Tyne Valley Martial Arts

I’m not adverse to change, I don’t hate progress….The mobile phone might have its down sides but it also has some major plusses. Electric cars…The Tesla looks cool and although its not a 73 Mustang its probably going to be a necessary move forward. Add in YouTube, Blogging and Social Media…Yes  I’m a fan, do I want to scrap combine harvesters and go back to hundreds of people heading out to the fields with scythes…no definitely not but the tills we find in most major supermarkets, some petrol stations and large DIY chains in my view are nothing to do with progress just another way to take away employment, push profits and move toward a more and more automated society where human interaction becomes less and less relevant. Its not progress, its a regression.

So why are these so offensive? Supermarkets are already a bit of a scourge on society generally. Smaller higher quality stores with owners who care about their customers are so much better.

But they’re so cheap….? Well no not really. Even besides the human cost I regularly shop at higher quality farm shops. I recently went to a place in Northumberland where many of the very high quality vegetables and meat was in some cases half the price of my local supermarket. The few local DIY shops left that have not been closed by B&Q or Screwfix have actual expertise and often much better pricing than the chains.

They Create employment? Well Morrisons that moved in locally a couple of years ago aside from damaging the local environment, adding a crazy amount of traffic to the local area with no improvement to the road system, closing the local coop and post office and providing low quality jobs to an ever decreasing amount of people….great! that’s progress right?

So back to the Evil Robo Tills…. Why the hell do you want to serve yourself? its no quicker you are just doing more work for the supermarket, this makes no sense at all!  I could add a whole bunch of things to this rant but for now just follow my lead….

1. Join a short queue
2. If there are no staff just stand there and wait for a member of staff (if there are any)
3. When they offer to help you through the ROBO Till politely point out you are saving their job.
4. Worst case just go to a shop owned by a guy who wants your trade and will give you a nice smile, a hello and if you go regularly maybe some conversation….Wow imagine that but your grand parents would definitely remember something similar!

With Amazon creating cashless, human less stores with plans to roll them out we need to ask….really is this a good thing?