If only we could go back in time with our old brains and young bodies and try all this shit over again. Willie Stargell once said the problem with baseball is by the time you figure out how to play it they make you stop.
My very first job, at age 14, was as a checkout girl in a grocery store. This was in 1979. Back then the cash register was manual. You had to know how to count change back, and everything had price stickers on it that you had to find (except for produce, you had a list with prices taped to the cash register every morning)
One reason I like to shop at Hen House is that they do not have any self checkouts as far as I've observed. Of course, they're also expensive, but another reason I like them is that they're locally owned. I refuse to shop at Walmart, where they have two cashiers for 28 registers, forcing you to check yourself out, and then they have goons on every door to accuse you of theft before you can get out. :D
Visited Target yesterday and the same thing was going on: only two check out lanes were open and the lines were incredibly long so a lady said let me help you and took me to a self-checkout kiosk. If they lowered prices because they no longer had to pay cashiers because the customers were now doing that job themselves, maybe I'd be a fan of that, but you know the prices won't come down and someone rich will just get richer.
Jesus, I sound like every cranky old man in the long history of cranky old men, but maybe you've got to be around a while to figure out how all this works.
Excellent read.
Also, I’m glad I’m old.
If only we could go back in time with our old brains and young bodies and try all this shit over again. Willie Stargell once said the problem with baseball is by the time you figure out how to play it they make you stop.
Willie was a genius.
My very first job, at age 14, was as a checkout girl in a grocery store. This was in 1979. Back then the cash register was manual. You had to know how to count change back, and everything had price stickers on it that you had to find (except for produce, you had a list with prices taped to the cash register every morning)
One reason I like to shop at Hen House is that they do not have any self checkouts as far as I've observed. Of course, they're also expensive, but another reason I like them is that they're locally owned. I refuse to shop at Walmart, where they have two cashiers for 28 registers, forcing you to check yourself out, and then they have goons on every door to accuse you of theft before you can get out. :D
Visited Target yesterday and the same thing was going on: only two check out lanes were open and the lines were incredibly long so a lady said let me help you and took me to a self-checkout kiosk. If they lowered prices because they no longer had to pay cashiers because the customers were now doing that job themselves, maybe I'd be a fan of that, but you know the prices won't come down and someone rich will just get richer.
Jesus, I sound like every cranky old man in the long history of cranky old men, but maybe you've got to be around a while to figure out how all this works.
That's okay, I get called a cranky old lady all the time and I'm only in my late 50s. :D
On the other hand, I was also a cranky young man.