Pour your own Beer Coming to Detroit and Michigan

[Cliffy]

I'm not sure where everyone is going to work. The other day I went into a Panera bread they had touch screens to self order food and pay. You go to Meijer and they have one register open and the rest is self serve and they expect the cashier to ring it up and bag the groceries [[the bagger is becoming extinct). They are talking about adding self ordering touchpads at Mcdonalds too. Technology and greed is going to wipe this country off the map.

[FredGarvin]

One issue is that these cashiers, Panera front-line workers, baggers, McD's employees and others is that they are feeling their work is worth $15/hr. If that's not incentive for these companies to adopt automated technology, I don't know what is. What did these workers think companies would do, roll over and pay that? They're looking at this $15/hr pay level all wrong. Rather than saying that their work is worth $15/hr, they have to say they can't survive on $15/hr; a big difference. They could make the equivalent of $17/hr if they worked two jobs.

[Cliffy]

One issue is that these cashiers, Panera front-line workers, baggers, McD's employees and others is that they are feeling their work is worth $15/hr. If that's not incentive for these companies to adopt automated technology, I don't know what is. What did these workers think companies would do, roll over and pay that? They're looking at this $15/hr pay level all wrong. Rather than saying that their work is worth $15/hr, they have to say they can't survive on $15/hr; a big difference. They could make the equivalent of $17/hr if they worked two jobs.

No, Fred. This has been going on for the past 30 years. When I was a kid and returned bottles, someone would count them for me, now I have to put them in a machine. Some banks charge you a fee if you see the teller, they want everything done with the ATM. I can go on and on with examples. The gas meters are read electronically without someone having to come to your house. Not saying its a bad thing but now they want to charge you $5 for a beer and want you to pour it yourself so they don't have to pay another salary.

If Meijer could do a self-serve meat counter so they wouldn't have to pay people, they would. We already changed the law where you don't have to put prices on items at the grocery store so they require less people. So much greed.

[Zacha341]

Sanitation is an issue. Everyone is not clean. You can barely trust the folks behind the counter wearing the plastic gloves if they've ever changed them! Or that the surfaces and cutting units are clean. Self-serve meat counter at Meijer? Uh no. Thanks.

....If Meijer could do a self-serve meat counter so they wouldn't have to pay people, they would. We already changed the law where you don't have to put prices on items at the grocery store so they require less people. So much greed.

[Jimaz]

...If Meijer could do a self-serve meat counter so they wouldn't have to pay people, they would....

Next, customers could butcher the meat themselves and SAVE SAVE SAVE!. Next, the customers could breed and feed the animals themselves and SAVE SAVE SAVE! At some point you'd have to ask yourself why you're paying deadbeat parasitic corporations anything at all for doing nothing at all.

Exaggeration, yes, but that's the direction commerce is headed and it is driven by greed.

The Twilight Zone S05E33 The Brain Center at Whipple's

"When you're dead and buried who do you get to mourn for you?"

[bust]

We already changed the law where you don't have to put prices on items at the grocery store...

Changing this law was a terrible idea. I learned to appreciate individually price-tagged items at stores when I moved to New York, where that law doesn't exist. Many stores here create confusion about prices to their unfair advantage. Prices on shelves are hard to find or non-existent. Sale prices are left on the shelf after the sale has ended. High priced items are put on the shelf above the price tag for something else that is cheaper and has almost the same name. [[No, that's the 8=12 rolls pack of paper towels, not the 9=12. See, the PLU# is 18736252, not 18736232). The cheaper item may be 10 feet away, or may not exist on the shelf at all. The mandated per unit pricing on the shelf labels may use incompatible units so they're impossible to compare. [[The 4-pack of water filters are $132.23 per gallon; the 6-pack are $204.12 per pound). Sometimes they're miscalculated besides. Some stores are better about this than others. The Target and the Key Food near me are two of the worst offenders. Many of the corner bodegas / delis barely list prices at all. Somehow the "mistakes" never end up cheaper for the customer.

[Zacha341]

And all this time we thought it was over population that was going to be our doom.

No, it will be far too many people for an ever dwindling, ever scarce specific technical knowledge pool of jobs. Jobs requiring ever-increasing technical skills! JOY! UMM, Press number 2 for that Big Mac Combo!

...They are talking about adding self ordering touchpads at Mcdonalds too. Technology and greed is going to wipe this country off the map.

[EastsideAl]

And all this time we thought it was over population that was going to be our doom.

No, it will be far too many people for an ever dwindling, ever scarce specific technical knowledge pool of jobs. Jobs requiring ever-increasing technical skills! JOY! UMM, Press number 2 for that Big Mac Combo!

"Shareholder value" is the god that all must be sacrificed to now. Customer service and retaining good employees are mostly irrelevant now, in light of this fiduciary imperative to eke the last possible penny out of every process.

Driverless trucks, cabs, buses, etc. coming soon. Deliveries by GPS-guided drones. Robotic warehousing and stocking. One has to wonder though who the hell is going to buy all the crap being automatically trucked around, or have the scratch to go to the bar to pour their own beers, once most of us are un- or marginally-employed.