Self-Checkout Is a Job and I Want Back Pay
GRIEVANCE NO. 001. FILED IN TRIPLICATE. RESPONDENT: THE SUPERMARKET-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AT LARGE.
Let the record show that at some point in the last twenty years, without a single interview, without a W-2, without so much as a firm handshake, I was hired as a cashier. I was also hired as a bagger. And — this is the part that really chaps my ass — I was simultaneously hired as the suspect in an ongoing shoplifting investigation into myself.
This is the self-checkout economy, and I am done working for free.
The Job Description Nobody Showed Me
Here is what the position actually entails, per my own field research:
- Locate the barcode on a bag of chips that has apparently been designed by people who hide Easter eggs in video games.
- Weigh my own produce. Look up my own produce. Spell "clementine." Get it wrong. Panic.
- Bag everything at competition speed while a scale beneath the bags judges me like a disappointed parent.
- Stand very still while a machine screams UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA at a volume previously reserved for submarine dive alarms.
The unexpected item, for the record, was the item I had just scanned. On the machine's own instructions. The machine and I both watched me do it. This is not loss prevention. This is gaslighting with a touchscreen.
The Accusation Phase
And then comes the light. The blinking light. The one that summons a seventeen-year-old with a lanyard to stare at me — a grown adult, a taxpayer, a person who once had dignity — and confirm that I did not, in fact, attempt the heist of the century involving three onions and a can of beans. My own onions. Onions I selected. Onions I weighed. Onions I was this close to naming.
Your honor, the defendant was seen scanning his groceries in full view of eleven cameras, exactly as instructed. We recommend the chair.
The Invoice
Since the complaint department is a QR code that leads to a survey about the complaint department, I'm invoicing publicly:
- Scanning labor, est. 2009–present: 312 hours at prevailing cashier wage. Pay up.
- Bagging services, expert tier: eggs on top, bread uncrushed, cold stuff together. That's skilled labor. Union rates.
- Loss-prevention consulting: I surveilled myself and found myself innocent. Investigators bill hundreds an hour. So do I now.
- Emotional damages: one (1) public onion accusation. Priceless, but let's say a number with a comma in it.
- Voice-acting royalties: every time that machine spoke to me, I performed the role of "man not committing a crime." SAG minimum.
Payment accepted in cash, check, or one (1) functioning human cashier lane, open, with the light on, staffed by someone empowered to say "don't worry about it, it's fine" — the four most beautiful words in retail.
Until then, every trip through the self-checkout will be logged as an unpaid shift, and this grievance remains OPEN.
Filed with prejudice. And a receipt I had to print myself.