QR Codes Replace Service Staff as Pandemic Spurs Automation in US (ft.com) 132
American workers in manufacturing plants and distribution centres have long worried that their employers would find ways to replace them with robots and artificial intelligence, but the Covid-19 crisis has brought that threat to service workers, too. Businesses are increasingly turning to automated tools for customer service tasks long done by low-wage staff. But rather than robots, it is the ubiquitous QR matrix bar codes that are replacing humans [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. Financial Times: Many restaurants have begun to experiment with QR codes and order management systems such as Toast that allow diners to order food to their table from their phones instead of with human servers. Grocery stores have increased their investments in self-checkout kiosks that replace human cashiers, and more convenience stores including Circle K are experimenting with the computer vision technology pioneered by Amazon Go to allow customers to make purchases without standing in a checkout line at all. The shifts mean that some of the 1.7m leisure and hospitality jobs and 270,000 retail jobs the US economy has lost since its February 2020 high are unlikely to return.
I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of our system of Capitalism is to drive the cost of producing goods as close to zero as possible. Job obsolescence is built-in. I don't think we've planned enough for what the eventual endgame of that philosophy is.
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With the birth rate plummeting, perhaps it's just in time
The birthrate in the U.S. may be plummeting, but the unskilled immigration rate is increasing tremendously. Immigrants will need someplace to work, otherwise our unemployed rate will skyrocket and our social services network will collapse.
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Renaissance periods can fill this. Note the use of the word "can", it's not a guarantee that a culture has a renaissance and I think one example we can look at is China. Maybe some brilliant western historian who knows Chinese history better than me will correct me but for a few years now, I certainly haven't found any real evidence of this.
If you look up "renaissance" period, you will notice how they mention "economic rebirth". As inventions reduce labor, society can focus more on aspects like art, archite
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I had been wondering when we were going to start hearing stories about how the COVID pandemic has driven automation. I know in the last 18-20 months trying to contact any form of support has resulted in a LOT more automation hell than what I remember in the past. Even smaller companies are going for it. Hell, MY company is starting to look at it for internal helpdesk requests. Which is dumb beyond belief as 99% of our helpdesk requests are "Backend isn't sending print jobs" or "Printer got pushed off th
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I had been wondering when we were going to start hearing stories about how the COVID pandemic has driven automation.
It is already happening. Before COVID we here in the San Francisco Bay Area had toll takers on our bridges. There were some fast-trac lanes but most lanes had a toll taker. Today all of our bridges are fast-trac and the toll authority is planning on removing all the toll booths within the next year.
Re:I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of our system of Capitalism is to drive the cost of producing goods as close to zero as possible.
The point of Capitalism is to find the price of goods and services, and to move resources through the economy in an efficient manner.
If you can drive the cost of production down, that can help you sell more, but not always. MD 20-20 manages to make a bottle of wine for $4, that doesn't make it popular. Likewise, McDonald's is loosing market share to Five Guys, which sells more expensive burgers.
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It happens to be one way that companies try to compete with one another in pursuit of profit, which if there is a "whole point" to the thing it is that. There are plenty of examples of products where cost is added in order to meet demands of the market.
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To some people, the entire point of any economic system is the worker and nothing more complicated than that.
Keeping simply allows one to act cynical while offering no alternatives. For example, is MobileTatsu-NJG arguing that we should not look for efficiency or that we should stop looking for efficiency once it affects the labor market? In which case, I sincerely hope he is still mailing instead of emailing wherever possible.
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For example, is MobileTatsu-NJG arguing that we should not look for efficiency or that we should stop looking for efficiency once it affects the labor market?
No. What I said in my post was that we are overlooking a serious flaw in the concept and need to explore it. I could share with you how I think it should be done (for example I don't think sabotaging automation is practical...) but I do not represent enough people or have an innovative enough idea to propose something for productive debate. Example: What would work for the United States won't likely work for Mexico. That's the low-hanging fruit someone with a frivolous reason to argue with me would
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we are overlooking a serious flaw in the concept
The automation "concept" has been happening since the invention of the steam engine 300 years ago. Since then, our living standards have improved twenty-fold. That isn't a "flaw".
