jobs - I want to eliminate all labor that can be automated, such that in the ideal perfect future, no human ever has to work; they can spend every moment doing things they enjoy without worry.
But self checkout is not automation. No human work has been eliminated. It is the same exact fucking checkout process, only now the customer does it instead, and the store doesn't pay the cashier. And no they don't pass that savings on to you because of course they don't, they just pocket the difference.
That's all true, but just to be a bit nitpicky I'd argue some human work has indeed been eliminated by self checkout.
Cashiers main job is to scan your stuff, but in order to do that they also have to stand around waiting for you and other customers for hours on end, and when you arrive they have to do emotional labor of acting cheerful and upbeat
Still I wish we didn't live in a society where increased efficiency leads to people being homeless with no jobs.
There's at the very least a lot of social and managerial pressure to act cheerful. Even if you didn't do it, many people would because it's effectively required of them. Something being technically a choice doesn't remove the social pressures that make many feel that it's not a choice. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if it's been used as rationale to fire people before, which means that for some, it isn't a choice (and most people are scared of losing their jobs, so won't try to find out).
In tipped roles, it would definitely result in less pay.
I can't think of the last time someone working a register was anything more than polite. 99.9% of the time, we don't speak in any meaningful way. Their work neither adds value to nor takes value from my day. Which, to be clear, makes me want their jobs to be much, much better. At least give them something to sit on, for goodness sake.
It's a choice right up until you get fired or reprimanded for not meeting some arbitrary criteria
There will be a screenshot of this comment in a murder documentary someday.