Labor shortages in the skilled trades discussion

[rob_s]

My point of sale/inventory software provider is one of the biggest in the country and supplies hardware stores, lumber yards and auto parts industry. They have a great feature that allows me to look at snap shot of my business performance on a pop up window. It give me identical columns of info for that day, this month to date, last year month to date (so I can compare) and this year to date... they glaringly miss a column of "last year to date" which is really important information as well. When that pop-up was offered in our update a decade ago I applauded because it was super handy to get a macro picture of what was going on, but I pointed out we needed that other column. They said it wouldn't fit in the window. I told them to make the window bigger (which they have for other functions already) I've been asking annually for this upgrade to no avail. Yet they rearrange functions of certain backroom applications, with no real benefits, with every version that comes out. Those applications require my staff to re-learn their routines for using them, but those changes never make those functions work more efficiently. There are obviously software engineers changing it to just justify their jobs. My emails to them to upgrade the columns has become increasingly funnier and more snarky over the years. I haven't started to curse, but it's coming.


Funny enough, in my retail application I require all bar codes to be scanned. There are items that are different SKU's that look identical (like different flavors of yogurt) and scanning one for them all causes inventory nightmares. I notice these kinds of things because of my job, and I haven't noticed a cashier using a keyboard for like items at a register in a long time at any of the major grocery stores I shop at. Every item seems to be scanned.

FWIW, ost software development is geared towards what PROSPECTIVE customers want, not CURRENT customers. The great thing about the former is that they aren’t familiar enough with the system to know what they don’t know, and are easily wowed and misled.

[Borderland]

We hear alot about how much more complicated things are now a days, but I wonder. Before, a lot of the technical stuff was done in people's heads and based on memorized data. True, there were means to work things out on paper, slate, vellum, or clay tablets, but those were just tools to facilitate what your brain did. And depending on the society, there may have been reference works of facts and figures, but you needed to know where to look and how to use it.

Now, it's more about telling various magic elf boxes how to do the thing properly. True, it's faster and way more efficient for me to make an Excel sheet than to sit down with a calculator, and the calculator was more efficient than doing it on paper by hand. And like a lot of stuff, some people grok how it works, some just know you put the thing in the thing and it does the thing, some honestly can't work it out, and others could, but struggle to fight against the Fog of Disinterest.

I saw that with some of the software we used. You had to be smart enough to know when the wrong answer came out. That could happen if you input the wrong information or the program actually had a bug in it that prevented it from doing the calculation correctly. If the software was working as advertised and you had your coffee with a good nights sleep you were way ahead of the game. If not, you lose. Fortunately most of us knew to have someone check our work with the idea that it was worth the time to prove yourself wrong. We had a saying that doctors buried their mistakes and surveyors recorded theirs for everyone to see.

[Sanch]

I despise self-checkout if I have more than a hand full of items. They are designed to slow you down to help prevent theft/fraud. If the scanner worked as quickly as the cashier's scanner did, maybe.

Oh weird, I only just started using grocery self-check out recently since was added to my local grocery store. It's like a Whole Foods but just slightly cheaper. And also I have been to Whole Foods self-checkout, I dont shop at WF regularly but on occasion and use the self-checkout.

It's faster than going through the regular line. There's no delay in the system to detect fraud. I wonder if that's a configuration set at the poor people grocery stores (no offense) because fraud is more likely there.

[Sanch]

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.

Ignoring the fact that the standard lanes have longer lines, which is the biggest time saver for using line-free self-checkout lanes. Here's why the standard lanes are slower in my experience:

1) Cashier isn't immediately ready when my time comes up to check out. Oh sorry, I need to change the receipt tape. Oh sorry, I'm changing with another cashier. Oh sorry, I need to break open this new roll of quarters.

2) Cashier having friendly discussion with customer in front of me instead of getting to my checkout. Spend 30 second finishing up the conversation they started while that customer was being checked out, and now I am waiting for my turn while they finish the conversation.

3) There is no bagger most of the times. Maybe your grocery store always has a bagger for each checkout lane. Mine tends to have one bagger that bounces between 3 different lanes, if they have a bagger at all. So the cashier is doing the bagging, too.

4) Cashier stops to bag my groceries to ask me how I want them bagged. Do you want paper or plastic? Should I wrap the meat separately? Do you want me to leave one of your drinks out for you to drink on the way home? Did you check your eggs for cracks? Did you find everything alright?

5) Cashier gets interrupted by another cashier in the middle or towards the end of my checkout to help them clear a code or something from their system.

I will say that it's likely faster to go through a regular checkout lane if you're buying 20+ different fresh produce items, because the cashiers have the PLUs memorized and you have to look them up in the computer.

[Bio]

Not infrequently I do self-checkout because I'm an introvert and sometimes I just don't want to interact with anyone.