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Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

> A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.

Unfortunately there's a huge group of people who will vehemently oppose this as they don't see that job as deserving of basic human dignity (rent, transport, utilities, medical). Not just the ruling class, but normal every day folks poop on these people...?!

The older I get the more I'm disgusted at how many people can selectively turn off their empathy for stuff like this. In an equitable society we should take care of each other... I don't understand why a Wally World cashier making a base living wage offends so many people.

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Today, it seems cashiers mostly exist to fix the self checkout machine when it decides it doesn’t like me anymore.

Perhaps we’re in a transition period between the legacy system - cashiers a handling one customer at a time, which is not providing much value to the company - and “cashiers” who are self-checkout-sitters handling 8+ customers at a time, which provides much more value and could bargain for a living wage.

> could bargain for a living wage

That's called collective bargaining and the only way we'll end up there is strong unions. Otherwise, I promise you - most companies will not altruistically ensure their employees are taken care of; exceptions exist like Costco. Someone's going to need to bend their arm, be it a union or the government through regulation.

Also I'm not sure I understand your comment. The first sentence feels like you're devaluing the service employee that helps resolve your self-checkout issues? Then, the next paragraph you posit that we're in a transitionary period from a "legacy system" - this just isn't how I see it.

From convenience stores, to grocery, etc. there will always be the need for traditional cashiers, along side of self-checkout folks. And, personally - I believe they both deserve a dignified wage that covers their base needs (rent, car, medical, etc) without necessarily having to "bargain for a living wage."

IMO - even the most entry-level and lowly of jobs at 40hrs/week should be able to get someone by.

> devaluing the service employee that helps resolve your self-checkout issues?

Certainly I don’t devalue the employee, but I don’t value the work they do. This is mostly irritation at not being allowed to just fix my own issues.

> there will always be the need for traditional cashiers, along side of self-checkout folks.

Counterexample, a large convenience store near me just last month tore out all (all!) of the legacy checkout systems and replaced them with about five bays of 4-8x self-checkouts, of different sizes. There’s no option to have a human check you out anymore.

I think it’s glorious.

> IMO - even the most entry-level and lowly of jobs at 40hrs/week should be able to get someone by.

I agree, but I think we’re moving into a world where cashiers (1-to-1) are like elevator operators of old… extinct.

Seeing that local store go all-self, and a few others looking like they’re following suit slowly, has really opened my eyes on how far companies will go to eliminate jobs if paying a true living wage isn’t reflected in the value they provide.

Traditional cashiers are basically automatons which drag items across a barcode scanner, and count change. Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that those things can be more cheaply performed by a machine, or foisted onto the customer.

And maybe it’s good that those jobs are going away? I’d rather society have to answer some hard questions about UBI than keep humans working in jobs that aren’t necessary. (See: Oregon gas pumps)

Gotcha. I just find the self-checkout/cashier bit moot to my original point. I could have easily said "retail employees," or "the guy who makes my subs." Swap out "cashier" with any entry-level/lower-skilled position and that's my core point.

> And maybe it’s good that those jobs are going away? I’d rather society have to answer some hard questions about UBI than keep humans working in jobs that aren’t necessary.

Seeing the backlash for just $10k worth of student debt forgiveness I do not think that we're even close to conversations like that. The notion of people's base needs being met regardless of working is even less palatable to the general riffraff because we've been sold such a zero-sum game here. We're crabs in a bucket. People go to lengths to make sure someone they perceive as less-than doesn't get a "handout."

I have grown very, very pessimistic about people's empathy in regards to the ever-growing economic divide. What I've experienced in America is "I've got mine, f u" - I'm a millennial maybe that gives some context.

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> Certainly I don’t devalue the employee, but I don’t value the work they do.

Also, I wasn't going to address this, but... to me that is 100% saying that you devalue the employee. If I devalue someone's labor output, I'm devaluing them as an employee - simple. I find this sentence to be a outright contradiction.

> > Certainly I don’t devalue the employee, but I don’t value the work they do.

> Also, I wasn't going to address this, but... to me that is 100% saying that you devalue the employee. If I devalue someone's labor output, I'm devaluing them as an employee - simple. I find this sentence to be a outright contradiction.

Not the person replied to (And I know you said it was a moot point), but in this case I would say I don't value most cashier positions then. I say most, because not all grocery stores are equal. Specifically, I've always had good experiences at Wegmans, but my local grocery store is now a Shoprite. At Wegmans, cashiers quickly and efficiently scanned and bagged the things I purchased. The Shoprite cashiers, on the hand, don't even bag my goods. All they do is take an item off the conveyer, scan it, and slide it down to the end so I can bag it myself. This is less efficient than just doing everything myself.

The disagreement on the “devalue” thing is probably one of semantics: I value the employee as a fellow human, but I don’t think the job of cashier is providing any value to me.

The existence of “cashier” as a job is an impediment to my goal: paying and walking out of a store with the goods I want. Any alternative system which involves fewer cashiers works quicker for me, observationally.

I think people - including cashiers - are inherently valuable. But having someone do a 1-1 cashier job is both wasting their time and costing the company (and me) unnecessary time and money. Their (valuable) labor would be better spent elsewhere.

> as a fellow human

That's not what we were discussing - we were discussing you valuing them as an employee. Which if you devalue their labor output then, yes, you certainly devalue them as an employee. Saying "I value them as a human" is an entirely different concern/conversation IMO.

Sorry about the semantics, but I fully believe you devalue self-checkout cashiers as employees after this conversation.

Regardless - we're off in the weeds. I don't think we're in a productive conversation. Respectfully, I'm bowing out.

unfortunately, developers will keep fight for building better machine. finally, company can just talk everyone go home, then starve and die. I hope something will but I'm hopeless.

Your opposition is often seeing things from a logic-based economic lens. You might not have much success making an emotional argument.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but you need to logically argue why "rent, transport, utilities, medical" are "basic human dignity" and what a "base living wage" is. The fact that you believe everyone should have housing, transport, utilities, or adequate medical care doesn't change the underlying realities of economic scarcity.

A political figure was recently assassinated in a country known to be peaceful.

There's your logic: at some point, people are done taking the bare minimum and will sow chaos, rebel, retaliate or even just lie flat and (legally) do anything to sour the lives of those they deem enemies. And confronting an ever increasing number of delinquents is far more expensive than preventing the root cause

It is true, and I’d guess that most of those who put the economy front and center in their view of society have empathy, they just differ on the ways society should provide to its members. While socalism focuses on existing wealth and how best they can redistribute it, economic-minded folks are concerned about wealth creation and how not to be overburdened by bloated budgets, which is very risky.

I don't think 'socialism' and making economically efficient decision is necessarily opposed to each other.

I would say that our current lifestyle is both inefficient and inequitable.

It’s a war among poor people, that the ruling class love to maintain power.

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