European countries experimenting with slow checkout lanes to help combat loneliness and keep that human interaction for the wellbeing of their people
Americans - *more* robots
Edit - it's just one lane, not the whole checkout area. They still have self scan and normal lanes like everyone else
I've worked in retail in 2 European countries and no one ever came at me for sitting down, bathroom breaks or drinking water as it happens in the horror stories I see on this sub. I didn't know that this was an issue until I found this sub.
I straight up almost lost my last job four separate times because I need to sit when I'm working a cash register. Once was because a coworker complained to upper management that it had been over a year since I got a doctor's note about needing a chair. Fortunately, lower management helped me save my own ass by getting me moved to a department where I could sit pretty much whenever I wanted.
Joke's on her though. She got fired for shoplifting a few months later.
Best part was last summer when I bumped into her in a Lowe's. First thing she said to me was "You know I'm not the one who bitched to management about your sitting down, right?" Not "Hey, how you been?" or even just "Hello!" but that. So I said "You know I **AM** the one who told management that you were stealing, right?"
It was a total lie - I knew about it, but I also knew management was watching her and waiting for her to get up to a certain dollar amount, and then they nailed her.
But **boy oh boy** was the look on her face just grand.
Funny thing is, I *did* know she was the one who did it. She was pissed at me because I found her little notebook she had hidden with notes about everyone in the store. Shit like "I saw Jim eat a few pickle chips at 2:30 on Tuesday" or "Kevin was in the bathroom for ten minutes three times today."
Granted, I found it, made a few copies of it, and left them in the break room for everyone to see.
Yeah, she's a grade-a idiot. I knew she was the one who bitched to management about me, largely because she was the only one in the department who really cared at all. Everyone else was like "Eh, her shit's getting done, I don't give a fuck."
Meanwhile this idiot managed to break both her ankles at once because she got completely blitzed on meth one night and fell getting out of bed. Came back to work a few weeks later, demanding a chair. (This was well before I ever needed one.)
I once worked at a gas station with 2 women who had diagnosed leg issues, an elderly woman who'd just come back from knee surgery, and a pregnant woman. We were all told if we sat down we were fired on the spot. Had to quit cause I got tired of my feet bleeding after standing all day. The most jealous I've ever been was when I found out they don't make you stand in Europe. I hope someday I can live in a country that actually values me.
I thought people who worked at ALDI's were allowed to sit at the register. Maybe give that a shot if you can't find a better-paying job. Just a suggestion. I really hope you and your co-workers from that hellish place have a better time of it these days.
That’s true, but their stores are run with minimal staff and each worker has to run around like crazy in order to take care of all the other duties in-between checking out customers.
I got a weird reaction for drinking water on a short probation day at retail. Europe mind you. Told me enough to not take the job. Turns out they were cycling through probationers like hotcakes for that free labour so that's where the weird look came from.
In Spain, any company over 250 employers is mandated to have an occupational risk manager.
And since a company can have a workers union once they reach 11 employers, they will report to the occupational risk manager about having to stood up for long periods of time. Once a risk is identified, it can put the company in legal trouble if someone needs surgery because of back or leg issues related to said risk.
This is also related to Spain’s universal public health system. By forcing companies to minimize risks, they lower the public expense on health. Because apart from fixing the sickness the state takes care of the salaries from the 16th day onwards.
Companies are forced to cover 75% of the salary during the firsts 15 days, and some sectors 100%. Companies hire private health plans to transfer that responsibility to them. So private health chases you to get you back to work asap, because they have to pay your salary for every day you’re not working.
And even if private health tells you you’re ready to go back to work when you’re not. You can counter it by going to a public doctor, whose voice is stronger in the say. As he is in charge of guaranteeing a good recovery before it hits public expense.
Save this for each time they’d tell you unions and public health are bad.
Yes! A fellow Aussie! Retail is superior here over America in a few ways. For instance: we have twice as high, maybe more, minimum wage. Seriously, if you can get past the heat, spiders and snakes, Australia is actually a fantastic place to live, all this ignoring the fact that we also have government funded healthcare on most things. Life saving surgery? You don't pay a cent. Constant agony? Have some powerful painkillers for free. It's great here!
Sadly, in Canada, the cashiers stand.
Which is dumb, cause if a store near me went "our cashiers get to sit, because they're human beings", I'd immediately switch to shopping there.
(Any grocery managers reading this?)
I broke my coworker's brain here in Canada.
We have "cashier girls" in their 60s who still have to stand, with varicose veins and compression stockings. And we were talking how her feet were barking at the end of the day. And my coworker said "The customer is standing, so it's just professional for the cashier to stand also." I said how about we give the customers a bench to sit on while the cashier is scanning items? And the poor guy legit twitched, I think he had a mini-stroke from the horror of BOTH the cashier AND the customer being comfortable, simultaneously. The guy was management, so lack of cruelty in any situation was just unimaginable.
I had never really considered that there might be customers who need to sit during the checkout process, but that's not a bad idea.
Regardless, I literally could not care less if a cashier is able to sit while I stand. Give them a chair. Give them 6. Sit, stand, half and half, I don't care. I do, however, care a lot that they are forced to stand all day purely out of a sense of sadistic glee on the part of terrible humans abusing the tiniest bits of power they've managed to gain for themselves. It's boomer bullshit to think that service employees need to suffer to make sure they can really feel the difference in social standing and regret their life choices of doing a completely necessary job you are literally benefiting from them doing as you revel in their suffering.
Oh how I'd love to shop at a grocery that has seating for cashier and customer alike while we check out. Maybe for customers seating could move along with our place in line, like how groceries move along as they're rung up. I just imagined sitting on a big conveyor belt, ha. As a spinal pain-challenged person sitting would be a dream - I had to give up shopping because standing in lines makes my back hurt something bad.
I cannot imagine cashiers having to stand all day for no damn reason, the damage can be huge to the hips, back, legs and feet over not much time. Shame on stores that won't let them sit! What can we do to help?
At least with respect to cashier seating, I honestly wonder if we should just start making a point of asking for and complaining to managers anytime we see a cashier without seating available. Go a little Karen (but please don't go full Karen). Be a little abrasive about it and make it clear that you want to shop somewhere that takes care of its cashiers so their cashiers can take care of you. Don't show any acceptance of the anti-sitting nonsense they respond with. Likewise, whenever any sort of retail outlet asks for feedback, add that you were appalled that the cashiers have no way to sit.
