The advance of technology helps facilitate our lives a great deal, but do we pay a high price when it comes to relying on the machines way more than we should?
In order to speed up the process of running errands and shopping for groceries, Walmart introduced self-checkouts. What they didn’t expect, however, is to face backlash because of this decision that many of the customers consider controversial.
The self-service machines aren’t something new. In fact, they were first introduced in the 1980s to lower labor expenses.
But this service faced plenty of obstacles and customers complain to the added responsibilities.
For example, certain items may have multiple barcodes, whereas the produce, including the meat, fruit, and vegetable, typically needs to be weighed and manually entered into the system using a code, which might be time consuming for the ordinary shoppers. Other times shoppers won’t hear the “beep” confirming an item has been scanned properly.
Another issue is the increase of theft. Walmart announced that thefts at its stores has reached an all-time high.
The machines not only fall short at their purpose of making shopping easier at times, but they also make it harder for the employees they were meant to help.
Christopher Andrews, a sociologist and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy, says the system “doesn’t work well for anyone.”
He continued: “Everyone feels like they have to have it. Companies are thinking: ‘If we can just get more people on this, maybe we can start reducing some overheads.’”
What’s most, most of the customers have reported that they miss the human interaction while shopping.
Randy Parraz from Making Change at Walmart perfectly summed up customer sentiments by saying, “You can’t convince customers to do the job of a cashier just because you don’t want to pay for the work.”
Walmart decided to listen to what their customers had to say and instead of further expanding automation, the retail giant will hire additional cashiers to provide their customers with a pleasant shopping experience and service.
What Walmart and the rest of the retailers, among which Costco and Wegmans, learned is that efficiency is important but maintaining a balance with positive experiences remains crucial.
WATCH : MSNBC’s Clueless Host Stunned into Silence by Vivek Ramaswamy
Former GOP hopefuI Vivek Ramaswamy has gained some steam, back before he dropped out and sided with former President Donald Trump.
Back in the heady early days of the runup to the GOP primary, Vivek was largely considered the winner of the first Republican debate, and the fact that most of the other hopefuls on stage directly atta cked Ramaswamy as opposed to Florida governor Ron DeSantis was quite telling.
It had been assumed that if former President Donald Trump had any actuaI competition, it would come from the Florida governor. Many pundits had assumed the debate would be a knives-out attack on DeSantis. Instead, he faded into the background, avoiding any heavy blows from the likes of Chris Christie and Nikki Haley.
Ramaswamy, the Cincinnati-born entrepreneur, has run largely on the populist platform used by Donald Trump. He espouses America-first policies, more border security, cutting off funding for foreign wa rs, and a climate change stance that immediately has run afoul of the left.
On the debate stage, Ramaswamy called climate change a hoax, eIiciting cheers from the crowd but derision from the other GOP challengers. The young upstart contender recently went on leftist MSNBC and was attacked by Andre Mitchell about his climate change stance.
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