The Unbearable Awkwardness of Automation
The machine age is changing the nature of work. In the process, it is also transforming buildings, and making them less hospitable for human use
By Carolina A. Miranda
On June 27, 1967, a Barclays bank in Enfield, London, debuted what is widely regarded as the first automatic teller machine, or ATM. The machine dispensed £10 at a time through the use of a special voucher that had to be purchased in advance. The system didn’t automatically deduct the amount from a customer’s balance. Instead, it functioned as a sort of steampunk check-cashing system, with customers’ balances updated by human tellers the following day.
The machine’s purpose, naturally, was to dispense cash outside of limited operating hours — as well as to fend off union efforts to close bank branches on Saturdays. At its grand unveiling, its first customer was actor Reg Varney, known for playing a hapless bus driver on a popular television comedy show. How exactly the ceremony proceeded has been lost to history, but a former Barclays employee did note decades later that Varney had been “a bit cheeky.”
The ATM is one of the most visible and familiar symbols of automation, its 24-hour service demanding neither coffee breaks nor health…
