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Hot take: convenience stores got worse at the exact moment they added those self-checkout kiosks
I stopped at the Shell station on Route 9 last Tuesday for a coffee and a lottery ticket, and it hit me how much the whole experience has changed since 2019. Before the kiosks went in, there was always a guy behind the counter who knew the regulars, cracked a joke about the weather, and could point you to the right phone charger in about 10 seconds. Now there's one clerk stuck dealing with a frozen self-checkout screen while three people wait in line, and the shelves are stocked with the same generic stuff but somehow everything feels cheaper and more hollow at once. I get that labor costs are brutal and margins on a pack of gum are thin, but did we really trade that small human connection for a machine that beeps at me when I put my wallet down too close to the scanner? Is it just me, or did the disappearance of the counter person coincide with the rise of stores feeling like vending machines with extra steps? For those of you who still have a local bodega or corner store with a live cashier, does it actually feel different when you walk in, or am I just nostalgic for something that was never that great anyway?
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mary77617d ago
The "vending machines with extra steps" line got me because I do the exact same thing every time, stand there holding my wallet like an idiot while the screen yells at me to remove my item from the bagging area when I never even put anything there. In my experience the kiosks mostly work fine but the second something goes wrong you are completely on your own, and the one clerk is already buried helping someone else. There is a little market near my place with a real person at the counter and yeah, it does feel different, mostly because he remembers I get the same coffee and tells me when the good chips are back in stock. Your mileage may vary since some of that old counter talk was probably just us being young and not paying attention, but I do not think it is pure nostalgia. Half the time now I just leave when I see three people waiting on a frozen screen, which probably says more about me than the store.
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