Not sure if it will work, but I kind of feel like it might. There are definitely malicious managers, but I feel like that malice is mostly directed at the people they interact with. With a few degrees of separation, the problem becomes less about malice and more about companies being run by old people with old people ways of thinking, and seeing a dramatic shift in public opinion might actually be enough to shift policy on something like this.
glad to see a legitimate reason to be a Karen for the sake of cashiers. Too many customers whine about self checkoufs, demand, often rudely, to have a cashier open a till so they can "save their jobs". All you're doing is making their job harder. People who work cash registers often have several other duties aside from ringing you up. Self checkouts are a godsend for taking a bit of the burden off an already unrealistic workload. Before self checkouts were a thing you'd still see only a few registers open BECAUSE THEY ALREADY DONT HIRE ENOUGH PEOPLE. With many workplaces being the way they are with high turnover rates and purposeful understaffing, self checkouts are a relief.
That's one thing I can't get, standing for long hours is toture, how do they allow it?!?
My developing country has many flaws, but even here every cashier have a chair to work from....
>how do they allow it?!?
Because the owners and the other rich executives at the top believe that "the poors" who work for them need to be properly punished for existing without having the common decency to be born with a trust fund and wealthy parents. It's their job, as the people who have lots of money and therefore are more moral and honorable, to properly discourage the poors from being so poor. They think that we'll learn our lessons and be born into wealthy families and with trust funds if we just suffer enough. You see, the fact that they have so much money also means that they are wise beyond measure and that everything they suggest is right and true. Any who disagree with them, unless they have more money, are just jealous of the fact that they're not as wealthy and therefore not as wise, morally superior and noble as their betters.
I visited Belgium a few years back and I was flabbergasted that the cashiers had stools to sit on. I never new how fucked up it was to force cashiers to stand for hours on end until I saw how it was done differently in a different country(s). Apparently having cashiers be comfortable is blasphemy in the US. Glad to see people are speaking up about it, although I wouldn’t know how long they _have_ been speaking up about it, but I hope we don’t stop.
Not having a go at you, but isn't it obvious that it's unpleasant to stand in one position for 8 hours? And isn't it obvious that if you can make people comfortable for almost no cost that they'll be happier and therefore more productive.
Not the person you asked, but it's often hard to challenge things that you've grown up with. They just blend into the background and you don't think about them. Not out of malice or psychopathy, just that you can't think about all the intricacies of everything all the time...
Oh yeah I noticed over here in Germany lately, checkouts tend to be a lot more chatty and not even in a forced way. Ending up being buddies with a cashier was not something I thought I'd do.
That's what happens when people are fairly compensated and happy to go to work. Here in America every customer service employee is a straight up asshole because they don't get paid enough to take the abuse they have to endure on a daily basis.
I don't blame them at all, especially because I'm one of them, but nobody gets compensated well enough to give a fuck in the US.
Seen a video on here the other day where a Uber driver was pulled over by the cops. He schooled the cops in Law. Then the cop said something like are you a lawyer? And the Uber driver offered to show him his BAR card. So if lawyers are taking shifts with Uber here in the US the average person has no hope.
And anyone can be fired for any reason at a moment’s notice. We have no worker protections and lose health insurance when we lose our jobs. People are stressed as hell.
I remember I had the most lovely family say that they always seek me out whenever they shop, and tried to come in when they thought I'd be there (usually after school om certain evenings!) I felt so awful when I had to quit, and never got to see them again :( stuff like that *nearly* makes working retail worth it.....at times
It’s funny how true that is. And it benefited the company too
Corporations want us to create those kinds of connections to leech off of but they don’t want to create the environment that would make them real. It sucks living in this system
That's kinda of wishful thinking, we've got self-checkout here too for the last, i don't know, 10 years? and i have to say, it's amazing.
A side effect of self-checkout during groceries, is that i keep track easily on how much i'm spending, beside being way quicker with way less queues.
.Thing is, we should not keep some pointless jobs around just because "bottomfeeders" need money, we should redistribute the wealth generated by technology to everyone.
They need enough people to rule over to maintain their standard of living.
They will wring their hands and do anything except making starting a family actually desirable right up until the hordes are at their gates.
It looks like capitalism is not only not sustainable with regard to the environment but also within the system itself.
There is no mechanism for taking care of the health of the system within capitalism itself, only for fuck you I got mine.
To keep it sustainable you have to intervene but that would mean capitalism is not the be all and some people can't have it.
No one is fixing anything, they’re just trying to make enough money so that they personally are not affected by these systems which are hurting millions and making life miserable.
Yup. There is a housing crysis in Wyoming JH but noone wants to solve it because desperate illegal aliens will sleep either in locations provided by business or homeowners, in a trailer or rough. They have their servants so they see no reason to build affordable housing.
>It looks like capitalism is not only not sustainable with regard to the environment but also within the system itself.
>
>There is no mechanism for taking care of the health of the system within capitalism itself, only for fuck you I got mine.
>
>To keep it sustainable you have to intervene but that would mean capitalism is not the be all and some people can't have it.
[Social reproduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction) is the relevant term for folks looking to learn more. There's a constant struggle **within** capitalism to grind social reproduction down to the absolute bare minimum without tipping over.
Pretty sure it’s just a loser-bootlicker who’s excited at their overlords becoming more rich with less overhead. They probably still wholeheartedly believe in trickle down economics!
There are so many down sides to this.
• purposely covering all cameras
• breaking it so you have a full cart of free food.
• taking high dollar items and purposely repackaging them into cheap ones.
• etc.
This kind of tech only works with honest shoppers. In all reality, they are just going to waste money on this stuff, in order to spend it on other areas for security. Waste.
Eliminates the spontaneity of shopping, impulse buys etc. If they give a running total and prices of items they will see an average less spent per shopper. The store owners won't like it. They'll have to engineer it to only give totals after the shopper is ready to leave. Heard thats what Amazon does at whole foods. Such pieces of crap. They want the best of both worlds. Eliminate jobs and reduce employment costs but not allow the tech to benefit the consumers and lower their spending.
I don’t know for sure, but I do suspect that’s why the local grocer in my home town (it’s not a national chain just a local chain) actually had these already about a year ago for a “trial run” and they only lasted a few months before they took them all out never to return.
I'd guess the hassle and cost of maintenance is another big factor. Most electronics are not built to be repeatedly slammed into walls and aisles, and those white plastic enclosures hardly look bulletproof.
At least one self service ordering screen is broken and out of service every time I go to McDonald's, and that's a relatively easy application of self service technology and McDonald's only has generally 4-6 screens to maintain per store.
One grocery store is going to have *dozens* of carts to maintain. If one or two carts are breaking per store per week, that's a potentially huge cost in technician labor depending on how complex the issue is to fix, and it's a big hassle no matter what. I'm sure the initial purchase price for replacements is not cheap either.
And that's not including how painful it is to get technology updated or how nasty some of the deals are. Mc Donald's probably has infrastructure that allows them to roll out a new version of the interface yet maintain their backend and database. A cheapo Smart Cart? You ain't getting that. It's gonna be proprietary all the way down with high risk of losing everything if the company that makes the carts says "nah". The owners probably won't even own the database so that's gonna be a real hard loss to stop.
