Meijer’s Cashier Training Program
It’s called self-checkout.
I just realized that technology might be moving to fast for me.
Its a bit sad, I know. I’ll be 30 by the end of this summer and I had to cancel my trendy renters insurance app, Lemonade, because I found it impersonal. It felt obvious they’d successfully commoditized me, the consumer. I mean, they can do that, just don’t make it so obvious. “I just want to talk to a person!”
And now there’s self-checkout. From Home Depot and CVS to Meijer they’re popping up as beacons of convenience. Yet, to me, its an obvious offloading of responsibilities from the product seller to the product buyer. Self-checkout isn’t optimization, as its espoused, its just a shift in where the labor is coming from. This is a key “innovation” and its kind of becoming a hallmark of new-age consumerism.
Customer service representative staffs are shrinking and what’s replacing the void? Well, if you ask me, nothing is. Sometimes a successful app or interface does help us self-serve pretty easily but that’s only when things go well. That’s only when we are super experienced with the product, or let’s say, the self-checkout machine.
You know, as I write this, I do realize that getting a bit more control over the buying experience is where a lot of this is technology is going to head, but its not like I signed up for a cooking class and am paying for the experience inherent in doing the work. I don’t want to go to a coffee shop and make my own espresso and I certainly don’t want to ring up and bag my own shit at a grocery store when I’d grown up having someone do that for me.
When self-checkout machines first came out I used to tolerate them. They were new and interesting experiences. I’d mostly try and get through them in Spanish. I did that because at least if it was another language I had a reason for feeling stupid when it didn’t go well.
But on my most recent trip to Meijer (its like a Walmart without jorts), I had no choice but to ring up my own items. They had two actual cashier stations but each was filled with baby boomers and overflowing carts.
I got a lot of big crap like paper towels, detergent and a case of beer and not all of it fit on the stupid bag holding scale table where you’re supposed to intern your haul before you pay. I struggled to not trip the scale alarm as usual while playing Rush Hour with my bags.
Every time I go to Meijer, use self-checkout and have a problem, a staff member reluctantly trudges over to my little training station to scan some badge, progress through seven different screens and authenticate my failure. It feels like I am in some part of an application to work at Meijer. This trip was no different. What’s worse is that my trainer isn’t really inspired to help me grow into my new role as self-checkout-er. You know, I look for a teacher with a passion for what they do and yea, they’re hard to come by.
My self-checkout experiences always have some component of me learning how to navigate some small quark of the machine. This time I learned how to slide the bags around the scale so the weight doesn’t shift and trip the alarm. This requires lots of talent and pre-planning when the scale is entirely full of Kleenex boxes and my tears.
There was even a good long moment where I was scanning what was in my cart, flipping through the digital picture book trying to think if my pepper was under the ‘L-M’ or ‘N-S’ tab, and placing my items strategically on the scale all while the Meijer associate was just watching me. Think about that.
That’s why it felt like I was failing some hiring exam. The tables have completely turned. But if I pass this Meijer Cashier Training Program, I don’t really get anything. Meijer gets something, though. They get a fleet of trained patrons servicing themselves.
By the time my trainer found me competent enough to continue unsupervised, I noticed that ideally the trainer just stands there doing nothing. This is the best case scenario: them just watching the passing herds and helping them get unstuck from the fence every now and then.
But occasionally, and I’d argue frequently, the trainer is summoned by an inevitable alarm, ID check, or whiff of frustration as I generally prefer to display, from one of their trainees.
Yes, Meijer really is running a cashier trainee program — you just haven’t thought of it that way. They’ve cleared their books of thousands of cashiers and set their sites on training the masses. Dang, I resent this so much. I feel like I’m supposed to be behind these kind of ‘innovations’ and from a technology stand point, I really am behind them. But, technology used in this way? Nope. Not gonna take it. Self-checkout really pisses me off. Meijer, like my cheap hipster insurance, commoditized me, the consumer, a bit too much.
Walking out of the store that day having just rung up all my detergent and wet Kleenexes, I turned and looked back — kind of like how a person looks back one last time at someone they just broke up with or maybe, just someone really ruminating on how right they are. Or at least, how right they think they are in that moment…
And what I noticed, looking back, is that this Meijer was a recently renovated Meijer. The floors were nicely polished and grey, the equipment and shelving was new, and the glass facade on the exterior was filled with large glass panels. It was quite modern, really, and I appreciated how clean it felt.
But I pondered: Meijer just got me to check out and pack my own bags — all at no obvious discount to me. Meijer saved money in this deal, that’s why they did it, but my Cheerios were still almost four dollars. Maybe I should be grateful my Cheerios weren’t more.
But I am not grateful.
I am just afraid for when I go in to Meijer next I’ll have to stock the shelves, too.
*insert obligatory pitch for Trader Joes. Their staff seem genuinely happy — let’s just use their model.
