All sorts of things are getting automated these days.
A few years ago we looked at European self-order McDonald’s restaurants, and within a few months they began popping up here. Well … I noticed them here. I’m not into coffee shops that often. Maybe they crept in while I was gawking at the new high rise over there.
And then I saw self-service “automat” convenience stores in European cities, which I haven’t [yet] seen here.
Mind, every time I go into Dollarama or Giant Tiger I bless them for providing entry level jobs. Alas, with labour costs rising, they are now accepting credit cards, the first step in providing self-checkout counters. Some places, like the big orange hardware store, and the blue and yellow flat pak housewears and furniture store, now seem to have more self-check outs than human check outs.
And I remember this grocery store that had scanners you could take with you to scan your groceries as you shopped:
And then more recently I came across these vending machines at the Somerset West Community Health Centre. Was I being uncharitable to wonder if their supervised drug injection site was becoming self serve?
Alas, I wasn’t even sure what they were vending …
Nor did I seem to have the right currency. Old fuddy-duddy me.
And I used to think POP was a program on transit.
What’s next? Self-service medicine? Oh wait, we have Dr Google for that already. If that doesn’t work, how about self-serve cemeteries?
The Buzz has a nice story about the harm reduction vending machine: http://www.centretownbuzz.com/2017/12/10/harm-reduction-vending-machine-comes-to-somerset-west-community-health-centre/
David: I live in a Buzz free area, so I hadn’t seen the Buzz article. Good coincidence, will get the word out.
These supplies are given out by actual human beings during times when the centre is open….then you can get tokens for getting clean supplies after hours from the machines.
As for not knowing what they’re vending – if you have to ask, you probably don’t need them. 🙂
I do not understand.
A Peer Overdose Prevention training program seems to be a fairly useful bit of kit, something that might come in handy for any member of the public who encounters an overdose victim on the streets, or on transit, or in the entrance to their apartment or condo or university residence.
Why would such a training program require payment?
Would this not be a public service and in the interest of safety of life?
“I bless them for providing entry level jobs.”
What we want is revenues, not jobs.
Give me revenue and I’ll gladly quit my stupid dehumanising repetitive boring underpaid job.
People should not waste their lives in low level jobs if machines can do it.
Of course, some low level jobs can not so easily be done by machines (janitor, cleaning, …)
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I wonder if those “Harm reduction tokens” will become the new “bitcoins”?
Haruki: yes, as an economy, we want well paying jobs. But, in reality, there are lots of people we exclude because we won’t value foreign education or experience, or who have low work qualifications, or who want some out of home not-necessarily-full-time employment or whose labour contribution doesn’t add much value. We do need employment of everyone, at all skill levels, and in many different circumstances. Minimum wage, part-time, service industry jobs fit the bill for some people. As a former employer, I certainly valued what people learn at “mcjobs” like bridgehead. Specific skills I can teach; ethics and attitude I cannot.