Volunteer Wal-Mart Employees Wanted

I refuse to use self-check out. When I first saw cashier registers being replaced at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Shaw’s, I thought, “Brilliant! I can run into a store and buy stuff without human interaction. The days of making embarrassing Home Depot purchases and shuffling up to the counter while trying not to make eye contact with the cashier are over!”

Then I tried to buy gum and a headband using self-check out at Wal-Mart. First, the computer rejected my bagging technique, and the machine jammed up and asked me to seek the assistance of a Wal-Mart employee, which I did for about the amount of time that it would have taken for a cashier to scan my goods and send me on my way. By the time that was settled, I opened my purse to pay and somehow spilled all of my change across the Wal-Mart supercenter. I left the store embarrassed and confused, and assumed all guilt in the matter.

In the few similar experiences that I had with self-check out, I slowly got better at using the machine, but then about a year ago I realized something: I was in Wal-Mart employee training. Actually, I was a volunteer Wal-Mart employee. In fact, every consumer who had ever used self-check out was in training to be a self-sufficient buyer. Corporate America has just pinched our cheeks and told us that we were old enough to do the big-kid chores, and we, glowing with pride, dashed out the kitchen door to get started.

Now that I’m looking for a summer job, I like the self-check out concept even less. It is another machine that is replacing the need for human labor, which is good for the bottom line of the corporation, and bad for the displaced employee looking for a job. If an ideal corporation is a self-sufficient machine that turns all profit for no cost, where will potential customers go to earn money to pay for its products?

Currently, we are in an unfair bargain with the corporations we buy from. The only way to stop them from telling us what to buy and how much to pay for it is to put our money where our loyalties lie. That means buying from the people we know and respect most. It means waiting in line for one extra minute, so that a cashier can say “hello” to us, and scan our items, and bag our goods, and help us feel unflustered enough to not empty our change purses onto the floor, and say “thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart” as a paid employee should.