Walmart...

[AzogtheDefiler]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Case in point that increasing the min wage only punishes the poor, the students and the elderly who could have earned some extra money. Voting blue is idiotic.

 

[hjmick]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

 

[Canon Shooter]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

There was no shortage of people waiting in line to check themselves out...

 

[Concerned American]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Definitely a case of "Careful what you wish for--you may get it."

 

[Concerned American]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

I agree with you, but Walmart doesn't care--they'll do it to keep their costs down. Our Walmart always has one or two manned check stands. I have resigned myself to it. Most grocery stores in our area are going to that model to differing extents.

 

[emilynghiem]

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left.

She never told you this.

How do you know she never told him that? Were you in the Wooster Walmart yesterday too?

I took this to mean literally.
Not saying this verbatim.
Who the heck uses the word "panacea"
in a daily conversation? Not I!

^ I even say "Not I" when I'm typing.
When I'm talking IRL I would say Not Me.

So literally, I would not say that verbatim.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

No one wants to work anyway millions are still collecting thier extra 300.00 a week with thier states unemployment benefits....everyone here is desperate for workers
Last Tuesday me n my lady went to go to dinner at a local little restaurant ...they had a sigh up on window ...closed Tuesdays no one wants to work

They hired people constantly but they either don't show or stay for a few shifts and leave .....I'll take a picture...the signs from friggin Mars...

every store every shop ,every company pretty much begging for workers

 

[Canon Shooter]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

No one wants to work anyway millions are still collecting thier extra 300.00 a week with thier states unemployment benefits....everyone here is desperate for workers
Last Tuesday me n my lady went to go to dinner at a local little restaurant ...they had a sigh up on window ...closed Tuesdays no one wants to work

They hired people constantly but they either don't show or stay for a few shifts and leave .....I'll take a picture...the signs from friggin Mars...

every store every shop ,every company pretty much begging for workers

My hot Puerto Rican girlfriend manages a store in a local retail chain (they've got five stores).

New hires start out at $11 an hour (minimum wage is $8.56), and the benefits for those who get through their probationary period are excellent. On almost a weekly basis she tells me how so-and-so missed their shift; a "no call, no show" they call it. Back in my day a "no call, no show" was the one precursor you got to "no job". But so few people are bothering to look for work that these "no call, no shows" are seemingly allowed to simply not report for work, not call, and then return as though nothing happened.

There's a Dairy Queen in St. Augustine which has been closed for over a year. On the door is a hand-written sign which states "We are closed until such time as I can find employees who are worth a damn and who actually want to work." I don't know the full story behind what's going on there, but I never heard anything but complaints about the place. The owner shoulders a great deal of responsibility for the businesses failure, but it also doesn't say a lot about the people who were employed there...

 

[Canon Shooter]

Who the heck uses the word "panacea"
in a daily conversation? Not I!

Maybe someone with an education?

 

[hadit]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

It costs money to maintain manufacturing infrastructure, money that is totally wasted if the goods cannot be sold. We were underpriced by foreign competition and never adjusted to that new reality, so we simply abandoned manufacturing certain goods here at home because we couldn't compete with the lower costs from foreign competitors. Tell you what, start a shoe manufacturing company here in the US, produce a $50 shoe, pay all American workers a "decent" wage and make a profit. Demonstrate it can be done, despite the experts that convinced American shoe manufacturers that they couldn't do it.

Nobody convinced anyone that it couldn't be done. It was shown that more profit could be made by using slave overseas wages.

The bottom line is, they found a way to lower labor costs. Now you seem to want them to earn less and pay more. Who would do that?

And think on this as well. Those "slave wages" that are paid overseas are often the ONLY wages that are available in the area, which is why there is no shortage of workers willing to take the jobs. I know it's harsh, but the American way of thinking about work and labor is very different from what is experienced around the world, where even children are expected to contribute to the family's budget. They haven't become wealthy enough to worry about things like OSHA protections, child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, overtime, all those things we've managed to adopt because we could afford to.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago that the majority of Americans grew up on the family farm and started working as soon as they were physically able to carry things around, or worked the family store every hour they weren't in school or asleep. We have the luxury of labor law and protections because we don't have to literally work sun up to sun down every day just to survive.

If you wish to work to pay for things like subsidized housing, food stamps, etc so that multi-million dollar corporations don't have to pay people enough to live on, so be it.

You do realize, don't you, that it all comes from the producers in the end? The only question is how much is society going to take from them before they decide it's not worth working and the whole thing collapses.

 

[pknopp]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

It costs money to maintain manufacturing infrastructure, money that is totally wasted if the goods cannot be sold. We were underpriced by foreign competition and never adjusted to that new reality, so we simply abandoned manufacturing certain goods here at home because we couldn't compete with the lower costs from foreign competitors. Tell you what, start a shoe manufacturing company here in the US, produce a $50 shoe, pay all American workers a "decent" wage and make a profit. Demonstrate it can be done, despite the experts that convinced American shoe manufacturers that they couldn't do it.

Nobody convinced anyone that it couldn't be done. It was shown that more profit could be made by using slave overseas wages.

The bottom line is, they found a way to lower labor costs. Now you seem to want them to earn less and pay more. Who would do that?

And think on this as well. Those "slave wages" that are paid overseas are often the ONLY wages that are available in the area, which is why there is no shortage of workers willing to take the jobs. I know it's harsh, but the American way of thinking about work and labor is very different from what is experienced around the world, where even children are expected to contribute to the family's budget. They haven't become wealthy enough to worry about things like OSHA protections, child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, overtime, all those things we've managed to adopt because we could afford to.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago that the majority of Americans grew up on the family farm and started working as soon as they were physically able to carry things around, or worked the family store every hour they weren't in school or asleep. We have the luxury of labor law and protections because we don't have to literally work sun up to sun down every day just to survive.