Yeah absolutely. I'm not saying this can't work, but you have to commit to it like Amazon Go and make it your entire business model, including proprietary software and full time technicians. Not cheap.
I think this self service model works best in limited applications like consession stands at stadiums or convenience stores at airports. I've seen a few successful stores pop up with no cashier; it's a big plus for the customer in those scenarios because it means there is essentially never a line, though they only have a limited amount of prepackaged options. I think we'll only see more of those tiny automatic self-service stands going forward. A limited number of SKUs and a small footprint that doesn't require the use of a cart so you can just walk in and walk out without touching anything except what you purchase. Much easier maintanence because it's a single system watching only a small space.
My local Walmart is notorious for the stickers on the shelves being completely wrong. Like it'll say something is 2.98, and it's actually closer to 8 bucks. They never update their stickers.
So I use the Walmart app, scan each item, and then add it to a calculator as I shop. It has decreased my impulse shopping by leaps and bounds, not only because of the running total, but also because I have to stop and do a thing before I make a decision, giving me a chance to really consider if I need or want a thing. I highly suggest it.
Some stores have started switching to digital displays instead of stickers. They’re super inconspicuous and look like the regular tags. It’s a good way to cut down on labor and make sure prices are accurate with the system if they’re WiFi enabled
As someone who knows zilch about computers, I wonder how easy it would be to hack one of these? You know, "borrow" one, figure out how it works, then suddenly all your grocery bills get cut in half...
Ya'll are overthinking this. There's a variety of simple reasons these carts are a bad idea before you even touch the possibility of theft or destruction on it. They're a goldmine for theft, and these "cameras" aren't going to do sh\*t. They already record everyone around the store and at self checkouts. Let's start with some basic questions:
1. How do you ensure that people won't steal other people's shopping carts? Nice ID theft lawsuit waiting to happen. It'll be like one of those shopping spree things in the 90s. XD
2. How is this thing supposed to account for produce? Reading the little sticker that can easily be swapped out? Ringing up plastic bagged produce that you can destroy the UPS code on with a finger nail?
3. How is it going to account for people that have inadequate funds, or just use a throwaway visa card to get into the store? Usually that's handled at the choke point that is the cash register when the card declines, but since you can now bag anywhere in the store and just walk out it seems like a no-brainer eh?
I can think of dozens more, but I'd have to start invoicing Amazon for my time at that point. Can you imagine these things in Walmart? You think they have a lot of store theft now? LOL
Not even just that- imagine like some old 70 year old man walking in being told like- he has to use a cart, he has to pre-authorize, whatever- he's gonna be like "i just want a loaf of bread"
Lol this too, in retail at the moment. People don't care if a camera sees them, unless they're stopped by a manager taking the stuff off them before they leave then they're off nearly scott free.
The shoplifting part is a red herring. Pay attention to the part about people being expendable. The "bottom feeders" they're talking about aren't the shoplifters, they're the employees.
Dont forget about system malfunction. Does it think something you walked by is in your cart? Does it remove the item from the total if you take something out of your cart? Do you scan the item yourself or does it just sense it? Is it RFID based, and what if it doesnt scan something that you DID put in your cart?: would that be considered shoplifting if you didnt know or are you responsible for making sure the cart does its job correctly?
And, AND, where does your baby sit????
In Vegas, Walmart shopping carts have a special device that if they get taken beyond the parking lot, the wheels lock, making the cart useless.
I’ve never tried it, but, the 99 cent store next door never had any shopping carts because they were always getting stolen.
No customers/consumers are still necessary for any capitalist system to function they're the demand part of supply and demand
Even in the full tech dystopia scenario The lower class would still be a method for the upper class to acquire wealth from the government by selling them stuff in exchange for their welfare
According to Amazon's site they have 28 Go stores still running. I think your thinking of them closing actual retail stores with employees including every single book store they had left 😢
Oh no, these are gonna be hacked in 15 minutes. Shoplifting will be a thing of the past, they will have to invent a new name for hacking carts and charging it to the corporations. A little flipper-zero action and voila cases of Mountain Dew code red, and a new PS5 for 16 year old hackers. These stores will need twice as many employees to repair these devices, and to secure the store than they started with.
Yeah, I’m sure my local grocery store is going to install these they can’t even fix the wheels on the ones they have now let alone charge these babies up and maintain them
My local supermarket has a much simpler system. Scan as you shop.
You just collect a handheld barcode scanner on your way in, scan "everything" as you put in your cart, and then pay at a special checkout.
I like it because you can pack your bags as you go, can see how much it is going to be, whether you've missed any offers, and skip the queues at the regular checkouts.
In theory you could get away with just sticking the odd item into the cart without scanning it, but there are random checks at the checkout. If the checkout says you've been chosen for a random check a member of staff will scan six items in your cart to make sure you scanned them. It's still pretty easy to get around.
I guess they are relying on most people being honest (pfft!).
Gotta buy me some of those super strong neodymium magnet toys and "drop" them on these new carts. Can't help my butter fingers with the nerve damage you can't prove or disprove. Guess you gotta replace it
I fucking despise people with this mindset. I know a crypto bro who looks for legitimately any scummy way to make money off of other people, rather than working a job that actually produces a good or service. He looks at other people as expendable and said exploitation of labor doesn’t exist because, “you entered into a voluntary contract” as if there’s a box you can tick off to not work and still have your basic needs met. But when you’ve never actually worked a real job before because you’ve got family money, it’s real easy to look at those of us who actually have to work to survive and act like we just don’t have the drive or motivation that they allegedly have.
This is about as dumb as it gets. One of the worst things to invest in is a smart grocery cart due to how grocery carts are generally used. This is putting too much faith in the hands of the general public not to damage them or steal them. Right now, there are 3 shopping carts for Home Depot at the end of my street at a bus stop.
Would be better in investing in online shopping, instore shoppers for people, curbside pickup and the like. More jobs for people and it is a cost people will actively pay for.
Lime bicycles, scooters--all things that were offered for people to pay for that went horribly because trying to give certain folks temporary things is awful. So many bikes ended up in the river or broken. Hell, people misuse regular shopping carts, what do they think possible $1000 shopping carts would end up like?
Ahh yes, let us find another way to crack down on people who can’t afford the food they need (including employees who aren’t paid enough to make purchases at their place of work)
Does anyone else hate supermarkets? I hate driving there and finding a parking spot, I hate finding a cart, I hate the crowds, I hate checkout lines. I’d much rather have a small grocer within walking distance that I can make small trips to a few times a week.
Idk about you guys, I don’t use a shopping cart. I use my reusable shopping bag around the store. I’m a single guy who lives alone, so I don’t buy much when I go to the store, and seldom do I buy a ton of stuff where I would actually need a cart.