Every pointless dead-end job that can be replaced with a QR code means one more worker available for a job that actually produces something that adds to our collective prosperity.
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Assuming relative velocities don't change, sure. Suppose self-driving semis displace hundreds of thousands of truck drivers faster than they can be trained in a new field? If we're gonna act like wages for unskilled labor are only appropriate for teenagers living with their dual-income parents you've got a heck of an itchy issue brewing in a hypothetical like that.
What actually happens between "automation!" and "shit's better!" may not be a stable metric, glossing over it is unwise.
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Suppose self-driving semis displace hundreds of thousands of truck drivers faster than they can be trained in a new field?
The same was said about the hundreds of thousands of switchboard operators, bank tellers, and hay stackers.
The automation of the trucking industry will take a decade or more. There are 500,000 long-haul truckers. Our economy created 850,000 net new jobs in June.
The belief that pointless unproductive jobs are "good for the economy" is known as the Broken Window Fallacy [wikipedia.org].
Every dollar that we don't spend on a pointless job that can be done by a robot or QR sticker, is a dollar that can be spent to create new
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The automation of the trucking industry will take a decade or more. There are 500,000 long-haul truckers. Our economy created 850,000 net new jobs in June.
I specifically asked what happens if your assumption of the time it takes is horribly wrong. That's exactly what I was griping about being overlooked. Heh.
EVERYTHING is improving, including how fast a technology can be adopted.
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I specifically asked what happens if your assumption of the time it takes is horribly wrong.
So instead of a decade, let's say that we magically create 500,000 self-driving trucks in three weeks.
Can our economy absorb that many ex-drivers? The BLS jobs report from June says we can.
However, if all the trucks are all produced in one week, we'll have a problem.
Now, let's go back to reality: Even a decade is very optimistic (or pessimistic from your viewpoint).
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However, if all the trucks are all produced in one week, we'll have a problem.
Now, let's go back to reality: Even a decade is very optimistic (or pessimistic from your viewpoint).
And what exactly is the mechanism keeping your misleadingly-silly extreme in check?
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The government forcing labor wage costs up definitely pushes this faster.
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The government forcing labor wage costs up definitely pushes this faster.
Government-mandated minimum wages are lower than the prevailing market wages almost everywhere.
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The whole point of our system of Capitalism is to drive the cost of producing goods as close to zero as possible.
You are correct only if you accept the common-but-flawed definition of "cost". If you adopt a realistic definition of the word, then in addition to expenses defined by our voodoo economics you must also add externalities such as environmental damage, global warming, depletion of limited natural resources, etc. In that case, the cost of goods is often increasing; but we're keeping prices artificially (very) low by stealing from future generations, who will be stuck with the REAL cost of the mess we've made i
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Except we're saved, in a sense, by having infinite wants and an ability to invent new things no-one thought of before.
I mean, if we were to live using the goods and services that existed a hundred years ago, the vast majority of people would be unemployed as we only need 2% of the population (rather than the vast majority) to produce the food we need to survive.
Re: I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:2)
Heh. That's like agreeing to a higher monthly payment because you get a raise every year.
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I dunno; you're responding to me using computer technology only invented a half-century ago, using software written by people who are working jobs invented less than 30 years ago, using a platform invented a couple of decades ago, rather than churning butter in an Amish style barn by candlelight. So, you seem to be happy with the "higher monthly payment."
Re: I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:2)
Uh huh. And pretty soon we'll have machines maintaining machines and machines designing machines. The road is not infinite.
Re: I am Shiva - destroyer of jobs (Score:2)
Purchased with what?
Humans or gtfo (Score:5, Insightful)
The Walmart in my city closed down all cashier booths and switched to self-checkout.
I voted with my wallet and I now pay a little bit more for my groceries at other stores that have actual cashiers.
