Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Saturday, December 4. 2021

CVS: Help wanted

My closest CVS has set up four self-service kiosks this week. The gal showed me how they work, which is simple.


I was in there early to grab some notebooks. I asked her why they appeared. "We can't find workers." 

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 16:08 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

My CVS has them, too and i generally luke it. Except today when i bought nyquil and had to wait 10 minutuz for someone to come see i was 65.
#1 Bigcat (Link) on 2021-12-04 17:26 (Reply)
I bought spray lube at Walmart and it required a age verification.
#1.1 OneGuy on 2021-12-04 17:34 (Reply)
Our local CVS has one self-check-out station. It works pretty well most of the time. It's actually a lot easier than checking out at the normal counter; Those Plexiglas barriers make it almost impossible to pass a large box of something to the checkout person. A few times I've had the self-check machine lock up on me, requiring an employee to unlock it. Sign of the times, I guess...
#2 snopercod on 2021-12-04 17:28 (Reply)
The checkout kiosks are a big money saver for retailers, but the time-wasting elements of it go straight to the consumer. It's the equivalent of being stuck on the telephone wasting 15 minutes of your time navigating voice menus before you're placed on a 20-minute hold waiting for the Live Human - and being forced to listen to ads the whole damn time.

They'll station one worker to manage a dozen kiosks, and inevitably you're waiting for that person to become available to unlock your kiosk because you're buying forbidden fruit, as noted above. Kroger gotten slightly better - the worker now just does it through their phone.
#3 Aggie on 2021-12-04 18:28 (Reply)
Which is exactly why Walmart is doing it- one of my children works for them and says straight out cashiers are hard to find.

It's why fast food retailers offer all kinds of goodies and rewards- if you use their app to order. Order at the counter- less rewards. If any. App ordering reduces their labor costs. I see the eventual demise of kiosk ordering- apps cost even less.

As for self checkout- 90%+ of the time it's faster. But remember the "5 item or less express lane"? All retailers need that for the self checkout area.
#4 gospace on 2021-12-04 20:11 (Reply)
Self-check works great for prepackaged stuff with a legible bar code; I use it at Home Depot all the time. But I buy lots of fresh produce at the grocery store, and I'm not about to stab my way through 6 layers of menus to find the price for serrano peppers, and then again for a half-pound of mushrooms. Besides, cashiers gotta eat, too.

FIGHT THE ROBOT APOCALYPSE!
#5 Michael Anderson (Link) on 2021-12-04 22:27 (Reply)
I actually prefer the self check lines. My only complaint with them is that it is almost impossible to find one where you can pay cash and not use credit.
#6 OneGuy on 2021-12-04 23:29 (Reply)
Home Depot has had self checkout for at least five years. I tried it way back when and it refused my first two bar-coded items. I quit and took my stuff to a cashier. Never tried it again.
#7 BillH on 2021-12-05 09:38 (Reply)
The lack of workers is a problem everywhere. Soon, everything will be automated, and then what will the workers live on? Welfare? You can only stretch that so far.
#8 RebeccaH on 2021-12-05 10:23 (Reply)
Credit, no cash. Sign of the (End)times.

I tend to shy away from the SPKs. I'm not a paid employee of the store, so I'm not going to act like one.
#9 Maniac on 2021-12-05 11:34 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.