Labor shortages in the skilled trades discussion

[Spartan1980]

I think a lot of those lines are basically for Black Friday and Christmas. Retail is notorious for how much of its revenue comes in just a handful of days. They make more money letting that dead space exist the other 50 weeks out of the year than trimming it back, having a smaller store and their most profitable days have people leaving out of disgust because it takes hours to check out.

Probably another in the "win" column for automation though. Since now there's basically one person basically running (almost) all the registers at once 50 weeks out of the year.

Exactly my point. "Back in the day" all those registers were staffed, at least during peak hours.

And I'm not against self checkout. As a matter of fact I like it. I go in and get what I'm after and go to checkout so I can haul my ass outta there. Sam's Club app is even better, I just purchase with my phone and go straight to the door checker.

[jh9]

Another factor is that lots of software just sucks. I can adapt, but I can also articulate exactly what about it sucks and why. I hang onto an old installation of AutoCAD, for example. I also have a newer installation, and it has many more capabilities than the old one, but the old one does everything I need to do in most cases for my work. And in order to organize and implement the additional capabilities of the newer version, everything becomes more complicated to do. A one- or two-step operation becomes a two- or three-step operation involving multiple menus. It's not that I can't learn the new system. I have learned the new system, and the old one is more efficient in addition to being easier to use. It's not just efficiency in time, it's efficiency in cognitive overhead required to use the tool vs. the cognition available to actually perform the task that the tool is meant to facilitate. I check myself against coworkers who have lost their old installation when upgrading their machine, and they agree. In other cases, I have encountered software that was so anti-intuitive that I struggled to be able to perform a task within it almost immediately after having the process demonstrated.

From the other side of the fence, the reason software just sucks is because the UI is the only part about it people can see. So everyone "helps" by opining on what the UI should look like / do. I've sat in a meeting before where the fully loaded cost for the FTEs in that room was probably several million dollars a year while some people droned on about shit like what particular shade of yellow a button should be. And since they were Senior Important People, By Fuck that button was not only going to be yellow, it was going to be the exact type of yellow they wanted. I did not envy our UI person that day, and her patience is still legendary to me.

They did not restrict their input to colors. Many of their Helpful Suggestions made its way into the released version. User feedback was carefully curated to imply that this was the right way and people liked it.

Dilbert is not an exaggeration. I can't possibly stress that enough.

[BehindBlueI's]

I've looked for these things several times in the past, and I still can't find the data that any of these people reference. They mostly seem to be people with an anti-self-check agenda (unions, boomers, contrarians) not really objective reporting.

They also *generally* seem to time the scanning/bagging and not take into account the real metric would should be time to enter line to time to leave line, and it should be averaged over many many transactions, some of which need to include the old lady with her dog and checkbook in line in front of you, not to mention her expired coupons...

many of the articles, and the very paradox itself, mention customer happiness. If I'm happier because I didn't have the pimply faced kid mash my bananas, who cares if it's really faster or not?

and, the experience is undoubtedly going to do nothing but improve. In fact, if the metric is "happiness" and people start to backslide because they are mad about "unexpected item in bagging area" then they'll eventually fix that too, even if it means a certain amount of loss tolerance for the few times someone doing that is actually stealing vs. just standing there mad at the machine.

Like most tech, you have your early adopters, and then the mainstream, and then we don't even really think about it. Blackberry came out and only the dorks had "smartphones", then they got kinda mainstream, then apple made them better/easier, and now even grandmas have them.

The data exists, even if it's not free and a Google away. As do data packages on increased shrinkage (aka shoplifting and fraudulent ring up), it's relationship to scanning method and speed, etc. Consultants make money doing it for small businesses and big businesses do it in house. The abandon rate of various interfaces, etc. Target used to be one of the leaders in information gathering at the point of checkout, they were very data driven to the point that they were one of the most sophisticated fraud detectors in retail. They tied credit card transactions to time stamps in surveillance video, etc. I only know because of a class at university nearly 20 years ago.

There's nothing wrong with you liking them or liking them for reasons other than speed. I just don't and I find them irritating when I need to scan 21 cups of yogurt when the cashier scans it once and then punches in 21...

You can guarantee there are folks making good money to remove pain points from these things. Even tweaking the appearance of the interface and seeing how it affects abandon rates, etc. Also ways to shrinkage, etc.