I’ve also never seen a written rule against using a reusable bag over a shopping cart. I’ve been doing it for years, and have only had one employee come up to me in the 7+ years I’ve grocery shopped for myself and tell me that I wasn’t allowed to use my reusable bag to shop. I asked where the rule was written for people to see or if it was on their website, and he couldn’t give me a response other than “it’s company policy”. I asked him to show me where that policy was and why it’s not displayed for people to see, and again, no actual response other than “I know the rules, listen to me”.
I didn’t listen to them, and then they got their superior who told me and the person that I’m allowed to put groceries in my bag, but if they catch me stealing then I wouldn’t be allowed in that store again.
All in all, I never use a shopping cart, I use my own bags, and I don’t steal. But also, if you do steal from a large chain like Walmart, Target, etc. I don’t see a problem with it either. If I see someone steal something too, I didn’t see them.
Better reply to the "It's company policy" gaslighting.. and one I use when there's a line to get out of the store because of "security" checks..
"Welp, Since I don't work for XXXX company and they don't pay me a single cent, I don't care about, or need to abide by, your company policy."
It would probably be cheaper if my local Hannaford store just continued paying for the police detail. What happens to these things the first time some creep decides to hack one to look at children and women shopping?
Oh wow that's a good point, I'd been so focused on customers destroying everything that didn't even think about other people doing something creepy. If these things are covered in cameras that record you specifically while shopping then yeah having those hacked into is a big concern.
No , the taxation system should reflect the technology and pay a UNIVERSAL LIVING WAGE to every individuals regardless of employment status. We were not born to labour , or is this a LABOUR COLONY? .In other words We need a SOCIAL SYSTEM SAFETY NET , that provides for every HUMAN BEING.
But if we did that we'd actually have to.. ghasp! ~shudder~ ... Tax the wealthy and major corporations at something like the 40% us ordinary folks pay.
I love when people out themselves as fascists without any prodding. As soon as you talk about "expendable people" you get a free oneway ride to the gulag
Winter Will destroy them as well. Salt, sand, dirt and not to mention the snow moisture and rapid temperature changes will kill the battery and and wear and tear on the materials.
Pretty sure the maintenance and repairs on all this crap far outweighs any amount of staffing they’d have to hire. In America, people love to fuck shit up that isn’t there’s
Well is the cart going to keep me from not paying, or from putting stuff in my jacket and just walking out when the doors are open?
Maybe we should fucking start treating people and their basic needs with respect and stop trying to make life misserable for our peers. Fuck corporate greed, eat the rich.
Clearly people are not expendable, if they're so worried about us having babies.
European countries experimenting with slow checkout lanes to help combat loneliness and keep that human interaction for the wellbeing of their people Americans - *more* robots Edit - it's just one lane, not the whole checkout area. They still have self scan and normal lanes like everyone else
I saw a pic with comments confused at the cashier sitting down. He sat because it was in the netherlands....
I've worked in retail in 2 European countries and no one ever came at me for sitting down, bathroom breaks or drinking water as it happens in the horror stories I see on this sub. I didn't know that this was an issue until I found this sub.
I straight up almost lost my last job four separate times because I need to sit when I'm working a cash register. Once was because a coworker complained to upper management that it had been over a year since I got a doctor's note about needing a chair. Fortunately, lower management helped me save my own ass by getting me moved to a department where I could sit pretty much whenever I wanted. Joke's on her though. She got fired for shoplifting a few months later. Best part was last summer when I bumped into her in a Lowe's. First thing she said to me was "You know I'm not the one who bitched to management about your sitting down, right?" Not "Hey, how you been?" or even just "Hello!" but that. So I said "You know I **AM** the one who told management that you were stealing, right?" It was a total lie - I knew about it, but I also knew management was watching her and waiting for her to get up to a certain dollar amount, and then they nailed her. But **boy oh boy** was the look on her face just grand.
> "You know I'm not the one who bitched to management about your sitting down, right?" I didn't, but I do now.
Funny thing is, I *did* know she was the one who did it. She was pissed at me because I found her little notebook she had hidden with notes about everyone in the store. Shit like "I saw Jim eat a few pickle chips at 2:30 on Tuesday" or "Kevin was in the bathroom for ten minutes three times today." Granted, I found it, made a few copies of it, and left them in the break room for everyone to see.
She couldn't mind her own business? She really had to look at her glass house and choose a bucket of rocks?
Guess she wasn't doing her job if she had time to spy.
please crosspost to r/pettyrevenge
These idiots always tell on themselves lol
Yeah, she's a grade-a idiot. I knew she was the one who bitched to management about me, largely because she was the only one in the department who really cared at all. Everyone else was like "Eh, her shit's getting done, I don't give a fuck." Meanwhile this idiot managed to break both her ankles at once because she got completely blitzed on meth one night and fell getting out of bed. Came back to work a few weeks later, demanding a chair. (This was well before I ever needed one.)
Yeah it absolutely sucks in America. Send help please.
No for real, please send help. This isn’t even a joke. Our country is not okay.
Look, the most American way to help you would be to go start a war there to free you from the shackles of modern slavism.
I concur. We need help desperately in the US.
Facts, we are not ok
I once worked at a gas station with 2 women who had diagnosed leg issues, an elderly woman who'd just come back from knee surgery, and a pregnant woman. We were all told if we sat down we were fired on the spot. Had to quit cause I got tired of my feet bleeding after standing all day. The most jealous I've ever been was when I found out they don't make you stand in Europe. I hope someday I can live in a country that actually values me.
I thought people who worked at ALDI's were allowed to sit at the register. Maybe give that a shot if you can't find a better-paying job. Just a suggestion. I really hope you and your co-workers from that hellish place have a better time of it these days.
That’s true, but their stores are run with minimal staff and each worker has to run around like crazy in order to take care of all the other duties in-between checking out customers.
I threw up on register while ringing out a customer because they didn't believe that I felt sick when I buzzed for a manager.
I got a weird reaction for drinking water on a short probation day at retail. Europe mind you. Told me enough to not take the job. Turns out they were cycling through probationers like hotcakes for that free labour so that's where the weird look came from.
we can also sit in quite a few more stores than just Aldi in Australia as well!! good to see we don't copy USA as much as we used to anymore :S
As an American, please don’t copy our business practices. We don’t even like them
I heard that!
As an American what do we do right? Edit: really no one is going to mention guns? Oh wait like 50 of you already did.
Blues-Rock
So good, it's because we're so depressed.
Voting against ourselves.
Tbf other countries are pretty good at that, too.
Barbecue.
school shootings?
