Where Have All the Human Cashiers Gone?

By Arthur Vidro
ON CONSUMERISM
Last week, for the first time in ages, I shopped at Walmart.

Needed a new electric water kettle. Went to the spot where I’d bought the last one. No kettles there. Nothing remotely close. I asked an employee for help.

She explained the merchandise had been moved elsewhere a year or so ago. She zig-zagged me through a labyrinth of aisles, traveling about forty yards in total, to a spot where I never would have thought to look. Kudos for her.

Found an appropriate kettle and went to the checkout area.

That’s when I noticed the absence of human cashiers. I stood in confusion. (I often look confused in stores. It’s my way of processing the environment.)

A woman in charge of some checkout kiosks asked if I needed help.

“Just wondering,” I murmured, “where have all the human cashiers gone?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “We have one on aisle 19.”

I frowned. “That’s the only one?”

She nodded yes.

Granted, it was about 9:30 a.m., not prime shopping time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more human cashiers were added to the mix as the day went on.

But still, just one human cashier in the entire mega-store? I was stupefied.

I suppose the woman who told me about aisle 19 was probably once a cashier there herself. Some of them have become payment-processing guides at the automated stations. One human supervisor for every four to eight checkout kiosks.

And a small handful of humans have remained as Walmart cashiers.

What about the remainder? I suppose many – perhaps all – were offered other jobs in the store. Some likely accepted, but a large number wouldn’t have.

Not every cashier of a certain age or of feeble build can adapt to stocking merchandise, getting down on the floor, lifting heavy boxes, and all that jazz.

Those cashiers, I figure, are now out of work or have found a new employer.

It made me think back to a day in Home Depot five or more years ago. That store had just begun its reduction of human cashiers. That day I brought my purchase to the Home Depot checkout area and waited on a line for the one human cashier on duty. An area supervisor tried to guide me to the self-checkout mechanisms, explaining they would be faster. I said I’d rather wait for the human.

She misunderstood my reluctance. She reasserted that I’d be better off going to the automated checkout and that someone would help me if I needed it.

By then I’d had enough of being cajoled into doing what was good for Home Depot instead of doing what was good for me. “Don’t you realize,” I exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly, “that I’m trying to save the cashiers’ jobs?”

For that was my goal. Keep the cashiers busy so they’re still needed. If every customer did that, the looming layoffs might not occur.

She pooh-poohed my concern and pointed to a person supervising four automated checkout stations. “We have cashiers supervising,” she said.

“One cashier where there used to be four,” I replied.

After that she left me alone. I waited for the human cashier.

I had won the battle but would lose the war.

Big stores – especially those with stockholders – can’t wait to eliminate cashier jobs, in the name of “efficiency,” which is their way of saying “profitability.”

The work is still being done – but for free, by the customers.

Folks, when you see human and non-human cashiers in a store, give the humans some work to do.

Despite my own failed efforts, it might save their jobs.