Comments on: Random Musing: Technology vs. workers

By: Edward Harrison

Edward Harrison — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:17:00 +0000

I guess this is a sign of our times for sure. The fact that the machine is more polite than the average cashier says something too.

In truth, I find the Indian customer service reps also more courteous than US ones, but not more so than UK ones.

As for Waitrose, the US is so far behind Europe in that kind of technology. I have been card swiping on my first direct account since, what, 1998?

Think back to some other professionals who were automated out of existence: telephone operators, elevator operators, and bank tellers.

And remember the days when you had to go to a bank and get a wire transfer or to Western Union to get money overseas?

It seems cashiers are next on that list. Any others I'm forgetting about?

Oh yes, airport tram conductors.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:47:00 +0000

Home Depot and Harris Teeter (supermarket) has been doing this for a couple of years.

I believe it is unfortunate (& a sign of our times) that machines now provide better service than humans.

By: dearieme

dearieme — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:14:00 +0000

“sign”! We do it all by card-swiping at Waitrose, have done for years now.

By: Edward Harrison

Edward Harrison — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:20:00 +0000

I probably misremembered the “Nice to meet you bit”, but it is a lot more courteous and helpful than the human variety and obviously quicker.’

Automatic cashier machines are the new automatic teller machine

By: yellerKat

yellerKat — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:21:00 +0000

Please tell me it doesn’t say “Nice to meet you…have a nice day!”