Self-Service and Society
by mike on Oct.21, 2010, under Contemplative
I took the trip to the post office today to mail back some bad ram (from the Mac story earlier). I was dreading the long line, but thankfully, not too many people were there at 9:45AM downtown during my lunch hour. Put my labels on and got ready to mail it, but then I noticed a curious machine in the corner. I had bought stamps before, but this one was different – it was a complete Self-Service machine: pay by credit card, check zip code, print and affix label. Woohoo!
Everywhere I go, I gravitate to the self-service machines. Nothing personal, it’s just what I prefer. I’ve found it much faster to deal with the machine than to talk to someone. It’s also why a lot of my transactions are automated, or done online. It’s easier, faster, more convenient, less error prone and a bunch of other things.
This automation is happening across our society. Think of tellers and ATMs, self-checkout lines at Grocery and Hardware stores, Self-Serve Gas stations, and even now, the self-service yogurt dessert. Some of them have been around for awhile, some of them new. But all they’re dramatically changing how we interact, do business, and shop. There’s a personal touch lost when dealing with a machine instead of a person…. think about it. I don’t have to talk…I can just push buttons. In fact, if I didn’t talk to people for my job, I could practically go through the whole day without saying a word: RFID tags for the bus rides and BART, automated and online transactions and purchases, self-checkout lines at the grocery store. Anti-Social me! (I didn’t forget the wifey, I was just making an example!)
Now I’m not saying this is bad, I’m just saying there are consequences to every decision, some of which we don’t realize. I think that not having to wait at the grocery store behind the overflowing shopping cart when I only have enough ramen noodles and granola bars is great. Ditto to the people at the bank who decide to sign off all their checks at the teller – hooray for the ATM. +1 for efficiency
But I’m wondering if that’s what I want to encourage. Efficiency is taking the place of personal contact. I’m notorious for having no vendor loyalties. Whomever has the best deal or best product wins. Product reviews and user comments rule. Brand recognition be damned. This is a drastic change from my father’s generation – when they would continue to purchase and evaluate products based by name alone. Part of it is that things don’t “last forever” anymore either, but really, we’re changing. I don’t have a “face” for any company any more. There’s no favorite teller, no insurance agent to call in emergencies, no cashier that I’ll wait 20 minutes in line for just to say “hello” to and ask about their family. Just whomever happens to be there at the time, a random person with a job, and no ties to me either. This also means no more chance encounters – no friendly people to say “hello” to and start a chat with. Really – some of these conversations were the most interesting that I’ve ever had. Now I pick and choose who I want to talk to – same as I do a product off of Amazon.com.
This seems strange to me as I think about my workplaces. Most, if not all, of the jobs I’ve had are “worth it” because of the people I worked with. The jobs themselves usually sucked, but coming into work with the same people every day usually made it worthwhile.
We’re not meant to be a solitary people. I saw a recent episode of Law and Order: SVU (rerun) where they showed that solitary confinement was actually one of the cruelest tortures that you could subject someone to – the cop went crazy after just 3 days, but a victim had endured 20 years of it. We’re meant to be around and to interact with people. You only have to look at social networking sites (see Facebook) to know recognize the kind of drive that we’re wired with. Count ‘em -> 500 million users. The world slightly less than 7 billion people. That means 1 in 14 people in the world is on Facebook. Suddenly, 7 degrees of separation doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea.
I don’t think I’ll change too much. I’ll still use ATMs and I’ll still go into self-checkout lanes, at least until I start carrying out shopping carts of groceries. But maybe I’ll say, “hi” just a bit more often. I complain myself all the time that people never call me work number unless there’s a problem. Maybe I should take my own advice this time.
Peace…