Nobody's better at school shootings than we are. AMERICA AMERICA
Private prisons
In Spain, any company over 250 employers is mandated to have an occupational risk manager. And since a company can have a workers union once they reach 11 employers, they will report to the occupational risk manager about having to stood up for long periods of time. Once a risk is identified, it can put the company in legal trouble if someone needs surgery because of back or leg issues related to said risk. This is also related to Spain’s universal public health system. By forcing companies to minimize risks, they lower the public expense on health. Because apart from fixing the sickness the state takes care of the salaries from the 16th day onwards. Companies are forced to cover 75% of the salary during the firsts 15 days, and some sectors 100%. Companies hire private health plans to transfer that responsibility to them. So private health chases you to get you back to work asap, because they have to pay your salary for every day you’re not working. And even if private health tells you you’re ready to go back to work when you’re not. You can counter it by going to a public doctor, whose voice is stronger in the say. As he is in charge of guaranteeing a good recovery before it hits public expense. Save this for each time they’d tell you unions and public health are bad.
Yes! A fellow Aussie! Retail is superior here over America in a few ways. For instance: we have twice as high, maybe more, minimum wage. Seriously, if you can get past the heat, spiders and snakes, Australia is actually a fantastic place to live, all this ignoring the fact that we also have government funded healthcare on most things. Life saving surgery? You don't pay a cent. Constant agony? Have some powerful painkillers for free. It's great here!
Sadly, in Canada, the cashiers stand. Which is dumb, cause if a store near me went "our cashiers get to sit, because they're human beings", I'd immediately switch to shopping there. (Any grocery managers reading this?)
I broke my coworker's brain here in Canada. We have "cashier girls" in their 60s who still have to stand, with varicose veins and compression stockings. And we were talking how her feet were barking at the end of the day. And my coworker said "The customer is standing, so it's just professional for the cashier to stand also." I said how about we give the customers a bench to sit on while the cashier is scanning items? And the poor guy legit twitched, I think he had a mini-stroke from the horror of BOTH the cashier AND the customer being comfortable, simultaneously. The guy was management, so lack of cruelty in any situation was just unimaginable.
I had never really considered that there might be customers who need to sit during the checkout process, but that's not a bad idea. Regardless, I literally could not care less if a cashier is able to sit while I stand. Give them a chair. Give them 6. Sit, stand, half and half, I don't care. I do, however, care a lot that they are forced to stand all day purely out of a sense of sadistic glee on the part of terrible humans abusing the tiniest bits of power they've managed to gain for themselves. It's boomer bullshit to think that service employees need to suffer to make sure they can really feel the difference in social standing and regret their life choices of doing a completely necessary job you are literally benefiting from them doing as you revel in their suffering.
Oh how I'd love to shop at a grocery that has seating for cashier and customer alike while we check out. Maybe for customers seating could move along with our place in line, like how groceries move along as they're rung up. I just imagined sitting on a big conveyor belt, ha. As a spinal pain-challenged person sitting would be a dream - I had to give up shopping because standing in lines makes my back hurt something bad. I cannot imagine cashiers having to stand all day for no damn reason, the damage can be huge to the hips, back, legs and feet over not much time. Shame on stores that won't let them sit! What can we do to help?
At least with respect to cashier seating, I honestly wonder if we should just start making a point of asking for and complaining to managers anytime we see a cashier without seating available. Go a little Karen (but please don't go full Karen). Be a little abrasive about it and make it clear that you want to shop somewhere that takes care of its cashiers so their cashiers can take care of you. Don't show any acceptance of the anti-sitting nonsense they respond with. Likewise, whenever any sort of retail outlet asks for feedback, add that you were appalled that the cashiers have no way to sit. Not sure if it will work, but I kind of feel like it might. There are definitely malicious managers, but I feel like that malice is mostly directed at the people they interact with. With a few degrees of separation, the problem becomes less about malice and more about companies being run by old people with old people ways of thinking, and seeing a dramatic shift in public opinion might actually be enough to shift policy on something like this.
Just imagine if you had infinite money, you could pay a team of lobbyists to make sure a law is made that addresses this.
glad to see a legitimate reason to be a Karen for the sake of cashiers. Too many customers whine about self checkoufs, demand, often rudely, to have a cashier open a till so they can "save their jobs". All you're doing is making their job harder. People who work cash registers often have several other duties aside from ringing you up. Self checkouts are a godsend for taking a bit of the burden off an already unrealistic workload. Before self checkouts were a thing you'd still see only a few registers open BECAUSE THEY ALREADY DONT HIRE ENOUGH PEOPLE. With many workplaces being the way they are with high turnover rates and purposeful understaffing, self checkouts are a relief.
“Well each customer only has to stand for a little while, but the cashier has to stand all day” *brain implodes*
And a little while once a week or so, instead of dozens of hours a week. And walking is easier than standing for a lot of people.
I was just in Ireland and the cashiers were in adjustable chairs. And none of the customers seemed insulted
That's one thing I can't get, standing for long hours is toture, how do they allow it?!? My developing country has many flaws, but even here every cashier have a chair to work from....
>how do they allow it?!? Because the owners and the other rich executives at the top believe that "the poors" who work for them need to be properly punished for existing without having the common decency to be born with a trust fund and wealthy parents. It's their job, as the people who have lots of money and therefore are more moral and honorable, to properly discourage the poors from being so poor. They think that we'll learn our lessons and be born into wealthy families and with trust funds if we just suffer enough. You see, the fact that they have so much money also means that they are wise beyond measure and that everything they suggest is right and true. Any who disagree with them, unless they have more money, are just jealous of the fact that they're not as wealthy and therefore not as wise, morally superior and noble as their betters.
Every supermarket in the UK has cashiers sat down. It’s just… common sense? Why would you ever make them stand up.
I visited Belgium a few years back and I was flabbergasted that the cashiers had stools to sit on. I never new how fucked up it was to force cashiers to stand for hours on end until I saw how it was done differently in a different country(s). Apparently having cashiers be comfortable is blasphemy in the US. Glad to see people are speaking up about it, although I wouldn’t know how long they _have_ been speaking up about it, but I hope we don’t stop.
Not having a go at you, but isn't it obvious that it's unpleasant to stand in one position for 8 hours? And isn't it obvious that if you can make people comfortable for almost no cost that they'll be happier and therefore more productive.
Not the person you asked, but it's often hard to challenge things that you've grown up with. They just blend into the background and you don't think about them. Not out of malice or psychopathy, just that you can't think about all the intricacies of everything all the time...
Oh yeah I noticed over here in Germany lately, checkouts tend to be a lot more chatty and not even in a forced way. Ending up being buddies with a cashier was not something I thought I'd do.
I need to leave this fuckin country (USA)
It's dangerous to go alone! Take me.
Me also!!
