All Those Self Check-Ins And Check-Outs Burden You With More Work

Why humans on-counters improve your life

Claudia Brose
5 min readJun 20, 2024
© Photo by author / Naples, Italy

Trying to speed up daily life by replacing positions occupied by people with computers, terminals, or chain stores reduces our social and communication skills and our human capability to develop empathy.

Do you still have conversations with the guy in the sandwich shop, you veggie vendor or the person behind the bar preparing your morning coffee? Perhaps you have taken it for normal that you are getting absorbed in your smartphone and desire to move on with your daily duties that you don’t want to be bothered by small talk?

Oh wait, you might not even have the option to talk to someone because there is nobody sitting at the cash register anymore who you could even engage with! Positions once operated by real human beings are disappearing and being replaced by machines.

The Convenience Of Not Having Small Talks

Our first impulse is that we look at the “convenience” of self-check-ins-and-outs. No lame customer in front of us, no boring small talk, no awkward questions, no dependency on slow staff or cash.

Here is what it makes the situation absurd: It looks like we are getting faster (and sometimes we might) but we…

--

--

Claudia Brose

Writer, Event-Creator, Marketing Professional turned Rebel against a rushed world | Japan mad | Cyclist | Get my Newsletter Un-Rush claudiabrose.substack.com