[jh9]

but had not been optimized for the simple repetitive task you did 99% of the time. The data entry sequence was ridiculously and unnecessarily complex.

"We have UI optimization in our backlog and it will be in a future release."

Yep yep. Aaaaaaaany day now.

[jh9]

Target used to be one of the leaders in information gathering at the point of checkout, they were very data driven to the point that they were one of the most sophisticated fraud detectors in retail.

And how!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...er-father-did/

[Casual Friday]

All self-checkout machines are shitty. They *feel* faster, but on average they are not. See: Self-checkout paradox.

You are one person. You are taking the items out of the cart. You are scanning them (on a scanner that is designed to be slower). You are bagging them. Then you pay. If you are buying alcohol, you have to wait for the clerk to come over and ID you. If the computer doesn't believe that your 12 apples are 12 apples worth of weight, you have to wait for the clerk to come over. If you're buying a lot of veggies, you have to key in a lot of codes or numbers. (Apples have stickers sometimes, kale typically doesn't).

"Traditional" lines have three people dividing the tasks. You may have to wait in line for your turn, but then you only have one task. You unload the cart, someone else scans them, someone else bags them. You can pay while bagging is ongoing.

Yes, you don't have to wait in line, and maybe you specifically will save time, but on average and for the average shopper you will spend more time self-checking. Just like if you had to do your own dishes before you left the restaurant. You are doing their work and taking more of your time. Obviously there are exceptions. Run in for a gallon of milk and there's three people with giant carts in line, of course. Before you'd likely abandon the milk and just go to a convenience store. Now you'll self checkout.

What they actually do is make you feel like it's faster and, therefore, less frustrating as well as let you control the bagging process.

Not in my experience. If the person that was standing in line for their turn at the regular register when I get to the front of the store is still standing there while I'm walking away to my car with my groceries, there's no paradox. See Rob's point in bold. I've never bought alcohol at the self-checkout, I rarely buy alcohol because I rarely drink. The bunches of kale, asparagus, cilantro, all have a bar code. I can't remember the last time produce was complicated at self-checkout. Like I mentioned in my other post, my wife scans and pays, I bag and load the cart. That's at the big grocery store in town where we do most of the shopping. If we need something midweek, there's a small grocery store closer to home that we'll go to, that doesn't have self checkout. It's more expensive, with less options, so we don't do our major shopping there.

I'll tell you where I don't use self-checkout. Home Depot. Their self-checkout sucks ass. If the grocery store's self-checkout was like Home Depots, I wouldn't use it.

I've looked for these things several times in the past, and I still can't find the data that any of these people reference. They mostly seem to be people with an anti-self-check agenda (unions, boomers, contrarians) not really objective reporting.

They also *generally* seem to time the scanning/bagging and not take into account the real metric would should be time to enter line to time to leave line, and it should be averaged over many many transactions, some of which need to include the old lady with her dog and checkbook in line in front of you, not to mention her expired coupons...

many of the articles, and the very paradox itself, mention customer happiness. If I'm happier because I didn't have the pimply faced kid mash my bananas, who cares if it's really faster or not?

and, the experience is undoubtedly going to do nothing but improve. In fact, if the metric is "happiness" and people start to backslide because they are mad about "unexpected item in bagging area" then they'll eventually fix that too, even if it means a certain amount of loss tolerance for the few times someone doing that is actually stealing vs. just standing there mad at the machine.

Like most tech, you have your early adopters, and then the mainstream, and then we don't even really think about it. Blackberry came out and only the dorks had "smartphones", then they got kinda mainstream, then apple made them better/easier, and now even grandmas have them.

[OlongJohnson]

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

That is one of my favorite quotes. The SAK in my pocket has one blade.

[peterb]

That is one of my favorite quotes. The SAK in my pocket has one blade.

It’s the counterpoint to “If it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features.” ;-)

[awp_101]

I ran across this a couple of years ago and immediately thought of it when I started reading this thread.

[BehindBlueI's]

Not in my experience. If the person that was standing in line for their turn at the regular register when I get to the front of the store is still standing there while I'm walking away to my car with my groceries, there's no paradox. See Rob's point in bold.

Sure, like I said it may be faster for you as an individual and for how and what you buy. That's fine. Industry data, at least when I was exposed to it, said that was not the case for the average shopper over multiple visits.

And how!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...er-father-did/

Folks who missed that the first time around should click it.