I thought of making this blog post on automation after going to Panera with my girlfriend for lunch. We walked inside and immediately were drawn to the self-ordering machines at the front of the restaurant. She ordered her food, went to the bathroom, leaving me to order my food. I put in my order, then got to the next screen where it asked to type in a pager number. There were zero pagers on the table, including the one next to me. Oh well, I’ll have them bring the food to us when it’s ready. “Go to counter to get your cups”.
So now, after ordering from the self-serve kiosk which would’ve taken the same amount of time to order in person, I have to go wait in line to grab my cups, along with every other person who ordered on the kiosks. Instead of waiting three minutes to order in person, it took five or more minutes combined.
America isn’t the only country obsessed with making things run smoothly. The phenomena could be observed in other first-world countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, or Germany. It’s especially seen in South-East Asian countries like Japan and China. However, the use for electronics in a country like Japan make sense. Labor shortages due to an aging country help see more automatons, as well as a 1960s manufacturing campaign.
This is not going to be an extremely researched article like previous works, but instead an opinionated piece on the frustration I feel towards America’s failed attempts at creating a nation reliant on electronics and automatons.
Restaurants and Dining
My girlfriend used to work in a dining room, working as a prep chef, waitress, and kitchen manager. Routinely, she would arrive back at home and on our nightly call, complain about management bringing in a robot server. The robot server she spoke of was causing more problems than it was designed to solve. It was slow, oftentimes getting in the way of the human servers, which is not what you need in a fast-paced work environment. The robot itself was extremely limited in its’ particular abilities. All it could do was bring food in and out of the kitchen. If something happened to be wrong in the dining room, the robot could not take in these complaints.
To make matters worse, my girlfriend’s work was often short-staffed. Not having any functions a human could have (aside from being in the way), the robot served as an extra body without a mind. A lot of money went into this investment as well, which prevented the management from using said money to hire extra workers, or pay the workers they already had more, which would help worker retention.
Shopping and Retail
I could go on and on talking about the self-serve kiosks at restaurants, but another case of this is self-checkouts. I won’t have as big of beef to squash with this if you have a few items. It’s especially nice if you are buying something you’re afraid of being judged for (we know the thing). Let’s talk about the times it’s really inconvenient.
If you’re aiming to buy alcohol, you’ll have to wait just as long to receive help as you’ll have to show an ID. Older people can get away with not showing their ID at grocers, but if using a self-checkout, the option is gone. You’ll now have to wait even more time.
Have you ever been to Target? A lot of these grocery stores preach a faster experience through self-checkouts. However, I guarantee the line at Target for self-checkout is longer than a normal line. Instead, people want to remove people (who they most likely see as checks to be paid). Self-checkouts are also much more likely to be stolen from. A report by the California government claimed theft to be much easier. The same report claimed self-checkouts leads to understaffing and toxic interactions between customers and workers.
To wrap up this section, let us end on a hypothetical question. If we, the customer, are doing all of the work (scanning and bagging), why aren’t we getting paid, or at the very least, a discount?
Customer Service
Have you ever had to make a call to a bank, insurance company, or any other business? Have you too gotten stuck in a loop of automated responses, hoping to finally speak to a live person? Welcome to the club. Businesses love cutting costs. One of the first cuts they always make when the option is available is customer support. If they can answer the majority of their callers questions with a robot, which doesn’t have to be paid, why would they hire multiple people? It’s a decent question to ponder, in fact, but I believe I stand on the side that the majority of people prefer human interactions.
Just the other day, I had to call my insurance provider to ask a question regarding what is covered in my auto policy. I think I said “Talk to a customer support representative” at least five times, being rejected every time. It forced me to go through the labyrinth of questions. This whole process took about five minutes. In those five minutes, I could’ve learned about my auto policy, hung up, brushed my teeth, and moved on with my day. Instead, I wasted precious time.
Conclusion
There’s definitely times where robots/automatons should be used, and it is appropriate. However, there are just as many times, if not more, where it should not be used in any regard. We’re entering a stage in our world where human lives are tossed aside for something easier and cheaper. We become villains of a world we dominate, that we create, and wonder why so many people suffer. We need to stop this useless emphasis on automation and focus more on the individual humans.