Shop Till It Drops

Ando Japando writes "There's an article on NYTimes.com about a new vending machine in the US. Unlike the typical machine, this one is 18 ft wide and takes up 200 square ft. Of course, the convenience stores are not sure if this machine is a boon or a boo, but many people like it because it doesn't take up a lot of space. It'd be really cool to see these all over the place. Others complain about the lack of human interaction and perceive it as dehumanizing. That may be true, but at least it's not a live bait vending machine."

Comments

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[DrXym]

Automats have been around for a hundred years. The fact they never caught on must demonstrate that shoppers prefer the human touch. That doesn't mean vending machines and their ilk don't have a place, but that any store that thinks it can do away with humans will soon find itself filing for bankruptcy.

dehumanising?

[kevin lyda]

a vending machine is dehumanising? are they trying to imply that working in a convenience store is not dehumanising? i suggest they go try it.

Re:dehumanising?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Right on!

Speaking from experience, the most dehumanizing part of working as a cashier is the customers. And people wonder why cashiers are often snide and defensive - it's because one in four of the customers they serve is either rude or just plain evil.

My girlfriend works as a cashier and yesterday some asshole was giving her shit because she had the audacity to want to verify his credit card signature. Personally, I have been threatened a number of times - usually the worst people were the white, middle-class types. Hell, in my city, I think more cashiers died last year than cops.

She's really nice to all the customers, but she's getting more bitter and resentful and it's starting to show.

People seem to assume that if you work in a store, you must be stupid or useless. My girlfriend has a university degree. She just wasn't lucky like the rest of us when it came time to start her career. Her supervisor has a masters in mathematics (or something, can't remember).

If you hate having to deal with a bitchy cashier, maybe you should adjust *your* attitude and/or spend a day in their shoes.

It's funny how much more respect I get now wearing a suit - I haven't changed one bit, but when I was a cashier I received all kinds of shit.

Wal-Mart Nation

[David Wong]

Going a step further, the truth is in the end we as a society get what we want. I see a parallel here to the Wal-Mart phenomenon, people screaming and crying because we lost "Main Street America" and all the quaint little shops ran by friendly old people, now run out of business by the huge, cold, evil product-dispensing Wal-Mart juggernaut.

Why did it happen? With evil corporate tricks? Smoke and mirrors? No; it was because people like it better this way. We like getting everything we need in one place, getting it quick, getting it cheap. Those little mom and pop shopkeepers screwed me over far more often than Wal-Mart ever could. You think Old Man Funkle from down the street had Wal-Mart's "return anything for any reason for a refund" policy? Hell no. He smiled at us as we came into his little shop, place smelling like cigar smoke, and he gouged the hell out of us. His selection sucked, it took forever to get checked out...

We have moved on. We need toothpaste, diapers, aspirin. We don't see getting those necessities as some wonderful opportunity to make new friends. If we could snap our fingers and make that stuff magically appear in our cabinets, we'd do it.

With the machine, we've taken the next step. There is no line (or at least less of one), there is none of that annoyance we get with humanity. When I want a conversation I'll talk to a friend. When I want a box of kleenex, I'll go to the Kleenex machine. If something has been lost, it is solely because we chose to lose it.