I started using grocery self-checkouts during COVID, but I’ve kept using them because there’s rarely a line (and I’m a misanthrope). I’d probably go back to using regular human checkouts if I had to dig through all my crap to prove what I bought.

Having said that, I’ve noticed myself making mistakes. I’ve accidentally failed to scan an item, and I’ve accidentally entered incorrect codes for produce. When I notice, I fix them, but I’ve probably missed a few.

I guess the easiest answer is for grocery chains to reinvest some of those windfall profits and hire more cashiers.

  • @Ricketts@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    -51 year ago

    I get the whole living wage thing, but a cashier’s position was never a living wage, in the past it was a wage used to supplement a family’s income, or to pay for post secondary tuition. What changed? My local Wallyworld supercentre was the first in the region to go self serve, the manager said he couldn’t find staff, but in all honesty whether it was a living wage or not, I think he just didn’t want the staff.

    • The minimum wage was enacted to provide all citizens with a basic quality of life, including food and housing. Full stop. Everything after your incorrect statement is irrelevant as it is founded on an untrue principle.

      • @Ricketts@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        -2
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        My bad. I never knew a 16 year old working at a fast food outlet was supposed to support a family. I formally apologize as a white colonial male with priviledge

    • @knivesandchives@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 year ago

      A friend of mine, her father was a bagging clerk at a grocery store for literally his entire life. He was able to support two kids and a spouse on that salary, and retired maybe ten years ago.

    • jadero
      link
      fedilink
      51 year ago

      How far in the past? I’m sure I remember unionized cashiers at, I think, Safeway getting paid comparable to me as a unionized welder in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I could be completely wrong about that, because I think it was the whole store on strike, not just the cashiers.

      • BringMeTheDiscoKing
        link
        fedilink
        31 year ago

        A couple of my aunts were cashiers around the same timeframe, one of em a single mom. I don’t know how much they were paid, but they had decent apartments in Toronto around Roncesvalles with enough square footage for a kid and his cousins to get “up to speed” (I mostly recall the injuries)

        • jadero
          link
          fedilink
          11 year ago

          That lines up with my memories in Saskatoon. Injuries aside :) By then I had my own son to manage!