You may have seen the following meme that has been circulated widely on social media, usually by way of copying and pasting, that rails against the change from supermarkets employing cashiers to ‘self-check-out’. It certainly appeals to a certain demographic, which I’ll come to in a minute, but first here’s the meme itself:
“To all the Supermarkets and big commercial stores that operate ‘Self Check-outs’……. You are heading towards almost exclusively self-checkout now. Yesterday I went shopping at one such store and the lady checking receipts at the exit was stopping everyone.
I didn’t choose to participate in that nonsense, I had already filled my trolly, emptied my trolly and scanned the items, refilled my trolly and so I just skipped the exit line and left.
I heard her saying “Umm – Excuse me “ as I kept walking and raised the receipt above my head, leaving the store.
You can either trust me to do self-checkout, or you can put your cashiers back in place like it used to be.
• I’m not interested in proving that I did your job for you.
• If you want me to be a cashier with no training then that’s your problem not mine.
• Keep employing young people and give them job opportunities.
YOU DON’T PAY ME TO SCAN MY OWN SHOPPING.
YOU DON’T GIVE ME STAFF DISCOUNT FOR WORKING FOR YOU.
Signed ……All of us
People we need to share this statement its basically about PROFIT to the stores AND putting People out of a JOB….!!!”
I’ll say at the outset that this incident never happened. I can’t guarantee that to be the case since the meme creator has provided the bare minimum of detail, doesn’t give any geographical detail (not even the hint of a country, although the misspelled use of ‘trolly’ suggests it’s not America where they use shopping carts) or even the supermarket concerned. It looks totally made up to me, almost certainly by someone who hates the idea of change in supermarkets from cashiers to self-check-out. For a variety of reasons, I don’t feel the same as the meme creator.
If he or she – the author makes no mention of gender, so for convenience purposes I’ll refer to ‘him’ for the rest of this blog – really behaved like that to a supermarket worker, I’d be appalled and had I been in the vicinity I would have challenged him. It just isn’t on being so downright rude and aggressive to someone who will probably be a hard-working, low paid member of staff. But here’s the thing: part of the deal at self-check-outs is the possibility that you will be subject to a random check of your shopping. It has happened to my partner, it’s a bit of a pain in the arse but there is currently an epidemic of thievery through supermarkets and shops of all kinds and this is one way of discouraging it. Things are so bad at Waitrose that they give free coffee to police officers because the presence of a police car discourages shoplifters.
The main point, surely, is that supermarkets use self-check-out because they make more money – that, by the way, is the very reason supermarkets and all other businesses exist in the first place – and for very many of us it’s a quicker and more convenient way of shopping. While it’s true to say that some people’s shopping habits aren’t changing, many people’s are.
Take us. We have our Big Shop delivered to the door. Doubtless the creator of the above meme opposes that, too, because more supermarket jobs are displaced than driver jobs created, but it suits us. I would much rather do my shopping on line and have it delivered to our house than go through the hassle of driving to a busy supermarket, filling up a trolley full of goods, emptying it again at the till, then filling it up again before emptying it into the car and then taking it out of the car … do you get the idea, now? If we want a few ‘top-up’ shops, we can do it during the week at – yes, self-check-out tills. I would not want it any other way.
However, many people, usually of more mature years, do not want to shop on-line and prefer to do their Big Shop at a supermarket and even pay by way of cash. Now that is absolutely fine and dandy and there are the facilities for people do do their shopping that way. If at some time a supermarket chooses to go cash-free and even totally self-check-out, you can bet your bottom dollar other supermarkets will be keen to attract their custom. What some people seem to forget is that we live in the kind of society we vote for, a free enterprise, capitalist country whereby businesses, in this instance supermarkets, are free to conduct businesses as they choose. In other words, it really is all about the money, money, money.
As for the effect on supermarket workers, I have a view on that, too. “Keep employing young people and give them job opportunities,” says the meme creator. Oh really? The highest paid supermarket workers can be found at Aldi and Lidl who both pay all staff aged 24 or over £11.40 an hour. Morrisons prop up the pay league by paying their staff a piffling £10.40 an hour. How does that fit in with the “Keep employing young people” slogan, because that’s all it is? That’s £10.40 an hour whenever you work, evenings and weekends included. Anyone who has done supermarket cashier work – and years ago I did – knows it’s utterly grim and repetitive. Try to get on the housing ladder in free enterprise Britain on those wages. They should be much higher, of course they should be, but how much extra would you be prepared to pay for your shopping to pay for it?
With the initial meme, I put myself in the place of the low paid supermarket worker having to deal with the very rude customer railing against self check-out, a customer who deliberately chose to use self check-out by the way, and was doing their job as instructed. How would I feel? Possibly a little embarrassed and upset and wondering why, instead of making my life harder, they had not raised the matter with local managers and then with national bosses and shareholders. You could then argue until you’re blue in the face with people who probably don’t give a toss, but that’s the time to remember that this is the society you chose (well, not me: I don’t vote Conservative, ever, but the wider point still stands).
If you don’t like self check-out, then don’t use it. Go to a shop – or store as the meme creator calls it – where you have the opportunity to queue to see a real cashier. And if you are worried, check on the way in to make sure you can be served by a cashier. Usually, the answer will be yes you can to which I would add, “but why would you want to?”
