Co-op, Machine-op

I have developed the habit of eating tea a little later. This allows me to attend my local Co-op about 7pm and grab a few stickered items from the reduced shelves. I tend to go to the self-checkout machines as they are quicker than the kiosk, which is the only manned till.

Unfortunately, the self-service machines at the Co-op are pretty rubbish. The weight of a 22-pence bag of chicken dips was not recognised, so the machine rejected the whole shop, and demanded I waited till a member of staff appeared to verify my purchase. I waited. And I waited. No-one came, so I walked out, leaving all the items at the checkout. I like their bargains, but I like my time more. I went home hungrier, though I arose the following day a little richer and a tad thinner.

The problem with the machine is that it has no common sense. A real, live human being would have seen the product and responded accordingly. A machine, a computer, a program, is unable to understand that some food products’ weight varies; rather than sell it, it preferred to have an employee check I was not stealing the 22-pence product.

The more we use machines to run our lives, the less like humans we ourselves are treated. For the machine’s mistake, staff members will are now returning those products that their self-service machine refused to sell. The Bible says that those who worship idols become like them (Ps 115:8); I wonder if the same is true of machines. 

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay