Ralph Pritchard

Mix Of A Ralph; April ‘13 by Ralph Pritchard on Mixcloud

Mix Of A Ralph; March ‘13 by Ralph Pritchard on Mixcloud

i have noticed recently how ambiguous the self service checkout is. politically, that is. a few years ago shoppers at my local supermarket were being encouraged by staff to try these new self-scanning machines. there were big queues for the main checkouts so the subtext was “look! you can get out of here quicker if you cooperate with the robot, why not?”. one old lady sardonically highlighted the effect such machines have on employment by responding with “do you want to be made redundant?”.

this Luddite perspective is, of course, based on fact. the intended result of widespread self-service checkout use is the redundancy of more checkout staff and the further proletarianization of a proportion of residual employees. very few people wish to be made redundant in a country with such an ungenerous welfare state, yet the drudgery of dragging other people’s groceries through the big red laser, smiling briefly and mumbling something about nectar is no ones idea of fun either.

the sort of Marxists i have the most time for are those who acknowledge the tedium of menial labour. those who oppose the wage relation itself and not just the extreme injustices it encompasses. which is why i support increased automation if it is in the service of shorter working hours and increased prosperity for all. which, i hasten to add, it never is (coz capitalism). this is a key area where the predictions of Keynes have proved delusional whilst Marx’s theories have enjoyed much confirmation.

a noticeable source of irritation within the self-service checkout experience itself is that when the machine’s complex weighing system fails to digitally correlate with what is happening in the real world one immediately becomes the accused. we’ve all been subjected to that “unexpected item in bagging area” refrain and it leads to up to several minutes waiting before a flustered shelf-stacker comes to the rescue with their magic card. if this happens repeatedly the shelf-stacker becomes increasingly flustered and the stench of bored distrust is palpable. professional Guardian gobshite Suzanne Moore recently described SSC’s as “the shoplifters’ friend” but it’s my considered opinion that the over-compensatory algorithms put in place make casual theft more difficult than ever.

the weighing system also prevents flexibility. i had my most harrowing self-service checkout-related experience when i changed my mind about how many spring rolls i wanted to get (partly because the sell-by date was fairly imminent but also because the 2 for £4 offer wasn’t manifesting itself on the on-screen receipt). to cancel an item requires unwittingly hassling that poor proletarian with the magic card but further problems arise with the weight of the remaining items and so on, etc, etc, it was just so horrific i had to go to the old fashioned human checkout. this experience posed a serious challenge to my autonomist post-work dogma.

nevertheless, as SSCs proliferate, any dogma, Luddite or otherwise, will have to be usurped by a general desire for efficiency. i only hope such innovations will one day be led not by profiteering capitalists but by the people using the #wrongtowork hash-tag on twitter.