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Also - what would be the recommended tip to leave to a QR-Code in a restaurant ?
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I think that's covered here [imdb.com].
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I prefer self-checkout.
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Thanks for reducing the self-checkout line length by staying out of Walmart. Nothing beats self-checkout. Generally quicker and you don't have to deal with anyone in most cases.
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That annoys me as well. And you still see 3 walmart employees laughing yet ducking away the moment you try to make eye contact.
The only thing more guaranteed is that the cop that they are paying for security is hitting on an underage or married greeter. I am assuming those are the cops not allowed to police the local high schools anymore.
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Well they still have to pay someone to keep the sneeze-screens clean.
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You are missing out on quite an opportunity [youtube.com].
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I wouldn’t mind self checkouts if they offered a discount. The company is saving money and they certainly aren’t passing those savings on to me.
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The time saving for me is worth it.
The company is risking more items not being scanned and paid for so I'm ok not getting a discount.
That said, in Texas, I love going to HEB (which is a big local chain) where they not only still use cashiers, they still have baggers.
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I wouldn’t mind self checkouts if they offered a discount. The company is saving money and they certainly aren’t passing those savings on to me.
This, exactly. I often find it much slower to do self-checkout - especially at Home Despot - and if I'm both taking more time and helping to eliminate someone's job I should at least get a discount.
That reminds me of a line my wife came up with that I've used a couple of times:
Employee: "Would you like to go to a self-checkout station"?
Me: "No, I can't do that".
Employee: "Why not"?
Me: "Because I don't work here"!
And that's really what it comes down to - I don't get paid by the fuckers, so why should I do
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Unfortunately, they aren't saving any money - sure they're saving money in not having a human working, but they're spending those savings in increased amounts of shoplifting.
It often takes place of someone scanning a cheaper item to pay for a more expensive item. in the UK, a bobby (police officer) was caught scanning a UKP10 box of doughnuts as a
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I haven't ever shopped at Walmart on a regular basis. The only time I have in decades has been middle of the night and the 24 hour one is the only place open that would have what I want in an emergency. If it's not an emergency, I can wait to go to a store that doesn't make me feel like I need a shower the second I walk in the door.
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What's the point of forcing people to sit at a cash register? Why not just tax the QR code reader and use that revenue to pay the salary of the person who would have been sitting there? We could pay them to watch "review" Netflix shows instead of slowing things down at Walmart.
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I got one better! We fire that poor meat-bag, tax the QR code and then waste it on some random train to no where. That's what ends up really happening.
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good move. Your safer going to a place with humans at the registers.
I used to install/service POS systems. One of the things I noticed is that when you have someone who works with a terminal everyday, like a cashier or other service staff, the experienced users would catch those occasional "that doesn't look right" situations a lot faster than the general populace would.
Most of the times it would be the simple soon to be out of paper in the receipt printer or miss-entered SKU that would be corrected befor
Re:Humans or gtfo (Score:4, Informative)
Being clumsy, a cashier is usually able to scan all the items in my cart about 3-4 times faster than it takes me at self check-out. I'd rater use my time to post replies on /. than to "place the item in the bag" ... "you have not placed the last scanned item in the bag" ... "requesting assistance" ...
Re:Humans or gtfo (Score:5, Insightful)
A big part of the reason why the cashiers are so much faster is because they don't have to deal with all the "treat the user like a thief" features. They can scan a bunch of items in a row instead of scanning one, putting it in the bagging area, waiting for the weight sensor to agree that it was correctly placed, etc. They can just punch in the code for produce directly rather than navigating through a bunch of screens.
At the nearest grocery store, when I have a large cart of groceries, there's always some idiot who tries to get me to come over and let them check me out at the self-checkout rather than waiting for a cashier at the standard registers. I let them do it once; they're even slower than me.
Re:Humans or gtfo (Score:5, Interesting)
There's another aggravating factor there. Some years ago, Safeway kicked off the "nickel-and-dime you to death over the cost of a grocery bag" trend and removed the bags from all their self-checkouts. So, rather than wait for some minion to deign to come over, hand you some bags (Better hope you guessed how many you need correctly!) scan their employee badge, and tell the system how many bags to charge for; many people decided to give them a hearty "Fuck you!" and bring their own re-usable bags. Those vary in construction from flimsy and weaker than the paper bags to heavy-duty beasts (I use the heavy canvas ones from Trader Joe's because they last damn near forever and are useful for other things too.) that you could sew together and use to drown a witch if you ever needed to. And their weight varies accordingly.
So, even if all of the "You are a thief until you prove otherwise." crap is functioning "perfectly," it's still unreliable as hell because they can no longer predict the weight of the customer's shopping bags. And THEN, you STILL have to wait for a minion to come unlock the damn system when it decides you've either not bagged an item or bagged something without scanning it, depending on your choice of reusable bag. (PROTIP: At Safeway, at least, bag non-fragile heavy items like flour and canned goods first. When the thing screeches "Unexpected item in bagging area." at you, lift your bag up about a foot and drop it back onto the scale a few times. That will reset the thing and let you keep checking out without waiting for a minion.)
But... unexpected consequences and all that... BS like that is why I have exactly zero qualms about using services like Amazon Fresh, Instacart, Doordash, Grubhub, UberEats, and the like. If you treat your customers like crap... especially if you decide to treat your customers like a thief-before-the-fact; you deserve every bad thing that may happen to your business as a result.
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They're using cheapest-bidder self-checkout systems.
Our local Ralphs has self-checkout, but it asks you to put your bags in the bagging area before you start scanning. Clearly it weighs them and compensates, because since they got these machines I've never had an issue with "unexpected item" errors. The previous generation of machines were more finicky.
It's not like compensating for bag weight is an NP-complete problem...
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My local super market (Atlantic Supermarket) disabled the weight sensors so we didn't get that 'treat the customer like a thief' experience. Thankfully. Because as you say, it's way slower otherwise.
That being said, if I'm buying a few items I can get through faster on the self check out, but when it comes a much larger shop, it's still quicker to go through the cashier check out. Especially since I take large collapsible crates so bags aren't involved. Whilst I'm putting things on the conveyor, the cashier
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a cashier is usually able to scan all the items in my cart about 3-4 times faster than it takes me at self check-out.
If there are 3-4 people in front of you, the self-checkout is still a win.
The self-checkout also means less exposure of both you and the cashier to Covid.
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This is the second Slashdot story that has rubbed me the wrong way (to your point). The other was M$ making VS Code available on the browser. We're getting pushed and pushed to give up our (already tenuous) ownership of software such that we don't have a local copy of the executable or our data. Now this story where my retail experiences are going to be yet another interaction with my smartphone instead of a human.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the human race, but I feel like we're going to be
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I can see your point. More and more impetus has been pushed to the end-user, consumer, etc.
New patient at a medical provider? Okay, here's a tablet where you can input in all of your information. So the office staff doesn't have to, based on paper forms you used to fill out. New hire at a larger company? Okay, here's an onboarding website where you can input in all of your information. So the HR staff doesn't have to, based on paper forms you used to fill out. Customer at a grocery store? Okay, scan all of
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Do you prefer a human bank teller over an ATM?
Do you call the operator instead of dialing your own phone?
Do you pay a maid to empty your chamberpot instead of using a flush toilet?
People always complain about current improvements in efficiency, but see past improvements as obviously good.
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Nah - we were getting self-check out regardless of the minimum wage. It could have been a $1/hr and we would still be seeing self-check out.
Why? Because humans cost money (yes, so do machines) but machines are considerably more reliable. They don't phone in sick. They don't quit an inopportune moments, don't need time off, etc etc etc.
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The biggest one is that machines don't sue you for discrimination, injury, or harassment.
QR codes won't bring the food to the table (Score:2)
I think waiting staff are safe for the moment.
(Also -- most restaurants have godawful shitty web apps linked to those QR codes.)
