After marvelling at the relative ease at how quickly I was able to pick up a package at the FedEx facility last night, just by them scanning the bar code on the door tag they left, I marvelled at how easy computers have made the shipping business.
Today, I found out that UPS had accidentally shipped my thinkgeek.com order to Sunnyvale, TEXAS. The order has my address correct, this was UPS’s mistake. Now I have to wait even longer for my cube toys. Technology is a two-edged sword.
On a related, but completely tangential note, I forgot to mention that the Albertson’s grocery nearest our house where I do all my shopping has gotten the self-checkout installed. It’s true… the robots are one step closer to taking over the world.
…the robots are one step closer to taking over the world.
As long as they’re diecast, I’m all for it. If they can transform too, that’d be a plus.
The good thing about those self checkouts is that you can do express items. But the bad thing is that well it will take away jobs.. heh wheee for progress :O
As an ex-checkout-girl, I love those self-checkout stations. I get really irritated when they do some stuff, though.. for example
at kmart at home, they /talk out loud/ at you. And everyone else nearby.
at publix, you can’t ring up anything that would have to be coded, ie, loose fruit, clearance items
mostly its annoying to get stuck behind people who don’t know what they’re doing. Although, I was in atlanta once at a krogers (I think) and they had self-checkout stations where you just put everything on the belt, and it went through a tunnel (a la airport security for carryon) and it figured everything out on its very own. They even kept their cashiers to handle cash transactions or any problems, except it was two to a line instead of one to a line.