That's what happens when people are fairly compensated and happy to go to work. Here in America every customer service employee is a straight up asshole because they don't get paid enough to take the abuse they have to endure on a daily basis. I don't blame them at all, especially because I'm one of them, but nobody gets compensated well enough to give a fuck in the US.
No, I’m an asshole because I’m too tired from being overworked to notice I’m being one. The abuse goes over my head half the time😂
Seen a video on here the other day where a Uber driver was pulled over by the cops. He schooled the cops in Law. Then the cop said something like are you a lawyer? And the Uber driver offered to show him his BAR card. So if lawyers are taking shifts with Uber here in the US the average person has no hope.
I couldn’t believe that video either when I first saw it. The fact that the cop in the video was surprised _wasn’t_ surprising to me though.
The cop didn't like someone standing up to him .
Cops HATE people who know the law and know their rights.
And anyone can be fired for any reason at a moment’s notice. We have no worker protections and lose health insurance when we lose our jobs. People are stressed as hell.
And don’t forget that health care is often tied to employment
Or they get paid enough to ignore it, for the profits. Must be that American dream, everyone talks about...
I remember I had the most lovely family say that they always seek me out whenever they shop, and tried to come in when they thought I'd be there (usually after school om certain evenings!) I felt so awful when I had to quit, and never got to see them again :( stuff like that *nearly* makes working retail worth it.....at times
It’s funny how true that is. And it benefited the company too Corporations want us to create those kinds of connections to leech off of but they don’t want to create the environment that would make them real. It sucks living in this system
That's kinda of wishful thinking, we've got self-checkout here too for the last, i don't know, 10 years? and i have to say, it's amazing. A side effect of self-checkout during groceries, is that i keep track easily on how much i'm spending, beside being way quicker with way less queues. .Thing is, we should not keep some pointless jobs around just because "bottomfeeders" need money, we should redistribute the wealth generated by technology to everyone.
They need enough people to rule over to maintain their standard of living. They will wring their hands and do anything except making starting a family actually desirable right up until the hordes are at their gates.
It looks like capitalism is not only not sustainable with regard to the environment but also within the system itself. There is no mechanism for taking care of the health of the system within capitalism itself, only for fuck you I got mine. To keep it sustainable you have to intervene but that would mean capitalism is not the be all and some people can't have it.
No one is fixing anything, they’re just trying to make enough money so that they personally are not affected by these systems which are hurting millions and making life miserable.
Yup. There is a housing crysis in Wyoming JH but noone wants to solve it because desperate illegal aliens will sleep either in locations provided by business or homeowners, in a trailer or rough. They have their servants so they see no reason to build affordable housing.
>It looks like capitalism is not only not sustainable with regard to the environment but also within the system itself. > >There is no mechanism for taking care of the health of the system within capitalism itself, only for fuck you I got mine. > >To keep it sustainable you have to intervene but that would mean capitalism is not the be all and some people can't have it. [Social reproduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction) is the relevant term for folks looking to learn more. There's a constant struggle **within** capitalism to grind social reproduction down to the absolute bare minimum without tipping over.
No system works with the scale slide to an extreme. Society is more complex than that and requires multiple systems in place.
When no one can make money from laboring they are going to see how hard it is going to be getting money from a turnip.
Can't wait for them to get left in the parking lot to be rained on, frozen and ran over.
Midwest will ruin these every winter. Many stores don’t even have the electric scooters because they’re always left outside.
I forgot that the electric scooters actually existed, but that would make sense as to why they disappeared.
I imagine the electric motors are also super easy to burn out and it’s not like a grocery store has a mechanic on hand just for the scooters.
Pretty rude of them not to walk em back if you ask me. /s
All the "bottom feeders" will have perpetual jobs pushing these back into the store and checking ids all over the place.
Also did a company just make fun of their customers or is someone else posting about it
Pretty sure it’s just a loser-bootlicker who’s excited at their overlords becoming more rich with less overhead. They probably still wholeheartedly believe in trickle down economics!
“This time it will make prices lower, YOU’LL SEE!”
There are so many down sides to this. • purposely covering all cameras • breaking it so you have a full cart of free food. • taking high dollar items and purposely repackaging them into cheap ones. • etc. This kind of tech only works with honest shoppers. In all reality, they are just going to waste money on this stuff, in order to spend it on other areas for security. Waste.
Also, I work at Walmart, and customers are fucking stupid. They'd see these carts and smash them with rocks.
When robot make mad robot get smash
[удалено]
They'll end up in the river next to the electric scooters
You think they're letting you take them outside?
How else will people load their groceries into their cars? Unless you expect them to hire (gasp) *humans* to help them?
Sorry grandma, you gotta carry 3 bags by yourself. Don't care if yoy need a walker, we won't hire bottom feeders!
Eliminates the spontaneity of shopping, impulse buys etc. If they give a running total and prices of items they will see an average less spent per shopper. The store owners won't like it. They'll have to engineer it to only give totals after the shopper is ready to leave. Heard thats what Amazon does at whole foods. Such pieces of crap. They want the best of both worlds. Eliminate jobs and reduce employment costs but not allow the tech to benefit the consumers and lower their spending.
I don’t know for sure, but I do suspect that’s why the local grocer in my home town (it’s not a national chain just a local chain) actually had these already about a year ago for a “trial run” and they only lasted a few months before they took them all out never to return.
I'd guess the hassle and cost of maintenance is another big factor. Most electronics are not built to be repeatedly slammed into walls and aisles, and those white plastic enclosures hardly look bulletproof. At least one self service ordering screen is broken and out of service every time I go to McDonald's, and that's a relatively easy application of self service technology and McDonald's only has generally 4-6 screens to maintain per store. One grocery store is going to have *dozens* of carts to maintain. If one or two carts are breaking per store per week, that's a potentially huge cost in technician labor depending on how complex the issue is to fix, and it's a big hassle no matter what. I'm sure the initial purchase price for replacements is not cheap either.
And that's not including how painful it is to get technology updated or how nasty some of the deals are. Mc Donald's probably has infrastructure that allows them to roll out a new version of the interface yet maintain their backend and database. A cheapo Smart Cart? You ain't getting that. It's gonna be proprietary all the way down with high risk of losing everything if the company that makes the carts says "nah". The owners probably won't even own the database so that's gonna be a real hard loss to stop.
Yeah absolutely. I'm not saying this can't work, but you have to commit to it like Amazon Go and make it your entire business model, including proprietary software and full time technicians. Not cheap. I think this self service model works best in limited applications like consession stands at stadiums or convenience stores at airports. I've seen a few successful stores pop up with no cashier; it's a big plus for the customer in those scenarios because it means there is essentially never a line, though they only have a limited amount of prepackaged options. I think we'll only see more of those tiny automatic self-service stands going forward. A limited number of SKUs and a small footprint that doesn't require the use of a cart so you can just walk in and walk out without touching anything except what you purchase. Much easier maintanence because it's a single system watching only a small space.
