The advance of technology helps facilitate our lives a great deal, but do we pay a high price when it comes to relying on the machines way more than we should?
In order to speed up the process of running errands and shopping for groceries, Walmart introduced self-checkouts. What they didn’t expect, however, is to face backlash because of this decision that many of the customers consider controversial.
The self-service machines aren’t something new. In fact, they were first introduced in the 1980s to lower labor expenses.
But this service faced plenty of obstacles and customers complain to the added responsibilities.
For example, certain items may have multiple barcodes, whereas the produce, including the meat, fruit, and vegetable, typically needs to be weighed and manually entered into the system using a code, which might be time consuming for the ordinary shoppers. Other times shoppers won’t hear the “beep” confirming an item has been scanned properly.
Another issue is the increase of theft. Walmart announced that thefts at its stores has reached an all-time high.
The machines not only fall short at their purpose of making shopping easier at times, but they also make it harder for the employees they were meant to help.
Christopher Andrews, a sociologist and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy, says the system “doesn’t work well for anyone.”
He continued: “Everyone feels like they have to have it. Companies are thinking: ‘If we can just get more people on this, maybe we can start reducing some overheads.’”
What’s most, most of the customers have reported that they miss the human interaction while shopping.
Randy Parraz from Making Change at Walmart perfectly summed up customer sentiments by saying, “You can’t convince customers to do the job of a cashier just because you don’t want to pay for the work.”
Walmart decided to listen to what their customers had to say and instead of further expanding automation, the retail giant will hire additional cashiers to provide their customers with a pleasant shopping experience and service.
What Walmart and the rest of the retailers, among which Costco and Wegmans, learned is that efficiency is important but maintaining a balance with positive experiences remains crucial.
A Rare Look At Today’s Shiloh Jolie-Pitt
One of the most popular Hollywood couples of all time was Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Some people loved them together and other people hated it, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that they were everywhere.
The couple remained together for 12 years and had three children with each other. They also adopted three children while they were together. Angelina Jolie already had two sons who were adopted when she met him in 2004.
The film that they met each other on was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and in many ways, it launched their relationship with each other. They enjoyed working together and eventually, a romance was building.
They talked about what they wanted in life and this included some similar things. Angelina was still adopting children and they co-adopted a baby from Ethiopia in 2006.
It was in that same year that she was pregnant with their own child. They went to Namibia for the birth to stay out of the public eye during that time.
They were so popular together that it is thought that the first picture of the child was worth $1 million. That baby is Shiloh, and she was born healthy by a cesarean section.
Despite the fact that they had a healthy baby, they were also concerned that there were some 2 million babies born every year in the developing world who died the first day they were born. They wanted to do what they could to save those children by making changes.
Shiloh is now 16 years old and she’s growing up quickly. She is close to her older brothers and sisters as well as the twin siblings that are younger than she is.
They don’t too much on social media so they tend to stay behind the scenes but one thing that is known is that Shiloh wasn’t always going by that name. At one time, she wanted to be called John.
Her parents are supportive of the choice that she’s made, and they want her to fit in. They even try to match clothes with her older brothers.
According to Angelina Jolie, she wanted to be a boy so they cut her hair and let her wear boy’s clothing.
These days, Shiloh has grown up into a beautiful young woman. She still isn’t seen very often in public, but we look forward to seeing her more in the future.
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