Re:QR codes won't bring the food to the table (Score:5, Interesting)
I think waiting staff are safe for the moment.
Like almost all automation concerns, the issue isn't whether these apps will completely replace all waiting staff jobs. The concern is whether a restaurant which previously needed 10 waiters for a Friday night can get away with 5 waiters after these apps are in place.
Then again, I generally prefer restaurants with no wait staff (other than people to bus tables after you leave), so this is a welcomed change for me. Filling my own drink is almost always better than waiting for someone to come around.
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Depends on the age and tech savvy of their clientele. They might need 12 if the app ordering is required - they'll spend more time on tech support than they would have spent on manually taking orders.
Fewer wait staff actually means better tips / better wages for those that remain. I'd be happy to see tipping culture entirely replaced by living wages, though.
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I think waiting staff are safe for the moment.
Some will be safe (although delivery robots might take care of that). You'll also need to be able to quiz someone on whether the vegan risotto has free range rice in it. But you can get away with half to a third of the current staff if all you need is someone to shuttle plates.
Oh, and who's going to interrupt us to ask "how are we enjoying our meals?". My wife and I are enjoying them quite a bit. I sure as hell hope you're not sneaking snacks while we're not looking.
For me, the big win is the "pay at the ta
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Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Any job that can be so easily displaced is not a job that required the attention of an independent, human agent in the first place. That person's time could have been much more profitably employed.
But there's the rub. If the business is smart, it will use its freed-up human capital to grow and expand its services and products. If not, it will just let them go and take the one-time savings.
You can save money or make money, both increase wealth. But only one of them grows.
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If the business is smart, it will use its freed-up human capital to grow and expand its services and products.
The people being replaced are cashiers and servers in restaurants.
It should be possible to completely eliminate servers in a restaurant by adding robots to deliver the food to the table. Once that happens, one goes from needing 10 servers, to needing 5, to needing, 1 or even 0 servers and a few table bussers. Restaurants don't need servers to expand their products and they won't be adding more services.
Cashiers are currently being replaced by self-checkout. Just look at the comments in this thread. A r
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It should be possible to completely eliminate servers in a restaurant by adding robots to deliver the food to the table.>
X-Files did it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I didn't want a link to a Wikipedia article, how about a link to a clip or something like that?
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Those freed-up cashiers and servers can now be used to provide add-on services to customers. Just off the top of my head:
- Personal shopper
- Infuencer/targeted marketer
- Delivery
- Home health services
etc.
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That person's time could have been much more profitably employed.
While I agree and I actively like restaurants which dispel with the customer service BS, the sad reality is in America staff are almost wholly dependent on tips that relate this BS. I don't have any qualms with it in Europe as the people more actively employed not giving others fake smiles and over attending them at least are paid a proper wage.
In America the concept of tips being your wage needs to be torn up first before QR codes could be considered a benefit to society because the very people doing somet
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You are REALLY over-estimating the abilities of some of these retail staff. Trust me, if I wasn't on a really old contract with a really awesome work schedule that I write myself every week and a slew of benefits not found outside of government, well, I would be finding work else where.
I work with a lot of unmotivated, lazy people. I'd say about 20% of the employees get 80% of the work done. I'm fairly insulated away from it and I'm not management, so these people aren't my problem.
Many of these people real
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I went to the masseuse and ordered a deep pressure back rug. I laid face down on the table and she touched me.
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History (Score:2)
History teaches that every time a new technology arises that displaces workers, the end result is more jobs, not fewer. However, what we're seeing now is change coming much more rapidly than at any time in the past, so even if that remains true (which it likely will), the adjustment will be much more chaotic and traumatic for the employees.
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History also teaches us that every time a new technology comes along that displaces workers, there are years if not decades of turmoil as a result. Me personally? I think we have enough turmoil right now for anyone that isn't rich enough to own their own island. I don't believe we need any more of it. But it's coming whether we like it or not. So, who knew the apocalypse would take so long and be so boring along the way?
