Warning: the self-checkout lane at my Kroger in Dayton shut down and made me rethink the robot panic
I was bagging my own groceries at the self-checkout on a Sunday in March when the screen froze mid-scan and a voice came over the speaker telling me to wait for help. Three lanes went down at once and one poor worker had to fix all of them while a line of about 15 people stood there sighing. What got me was she knew every fix by heart, reset this, clear that, and had everyone moving again in under 10 minutes. I used to be sure these machines were replacing people, but that afternoon made me think the real skill just moved to keeping the machines running. Is anyone else seeing stores hire more fix-it staff instead of fewer?