I hadn’t been to a K Mart store for ages; that is up until today when I rushed in after work…. and I must say I was (mostly) very impressed. It was light, bright, fresh and cheap…. I just wish that I was in less of a rush so that I could take it all in.
BUT when it was time to pay and leave the store ….I couldn’t find the checkouts. I thought to myself how in the hell can you lose a bunch of cash registers and check-out staff ???? Well let me tell you….it’s easy when they don’t exist.
Eventually I saw them…. the bank of self serve robots obscured to the side of the shop. No staff, other than the ‘trouble-shooter’ who comes when the robot machine yells at you to ‘bag your item’. or ‘remove your goods from the bagging area’…..and yep she yelled at me…loud and clear as I fumbled to ‘pack n stack’ my bulky goods, while simultaneously balancing my wallet, phone and glasses… AND swiping my card at the same time.
With nowhere to put things down, a sense of panic mounts as this monotone machine seems to be stuck on repeat getting louder and louder each time..
Up until today it had been my mission to avoid self serve systems… (my small and somewhat vain protest against getting rid of humans and saving jobs)…BUT it appeared I had little or no choice in the ‘new look’ K Mart; although I later discover there are a few humans tucked away at a kiosk in the middle of the store….clearly hidden to avoid drawing attention to them….we couldn’t have them busy and showing up the robots now, could we? .
Wonder Years 
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