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History teaches that every time a new technology arises that displaces workers
What this theory leaves out is the occasional war or pandemic that conveniently removes a few million excess workers.
Inadequate (Score:2)
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Terrible annoyance (Score:5, Insightful)
I've eaten in some places that force all ordering through the QR codes on the table. Like I couldn't even walk inside the place and order a second drink at the bar partway through my meal. (Inside seating was open and there was a bartender standing there at the bar.)
Also it's offensive that they want me to tip (while placing the order through a website or app) before service has been rendered.
I'm all for progress, but forcing everything in this direction is a bit ridiculous.
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What service are they providing that requires a tip?
None - they're simply cashing in on tradition.
Re:Terrible annoyance (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like being tethered to my phone and I'm pretty disturbed by the number of things that I hear about moving to phone apps (student IDs, driver's licenses etc.)
If I could not own a cell phone at all, I would. I have one so that I can be in contact with my wife and children in case of emergency. On the rare occasion that I'm travelling in unfamiliar territory I will turn location on and open maps. Or if I'm at a brick + mortar store and considering a major purchase sometimes I'll open a browser and look up product reviews. That's the extent to which I use the thing.
It's always in DND model. It is common for people to text or call me and to have to wait a day or two to get a response when I finally remember that the thing exists.
If a restaurant wants me to use a device to place an order, I prefer that they provide said device. There is an all-you-can-eat sushi restaraunt in my home town that brings tablets on the table for this purpose. I have no problem with that, in fact it has features that a paper menu doesn't which are pretty nice. Just don't expect me to use my own device, which I probably left at home anyway.
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Also it's offensive that they want me to tip (while placing the order through a website or app) before service has been rendered.
As I've said elsewhere and as you've just alluded to, this concept won't work in America. You find the tip offensive. They rely on it due to this absurdity that restaurants don't pay employees a decent wage over there.
That said I can't agree with your ordering a second drink problem. That sounds like a shitty implementation. The places I've eaten with QR codes check out at the end, so you can keep ordering however much you like and the drink appears as if by magic.
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One good outcome of the pandemic is that I've seen a number of [normal, non-QR-code-nonsense] places combine a service charge into the normal bill---and they advise against tipping separately. It would be nice to see the whole country move in that direction, but I can't see that happening anytime soon.
Your "pay at the end" experience sounds much better than anything I've seen here.
Yeah, no, f**k 'em. (Score:3)
"Hey, we have that special today you like so much." will never be something you'll hear from an automated system without it sounding more like stalking than friendliness.
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I think any restaurant that does this (especially combined with food Rumbas) is sorely underestimating how much people like interacting. I don't go to my fav cafe for the food so much as the ambiance. I know the owners and staff and have been friends with the waitresses for years (one since she was 16).
These kinds of restaurants are great but rare.
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They didn't used to be. Hell, even the big chains were that way back in the eighties. My dad took clients to pizza hut so often that the entire wait staff, half the people that worked in the kitchen and the managers all knew him by name. Going there with him was like walking into Cheers with Norm.
In the town I'm in now it's down to a couple bars that serve good food and one local place that's just a family owned single restaurant. Everything else is impersonal as all hell.
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They're actually not all that rare at all. But people who seek them out are definitely becoming more scarce. This thead is littered with comments from people who actively avoid human interaction. Someone who prefers to refill their own drink because its faster probably isn't accustomed to conversing with a dining companion while receiving friendly and efficient service from skilled wait staff.
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I predicted it was headed this way a while ago, but had no idea we'd see the acceleration towards it we reached over the last year.
I also predict it will swing back the opposite direction, after it reaches a saturation point, for the reasons you stated. Efficiency and a work-around for a tight labor pool is all well and good, but after it becomes the new normal, people will value the nostalgia of the "good old days" when humans served your meal. Might turn into a "value add" situation where people gladly pa
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I think any restaurant that does this (especially combined with food Rumbas) is sorely underestimating how much people like interacting.