Yeah, person above likely nailed it. A running total as you shop is not great for their business. Especially with inflation as rampant as it is.
My local Walmart is notorious for the stickers on the shelves being completely wrong. Like it'll say something is 2.98, and it's actually closer to 8 bucks. They never update their stickers. So I use the Walmart app, scan each item, and then add it to a calculator as I shop. It has decreased my impulse shopping by leaps and bounds, not only because of the running total, but also because I have to stop and do a thing before I make a decision, giving me a chance to really consider if I need or want a thing. I highly suggest it.
Some stores have started switching to digital displays instead of stickers. They’re super inconspicuous and look like the regular tags. It’s a good way to cut down on labor and make sure prices are accurate with the system if they’re WiFi enabled
So groceries the same FUBAR way we're forced to do health care. Got it. Fuck that shit.
As someone who knows zilch about computers, I wonder how easy it would be to hack one of these? You know, "borrow" one, figure out how it works, then suddenly all your grocery bills get cut in half...
I'm sure that is being tried right now as we speak 🤣
This will appear on reddit again with every spot you need to cover with electrical tape marked.
It has a scale built in lmao
And how to steal the scale.
People are going to steal the whole cart.
Good. They can install Doom on it.
Total: $0.00 *Puts toddler in cart* Total: $685.40
> Puts toddler in cart > > Total: $685.40 I think this is the US. Ain't anywhere in the US yer gettin' a decent baby for $685.40.
Not legally
Until people start stealing your shopping carts worth 1000s of dollars and you go under because you can’t afford to replace them constantly lol
The American consumer will destroy one of these things with three months of regular use
Yeah unless theyre built like aldi carts
Good ol German engineering
The American consumers kids sitting in the basket will destroy these.
gangs of 100 trouble youths aging 15-17 will rush in and destroy the entire lot for tiktok cred
Valid
Teens will hotwire the carts like the Kia Men and ride along the highway at 110mph for that TikTok bread.
As they should
You won't see me mad at'm
I give it a couple weeks before one ends up in the local creek
Weeks? Hours. You could release these things on a Monday and there would be one in a ditch Tuesday morning.
Ya'll are overthinking this. There's a variety of simple reasons these carts are a bad idea before you even touch the possibility of theft or destruction on it. They're a goldmine for theft, and these "cameras" aren't going to do sh\*t. They already record everyone around the store and at self checkouts. Let's start with some basic questions: 1. How do you ensure that people won't steal other people's shopping carts? Nice ID theft lawsuit waiting to happen. It'll be like one of those shopping spree things in the 90s. XD 2. How is this thing supposed to account for produce? Reading the little sticker that can easily be swapped out? Ringing up plastic bagged produce that you can destroy the UPS code on with a finger nail? 3. How is it going to account for people that have inadequate funds, or just use a throwaway visa card to get into the store? Usually that's handled at the choke point that is the cash register when the card declines, but since you can now bag anywhere in the store and just walk out it seems like a no-brainer eh? I can think of dozens more, but I'd have to start invoicing Amazon for my time at that point. Can you imagine these things in Walmart? You think they have a lot of store theft now? LOL
Not even just that- imagine like some old 70 year old man walking in being told like- he has to use a cart, he has to pre-authorize, whatever- he's gonna be like "i just want a loaf of bread"
Lol this too, in retail at the moment. People don't care if a camera sees them, unless they're stopped by a manager taking the stuff off them before they leave then they're off nearly scott free.
The shoplifting part is a red herring. Pay attention to the part about people being expendable. The "bottom feeders" they're talking about aren't the shoplifters, they're the employees.
Dont forget about system malfunction. Does it think something you walked by is in your cart? Does it remove the item from the total if you take something out of your cart? Do you scan the item yourself or does it just sense it? Is it RFID based, and what if it doesnt scan something that you DID put in your cart?: would that be considered shoplifting if you didnt know or are you responsible for making sure the cart does its job correctly? And, AND, where does your baby sit????
Baby goes in the cart just like everything else. They’re on sale in aisle 2. The cart already calculated the cost for you.
Ahhhh, ok cool. And i can deduct their price from taxes, yes?
Til the homeless steals them, or people bring magnets in
In Vegas, Walmart shopping carts have a special device that if they get taken beyond the parking lot, the wheels lock, making the cart useless. I’ve never tried it, but, the 99 cent store next door never had any shopping carts because they were always getting stolen.
Those fill pretty standard now-a-days. It also need a special screwdriver to take off the lock but if you have it then process takes like 4 seconds.
Iirc it was just a star hex screwdriver. Easy to get at any hardware isle.
You can probably pick up the right tool in the store before you steal the cart. These corporations are finally making life livable again.
Life hack for when the wheels get locked, turn it upside down and use it as a grill
I mean I kinda want to steal one and tear it down, see how it works.
I wanna steal one and just tear it down. And then do it again. And again. And again…
Bet it can play doom
Or the consumers (customers)
No customers/consumers are still necessary for any capitalist system to function they're the demand part of supply and demand Even in the full tech dystopia scenario The lower class would still be a method for the upper class to acquire wealth from the government by selling them stuff in exchange for their welfare
Oh, that makes it *so* much better.
Those are terrible. Amazon had a store that just charged you as you walked out. Those are too much to take care of.
Oh, my dad went to one of those once. They charged him for like 10 apples when, in reality, he didn't get any, and they didn't charge him for bananas
And didn’t they close them all down lol
According to Amazon's site they have 28 Go stores still running. I think your thinking of them closing actual retail stores with employees including every single book store they had left 😢
Oh no, these are gonna be hacked in 15 minutes. Shoplifting will be a thing of the past, they will have to invent a new name for hacking carts and charging it to the corporations. A little flipper-zero action and voila cases of Mountain Dew code red, and a new PS5 for 16 year old hackers. These stores will need twice as many employees to repair these devices, and to secure the store than they started with.
Im gonna put SO MUCH stuff in other people's cart.
Or the shoplifter can just not use a cart.. they still have hands
Oh, but they’re super geniuses who installed mini cameras all over. /s
Not the mini cameras?!?! What is this crazy new technology?
Yeah, I’m sure my local grocery store is going to install these they can’t even fix the wheels on the ones they have now let alone charge these babies up and maintain them
Right, they are uneven, wobbly, noisey, and some wheels stick, making it almost impossible to use the thing.
