Sorry but I can't take your order says the young man behind the counter at Wendy's
I like people, not touch screen kiosks; also, a couple recent tv hits
I first noticed it at Target when four self-check out lanes were open but all “human” cashier lanes were closed except for one. Then a few of the local Dunkin’ Donuts stopped serving customers inside—it was drive thru or nothing. Fast forward to Wendy’s in Mansfield, MA this past Sunday night. My youngest had just finished a weekend of basketball games (they won the tourney!) and so as not to be THAT person who orders five combo meals at the drive thru, I decided to park and go inside to order. I walked up to the counter where a friendly young man told me, “I can’t take orders.” I thought maybe I had misunderstood him and my face likely gave away my confusion because he reiterated that he couldn’t take orders. I said, “are you saying the only way to order food is at the drive thru?” and he said, “well, drive thru or kiosk” and he pointed at some electronic touch screens over near the door.
I walked over to the kiosks. There were three in total but two were broken so everyone was in line at the only functioning kiosk. I waited my turn, wondering if I should just get back in the car and pull into the very long line at the drive thru. I decided to try my luck at the kiosk. Great! Now, instead of being THAT person at the drive thru, I was THAT person trying to order 5 meals on a touch screen I had never seen or used before. Which meal? Which size? Which drink? Which sauce for the nuggets? I gave up on trying to add two frostys to my order (and switching the sauce on two of the orders from barbecue to Ranch was absolutely out of the question!) People were waiting behind me and I just wanted to hit “submit order” and get out of the way.
The next day at BJ’s? All the self-check out lanes were open but only two with actual people were open.
What the heck is going on?
Since the pandemic, it really does feel like the powers that be want us interacting with machines instead of with one another. This can’t be good for us. I realize that I am one of those weirdos who loves to talk to strangers — my cab drivers, the people at the drive thru, the cashier at TJ Maxx — but things are getting a bit ridiculous. We are barely interacting at all. It actually makes me pine for the days during my teenage years when the salty yet friendly old guy named Jack pumped my gas at the local gas station. He knew us. We knew him. It was basic human connection.
Now, instead of human connection, I have a computerized voice barking at me because the machine doesn’t think I put my item in the bagging area, even though I did. The light above starts blinking while Little Miss Computer Voice tells me over and over that “help is on the way.” Ok, lady but I didn’t want to ring up my own stuff in the first place! I totally get that some customers love self-check out but many of us do not. But we are left with no option as human cashiers cease to exist in so many places. And now, I walk into a Wendy’s at dinner time and the only person at the counter literally can’t take orders.
Some readers just hear someone about to turn fifty (GASP!) whining about progress but I truly don’t think that’s what I’m doing. I am lamenting an already thread bare social fabric that feels increasingly at risk as we move away from the day-to-day human interactions that I believe make us stronger.
Eye contact. A smile. A shared laugh. A shared eye roll. A shared anything. I contend that the loss of these seemingly trivial interactions is anything but trivial.
What do you think?
Lady with new glasses for “changing eyes” does a couple TV hits…
I was recently on News Nation—it was my first time on that network and I enjoyed the back and forth with the host. We talked about a school in Vermont that sent a letter home to families advising them that the words “boy,” “girl,” “male,” and “female” would no longer be used in an upcoming health class unit for 5th graders on puberty and human reproduction. Instead, teachers and students will use the terms “person who produces sperm” and “person who produces eggs.” I find this language ridiculous and dehumanizing in any context but especially in the context of a unit on human reproduction in health class.
*reminder that 5th graders are ten and 11 years old.
And here’s a recent clip of me on The National Desk about the same story:
If you’re wondering what the actual letter looks like that we are discussing in these clips, here you go. My apologies in advance for being the reason you now know about this.
I share your dismay with the way contemporary corporate culture is shuttling us towards machines where previously, in the Before Times, we would have interacted with a human. I'll confess that I've gotten somewhat quicker at self-checkout at my local Walmart; quicker to locate the bar codes and much more fluent at swiping them across the infrared-luminated glass reader. So there's that. My wife has pointed out just how many people aren't even entering Walmart and Kroger anymore, but farming out their food purchases to people hired for that purpose--people who now push carts through the store, squinting at lists of to-be-purchased foodstuffs uploaded electronically by people too lazy to do their own food shopping. She notes that as we age, as our bodies slowly lose muscle mass, we actually benefit from the walking around, the hoisting of boxes and cans down off shelves, the pushing of shopping carts out to the car, the loading and unloading the trunk. The everyday physical stuff is the stuff that keeps you healthy. So there's that.
I'll add one more category of thing that we don't see much anymore: the purchase point where no human oversees the transaction but where we are on our honor to leave payment. Is this a New England thing? I'm talking about the rural pumpkin patch or farm stand where a sign tells you what you're allowed to take ("No more than two pumpkins per person") and/or where to leave cash payment. The payment receptacle is usually a small lockbox with a slot in the top. THAT sort of virtue-driven antique folk practice. Once, many years ago, when I was a kid vacationing on Monhegan Island, ME, I assembled a little knick-knack stand, provisioned it with stuff I'd found out on the rocks and on the beach--a bleached crab shell, a striking hunk of driftwood--and, prompted by my mom, made some sort of sign with an arrow pointing towards the money-can, which was a Chock Full 'O Nuts coffee can with a slot hacked into the plastic top. "Please deposit payment here," it said. After spending an hour or two at my stand, selling a couple of things, and depositing the cash into the can, I went home for lunch, leaving the stand, and the honor code, and the cash-can, to fend for themselves. That's how we lived as late as the 1960s. I hope a few kids out there still get the chance to live like that.
I too am one of those who likes chatting up the cashier or clerk. I waited in line for 10 minutes at the grocery store yesterday as there were only 2 humans working. Lots of us doing the same. It's one thing if you just had a few items but I had a cart full, had coupons, and produce, which takes forever to figure out the system the one time I did do self checkout. A lot of places have a feedback survey or phone number at the bottom of the receipt and I let them know my opinion of self checkout. Suspect there is a large increase in 'shrinkage' (theft) that we are all paying for. But it's a perfect storm of record retirements in 2020 and 2021, fewer kids born post 2008 recession, fewer kids working and all of this 'fight for $15' nonsense that ultimately is resulting in a lot fewer jobs. And a lot less human interaction. It's sad.