No thank you. I don't want to interact with staff unless I'm eating at a restaurant by myself and then I'm normally reading a book. I normally take people with me to restaurants who are much more fun with to interact than someone putting on a fake smile in exchange for tips.
But you're not talking about a restaurant as much as you're talking about a village pub. There's a whole one restaurant I consider to be anything remotely the way you describe, and I eat out ... way too much.
What happens when a QR code gets hacked? (Score:2)
Trusting a business' QR code is just as reckless as clicking a URL link in an email from an untrusted source.
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What happens when a QR code gets hacked?
What? It's a string of text. If by hacked you mean someone physically changes them, then sure. If instead you mean they used a questionable data-mining QR code generator that has a redirect, then that's a problem but is not a QR code "being hacked."
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Already been done.
https://threatpost.com/anti-va... [threatpost.com]
It's got nothing to do with covid (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm really sick of all these articles telling us that if we don't suck down low wages and long work hours and a crappy quality of life that the job creators are going to just take their ball and go home and leave us to starve to death.
The YouTube channel Some More News had a hilarious and disturbing skit they did the modern job interview that ended with the interviewer asking the interviewee if they wanted to live, making the point that without a job they wouldn't be able to afford food shelter and healthcare and would eventually die. It ended with the interviewee begging for her life. She got the job, but at the end said something that displeased the interviewer and lost it. The acting was surprisingly good and you got a good sense for when she realized she was going to die.
What I don't know is why we choose to live like this, and why we choose to pretend we're not living like this. In any case automation's coming no matter what. And no matter how high your skilled it's going to affect you because the people being automated aren't just going to put a bullet to their head. They're going to struggle and some of them will succeed and compete for the job you have now driving down your wages. No man is an island.
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There is the problem. The people who own and operate our economy (and politics) do not believe this. It doesn't affect them personally.
Me too. Personally, I hope they actually *do* take their ball and go somewhere else. We don't want those kinds of
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Well, first of all? Yes, it has a lot to do with COVID, because those ordering kiosks were at a number of restaurants for years - but they didn't cause job losses. They were more of a tool chains experimented with to see if it would improve order accuracy and make customers happier if they didn't have to flag down a busy waiter/waitress just to pay the tab to get up and leave.
The sudden change in the last year has a LOT to do with people feeling afraid to come in to jobs where they interact directly with hu
They absolutely caused job losses (Score:2)
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Jeeze, man, settle.
A) It's not like the Democrats are the exclusive political mover to focus on fucking the middle and lower classes. If you think the Republicans care about the middle class outside of vote gathering, you clearly haven't been paying attention. Truth be told the Republicans and Democrats just as well be the same party once in power. The only real difference is rhetoric.
B) Automation was coming regardless, but the COVID situation is putting pressure on corporations to implement it faster.
C
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Nope. It has everything to do with covid. They cannot find people to come to work because the government is paying them more to stay home
Nope, several states ended expanded unemployment already. Hiring is still a huge problem in those states.
However, it is probably due to COVID, since 600k people have died and 3.4M are permanently disabled. That's taken a lot of people out of the workforce in one year, both directly and indirectly. Filter that through the labor pool, and "bottom rung" jobs are now hard to fill.
Can I get a source on that 3.4 million? (Score:2)
10 years late... (Score:2)
Many restaurants have begun to experiment with QR codes and order management systems such as Toast that allow diners to order food to their table from their phones instead of with human servers.
I find it insane that this tech is just now hitting some stores. When I was in Japan 9-10 years ago, there were a number of sit down restaurants you could go to and place orders off a screen/tablet at the table. It's not that much different from how the tech was in most places in the US, you just cut the middle man out. When you put in an order at McDs or Chili's, the waiter just goes and puts it in the register and then it pops up on screens near the cooks. This pretty much screams "My job is mostly useles
My guess is (Score:2)
...that QR codes don't demand $15/hour 'living wage' to do brainless, replaceable jobs.
Just sayin'.
Re: Stop Paying People Not To Work! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Tips are a thing here in Fredomland, and 20% is customary now.