I’ve just been into Asda for a few bits and pieces. As usual, I chose to join a queue for a real checkout person (the automated checkouts persistently go wrong whenever I attempt to use them, and notwithstanding the unwanted intrusion of them now photographing the customer, they don’t yet seem to recognise that a sixty something male isn’t breaking the law by buying booze – come on AI get your act together!). I also feel that it’s my duty to support the employment of real people – the plucky (mainly) ladies of a certain age who kept working throughout the Covid farce, and surprisingly didn’t all die of daily exposure to the hordes of lethal germ carriers like myself. Surprisingly no one, to my knowledge, bashed pots and pans for these heroines.
Well, I’ve now had a glimpse of the future and sadly have even lost some of my misplaced trust in (some) checkout ladies.
What happened? Well, after scanning my few purchases the checkout lady told me (almost gleefully I thought) “I can’t sell you these”, moving my plastic carton of mini Cornish pasties to the back of the till out of my reach. Did she think I was going to do something immoral or illegal with them (snorting the filling before I even left the shop to get a beefy high)? No, the reason given, and I suspect only because I asked (she didn’t look as though she wanted her authority questioned) was that the label on the rear of the carton was missing. Rather than the then expected routine excuse that without a barcode my potential purchase was impossible, because as we all know if “the computer, aka till, says no” that’s basically it – the reason given was that without the missing label summary of ingredients I might ingest something that I was allergic to. Would I even buy mini Cornish pasties if I was allergic to them?
Being bloodyminded, and having particularly wanted mini Cornish pasties for lunch, I insisted that another carton was brought to the till – eventually it arrived and the twenty or so people behind me breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Now all this naturally made me realise how easy it will be in a cash free Central Bank Digital Currency future to vet and prohibit customers’ freedom of choice. In fact it is already happening because before I was served, the customer in front of me (a lady with her elderly Mother in tow) tried to buy, among other things, four tubs of butter, but was told she could only buy three as it was on a special promotion. On asking if the fourth tub could instead be bought and paid for by her Mother, she was gruffly told “No, I know it’s for you and you can only have three!” OK the checkout lady might claim she was only following orders (where have we heard that before?), but unfortunately she was clearly a willing and obedient follower of Asda orders, and wasn’t remotely concerned on next dealing with me that her queue was becoming extremely long and showing the early signs of becoming fractious.
Is it justifiable for Asda, or any other retailer, to limit what their customers can buy in a supposedly free market capitalist economy? Perhaps Asda are afraid Spivs will buy all their cut price butter and try to sell it for a profit on street corners (or eBay)? Or is it not far more likely that they are willing recruits to the Liberal Fascist UK Nanny State and relish the even greater control lurking just around the corner (and in some respects already here, with no one questioning the increasing use of scanning mobile phones to pay for things instead of debit/credit cards or good old cash. What happens when the App fails, the phone battery dies, or the klaxon starts ringing because the customer has exceeded their permitted ration….call Security).
The moral of my story is this: use cash, avoid the automated spy tills, and don’t put up with any further lessening of the old adage “the customer is always right”. You have been warned. PS, always check that the product has at least a barcode label before you attempt to buy it.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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obedient follower of Asda…
The penny drops. ASDA are the real till nazis. We always shop at Tesco (Portadown or Banbridge. Co. Down N.Ireland) and the checkout staff and the floor workers are invariably helpful and humorous. (I’m not an employee or sales promoter BTW) and they are always ready for ‘the craic’ … You’d know what I mean if you’d been second in the queue while the ’tilly-op’ was having an extended conversation with the shopper in front. It is a great way to learn patience I must admit. Another thing I’ve learned about N.Ireland is that drivers don’t complain about tractors, JCB’s or packs of cyclists when they get stuck behind them. I’ve learned that brand of patience as well and my blood pressure has dropped accordingly. ;o)
Possibly the ‘Till-Ladies’ have been briefed – i.e. ordered – to make life difficult at the check-out so as to drive customers to the machines. They will have been reassured that when the tills are closed forever they will be employed elsewhere within the organisation.
Carrots and sticks are as old as time.