If you wish to work to pay for things like subsidized housing, food stamps, etc so that multi-million dollar corporations don't have to pay people enough to live on, so be it.

You do realize, don't you, that it all comes from the producers in the end? The only question is how much is society going to take from them before they decide it's not worth working and the whole thing collapses.

I'm good with it all collapsing and starting over.

 

[hadit]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

And after 20 years of all stores doing that, you will be an oddity.

 

[hjmick]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

And after 20 years of all stores doing that, you will be an oddity.

I'll probably be dead before that...

 

[evenflow1969]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Yep, how dare we think a living wage is reasonable for 40 hours a week work. You are on to something though. It is not the immigrant stealing your job it's tech. Of course it would not be this way if Walmart had a union. Lol. Typical republican wanna play monopoly for ten turns and the let the leader make the rules of the game after that and thinks it will benefit the players that are behind. Hilarious

 

[hadit]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Yep, how dare we think a living wage is reasonable for 40 hours a week work. You are on to something though. It is not the immigrant stealing your job it's tech. Of course it would not be this way if Walmart had a union. Lol. Typical republican wanna play monopoly for ten turns and the let the leader make the rules of the game after that and thinks it will benefit the players that are behind. Hilarious

Oh, it would be this way with or without a union because the global market and advancing technology WILL replace low skilled, low educated workers world-wide. It's inevitable. In fact, the ONLY way to prevent that from happening is to make human workers so cheap they couldn't live on the pay anyway. Trying to lock down human jobs by legislative fiat won't work, because that would just cede them to other countries entirely.

Now, if Wal-Mart had a union, where would you send the poor of this country to buy the things they can't afford at Wal-Mart any more?

 

[hadit]

I will pass on questioning the veracity of the OP, but I will say this...


Anyplace not giving the customer an option of checking out with a cashier and instead opting for self checkout only, unless they are offering me a discount to do it myself, will lose my business.

And after 20 years of all stores doing that, you will be an oddity.

I'll probably be dead before that...

Maybe, but the reality is, things change and people adapt. It won't be very long before waiting in line to have someone else run your purchases over a scanner and put them in a bag will be seen as something Grandma used to do that no self-respecting person would ever do now.

 

[Dadoalex]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Self service checkout lines have been a "thing" for 30 years.
You know, back BEFORE the minimum wage was raised to its current levels.

Something stinks of hypocrisy.
Perhaps a good bath in reality might remove some of that stink.

 

[evenflow1969]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Yep, how dare we think a living wage is reasonable for 40 hours a week work. You are on to something though. It is not the immigrant stealing your job it's tech. Of course it would not be this way if Walmart had a union. Lol. Typical republican wanna play monopoly for ten turns and the let the leader make the rules of the game after that and thinks it will benefit the players that are behind. Hilarious

Oh, it would be this way with or without a union because the global market and advancing technology WILL replace low skilled, low educated workers world-wide. It's inevitable. In fact, the ONLY way to prevent that from happening is to make human workers so cheap they couldn't live on the pay anyway. Trying to lock down human jobs by legislative fiat won't work, because that would just cede them to other countries entirely.

Now, if Wal-Mart had a union, where would you send the poor of this country to buy the things they can't afford at Wal-Mart any more?

Well first off more unions mean less poor. More people making a living wage. You can not out source the service of local buyers to other countries because they are not present in our local market. We got along just fine before Walmart existed . All of your arguments are horse shit.

 

[hadit]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Yep, how dare we think a living wage is reasonable for 40 hours a week work. You are on to something though. It is not the immigrant stealing your job it's tech. Of course it would not be this way if Walmart had a union. Lol. Typical republican wanna play monopoly for ten turns and the let the leader make the rules of the game after that and thinks it will benefit the players that are behind. Hilarious

Oh, it would be this way with or without a union because the global market and advancing technology WILL replace low skilled, low educated workers world-wide. It's inevitable. In fact, the ONLY way to prevent that from happening is to make human workers so cheap they couldn't live on the pay anyway. Trying to lock down human jobs by legislative fiat won't work, because that would just cede them to other countries entirely.

Now, if Wal-Mart had a union, where would you send the poor of this country to buy the things they can't afford at Wal-Mart any more?

Well first off more unions mean less poor. More people making a living wage. You can not out source the service of local buyers to other countries because they are not present in our local market. We got along just fine before Walmart existed . All of your arguments are horse shit.

And we paid higher prices before Wal-Mart because in large part we were the world's biggest manufacturer until the rest of the world recovered from that little unpleasantness in the 40's that destroyed their manufacturing base. Today, in a global economy with technology advancing the way it is, low skilled low education jobs will become fewer every year, no matter how many unions you throw at them. Machines just do a better, more consistent job than humans do and their costs drop while the cost of humans climbs. When those lines cross, bye-bye human jobs.

 

[hadit]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Self service checkout lines have been a "thing" for 30 years.
You know, back BEFORE the minimum wage was raised to its current levels.

Something stinks of hypocrisy.
Perhaps a good bath in reality might remove some of that stink.

Their usage is only going to increase. I predict in 20 years or less, the idea of waiting in line for someone else to run your purchases over a scanner and put them in a bag will be seen as something Grandma used to do that no self-respecting shopper would do today.