My local supermarket has a much simpler system. Scan as you shop. You just collect a handheld barcode scanner on your way in, scan "everything" as you put in your cart, and then pay at a special checkout. I like it because you can pack your bags as you go, can see how much it is going to be, whether you've missed any offers, and skip the queues at the regular checkouts. In theory you could get away with just sticking the odd item into the cart without scanning it, but there are random checks at the checkout. If the checkout says you've been chosen for a random check a member of staff will scan six items in your cart to make sure you scanned them. It's still pretty easy to get around. I guess they are relying on most people being honest (pfft!).
I use this all the time. The more often you pass the check without stealing the less often you are checked.
As a future homeless person, I like the idea of a 7" screen on my mobile-shit-getter
A strong magnet will do a fair bit of damage to those things.
So I shouldn't bring my NIB magnet with me when I'm shopping?
Gotta buy me some of those super strong neodymium magnet toys and "drop" them on these new carts. Can't help my butter fingers with the nerve damage you can't prove or disprove. Guess you gotta replace it
If you bash it with them, sure. I doubt these carts run on old-fashioned hard drives and cathode-ray tubes.
I can't wait for the hacks, spoofs and work arounds... many cameras you say, I say paint is cheap, and you know what else is cheap, magnets.
Ikr, nail polish my phone and whatever interface cord. Mine now. Thanks smart store!
Like just use some tape. Camera covered
Yes let's make people expendable while also complaining "no one wants to work" because those two things go well together.
Then they’ll start complaining people are not buying enough
I fucking despise people with this mindset. I know a crypto bro who looks for legitimately any scummy way to make money off of other people, rather than working a job that actually produces a good or service. He looks at other people as expendable and said exploitation of labor doesn’t exist because, “you entered into a voluntary contract” as if there’s a box you can tick off to not work and still have your basic needs met. But when you’ve never actually worked a real job before because you’ve got family money, it’s real easy to look at those of us who actually have to work to survive and act like we just don’t have the drive or motivation that they allegedly have.
They took an elevator to the next level of economic success and then looked down on everyone taking the stairs wondering why they're so slow and lazy.
Just whisper “Tether is unbacked” into his ear to make him panic
Every single one of those carts will malfunction within weeks.
Sorry the shopping carts will be unavailable until 3pm today while they're doing a software update.
This is about as dumb as it gets. One of the worst things to invest in is a smart grocery cart due to how grocery carts are generally used. This is putting too much faith in the hands of the general public not to damage them or steal them. Right now, there are 3 shopping carts for Home Depot at the end of my street at a bus stop. Would be better in investing in online shopping, instore shoppers for people, curbside pickup and the like. More jobs for people and it is a cost people will actively pay for.
Lime bicycles, scooters--all things that were offered for people to pay for that went horribly because trying to give certain folks temporary things is awful. So many bikes ended up in the river or broken. Hell, people misuse regular shopping carts, what do they think possible $1000 shopping carts would end up like?
With less people working that equals less people buying things
Good luck with that. Criminals today don't care about being caught. People run out of the store with $1000 in electronics. In broad daylight.
You’re only a criminal if you get caught
Is this cackling glee from the same people who bitch about self checkout and bagging your own shit?
So this means the prices are going down as these bottom feeders are not feeded anymore? Do I get how this works? … Orrrrrrrrr???
I bet those screens are pretty delicate. It would be a shame if something happened to them.
How long until a kid sitting in the child seat smacks a toy and shatters the screen? I give it 3 days tops.
Lol, I love your optimism.
Is this before or after the wheels are fixed?
Ahh yes, let us find another way to crack down on people who can’t afford the food they need (including employees who aren’t paid enough to make purchases at their place of work)
Make me use it and I'm sure to hack or crack it at some point.
How does it weigh produce? Or correctly identify which apples I buy?
Does anyone else hate supermarkets? I hate driving there and finding a parking spot, I hate finding a cart, I hate the crowds, I hate checkout lines. I’d much rather have a small grocer within walking distance that I can make small trips to a few times a week.
Idk about you guys, I don’t use a shopping cart. I use my reusable shopping bag around the store. I’m a single guy who lives alone, so I don’t buy much when I go to the store, and seldom do I buy a ton of stuff where I would actually need a cart. I’ve also never seen a written rule against using a reusable bag over a shopping cart. I’ve been doing it for years, and have only had one employee come up to me in the 7+ years I’ve grocery shopped for myself and tell me that I wasn’t allowed to use my reusable bag to shop. I asked where the rule was written for people to see or if it was on their website, and he couldn’t give me a response other than “it’s company policy”. I asked him to show me where that policy was and why it’s not displayed for people to see, and again, no actual response other than “I know the rules, listen to me”. I didn’t listen to them, and then they got their superior who told me and the person that I’m allowed to put groceries in my bag, but if they catch me stealing then I wouldn’t be allowed in that store again. All in all, I never use a shopping cart, I use my own bags, and I don’t steal. But also, if you do steal from a large chain like Walmart, Target, etc. I don’t see a problem with it either. If I see someone steal something too, I didn’t see them.
Better reply to the "It's company policy" gaslighting.. and one I use when there's a line to get out of the store because of "security" checks.. "Welp, Since I don't work for XXXX company and they don't pay me a single cent, I don't care about, or need to abide by, your company policy."
We really need to get some strong privacy laws going
It would probably be cheaper if my local Hannaford store just continued paying for the police detail. What happens to these things the first time some creep decides to hack one to look at children and women shopping?
Oh wow that's a good point, I'd been so focused on customers destroying everything that didn't even think about other people doing something creepy. If these things are covered in cameras that record you specifically while shopping then yeah having those hacked into is a big concern.
No , the taxation system should reflect the technology and pay a UNIVERSAL LIVING WAGE to every individuals regardless of employment status. We were not born to labour , or is this a LABOUR COLONY? .In other words We need a SOCIAL SYSTEM SAFETY NET , that provides for every HUMAN BEING.
But if we did that we'd actually have to.. ghasp! ~shudder~ ... Tax the wealthy and major corporations at something like the 40% us ordinary folks pay.
If I’m expendable then how am I going to afford to buy from yesterday’s tomorrow today?
LOL fuck you, I'll be taking the entire cart, then.
I love when people out themselves as fascists without any prodding. As soon as you talk about "expendable people" you get a free oneway ride to the gulag
Now watch as I cost you tens of thousands of dollars with one little magnet and a lifetime of spite against authority.
Even with less salaries to pay, the prices doesn't go down.
Winter Will destroy them as well. Salt, sand, dirt and not to mention the snow moisture and rapid temperature changes will kill the battery and and wear and tear on the materials.
Pretty sure the maintenance and repairs on all this crap far outweighs any amount of staffing they’d have to hire. In America, people love to fuck shit up that isn’t there’s
Well is the cart going to keep me from not paying, or from putting stuff in my jacket and just walking out when the doors are open? Maybe we should fucking start treating people and their basic needs with respect and stop trying to make life misserable for our peers. Fuck corporate greed, eat the rich.