CVS To Pay $11,000 To Oprah Winfrey for Mayonnaise and Self Checkout

“Her time at the cash register is very valuable.”

Facing mounting criticism that it’s self-serve cash registers reduce jobs and act as a form of forced labor on its customers, CVS Pharmacy announced today that it would begin paying customers for their time.

“For several years now, we have benefited from your free labor when you check out,” stated CVS CEO Denzil Hendricks. “We know you hate these awful machines and they rarely work properly. Now it’s time to give back.”

A pilot “pay for your time” program is set to be expanded nationwide later this month. All self-serve cash registers have been updated so that upon entering your CVS Customer Care Card, your data is quickly cross-referenced with your most recent Federal tax return and your payment rate is determined.

At a local CVS customer test center, Heather Jackson looked disturbed. “I didn’t get jack,” said Ms. Jackson, examining the detail on her receipt. “I know I spent at least five minutes buying this Arizona Ice Tea, and the machine broke twice, but this thing says I earned zero cents.”

“Unfortunately, we had to build a system around equitable pay,” clarified Bethany Gibson, Vice President of Compliance at CVS. “A brain surgeon’s time is a lot more valuable than an unemployed student. We couldn’t be expected to compensate everyone the same way — especially with the machines never working.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Ernest Barr, a car parking lot attendant, who was attempting to buy a bottle of shoe polish. “If you are Oprah Winfrey and you make like $47,000 per hour, you could get a check for $1,500, for just buying a pack of gum?”

In fact, Ms. Gibson confirmed that Oprah Winfrey had been an early tester of the system and made over $11,000 buying a jar of mayonnaise. “She thought the system showed a great deal of promise,” said Ms. Gibson. “She said she might even come back everyday — her only complaint was that machines never work.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Barr examined his receipt and was unhappy with the results. “This damn thing says I am worth negative $35,000 — and now I have to pay CVS $150 bucks! How can that be? This shoe polish was only $3.79! And it took three tries before the machine worked!”

When asked about the jarring disparity between rich people receiving cash and people with negative net worth being asked to pay money, Ms. Gibson was unapologetic.

“Customers like Oprah Winfrey are very expensive, and so is hiring the people to hover around and wait for the machines to break, ” responded Ms. Gibson. “If Mr. Barr doesn’t have the entire $150 today, we’re happy to put him on a payment plan — or maybe he’d like to hover around and fix the machines when they break. We are very flexible.”

The new system becomes available around the country, next week.