Ric's

Someone reminded me today that the convenience of e-mail, message boards, chatrooms, etc. cannot replace the delights associated with letters received via snail mail. When things become unnecessary, they may still retain value, albeit for different reasons. Photography has been invented, but people still paint. Film technology is out now, but stages are still in use. An example I was reminded of just a second ago was camping. Someone just pointed out a brochure touting wi-fi availability at campgrounds. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of campgrounds?

Similarly, some things are possible but should simply not be done. The mass-produced printout in lieu of a hand-written thank-you note I once received from a high school graduate was not a proper substitute, in my opinion, for the personal note requiring a bit of otherwise unnecessary effort in order to provide the necessary value. Self-checkout lanes at supermarkets are another.

I can hear the old canard now. "Change is good! Get used to it!" Change isn't good or bad. Change is just change. That line has proven useful, however, since I was a child and the "now generation" proclaimed the inevitable emergence of a society in which people took better care of themselves and each other, and it was something the elder generation was going to have to get used to. But someone out there wants us to think it's the same thing in this case. It's not, nor is it all that hard to illustrate. Imagine two change scenarios: a world in which everyone, for a change, smiles and greets every passing stranger - now that would be a change. OK, now imagine a world in which everyone took up smoking and went around seeing how many strangers' faces they could blow smoke into. That too would be a change. Which would you prefer? "Either one, because change is good?" That doesn't make sense, does it?

I'm all for change, all right. Positive change. Improvement. Progress. Self-checkout lanes are not positive for anyone but the retailer's bottom line. It doesn't help cashiers. It puts customers to work. A retailer once defended self-checkout lanes by saying that customers would get used to them and like them. Not me. Then they mentioned that "actually" they would end up hiring more cashiers. Now what sense does that make? The machines and the new cashiers they make inevitable (without saying how) will only cost more money (in this cost-cutting age!). Finally, they argued that 67% of their customers were using them. Well, I thought, get rid of the human cashiers and 100% of their customers will use them. But I won't be one of them.

One way to beat the trend is to shop at supermarkets that don't have self-checkout lanes and help keep them in business. At first I thought I would find only a few surviving hangers-on from a bygone era. But then I saw an article in the paper about a "traditional" supermarket opening up in the area, one whose selling points included NOT having self-checkout lanes. (What are we doing? Going backwards? Regressing? Refusing to face inevitable change toward an impersonal, mechanized world of lonely strangers without jobs?) Well, apparently people want it or it wouldn't be a selling point. And Ric's on the corner of Belding Road and Myers Lake in Rockford, Michigan is a NEW option for those who wish to go that route. Old-fashioned or not, I like the experience of being fawned over by a half-dozen friendly employees when I walk in the door. Technologically unnecessary though they may be, I find cashiers valuable not because they are necessary in order for me to pay. (What are people going to do if technology renders all jobs obsolete? It may seem like an exaggeration, but these days one can't be too sure.) If I have to explain to you why I find cashiers valuable, you need read no further. But if you are in sympathy with anything I have said, you might stop in at Ric's some time and take in the experience. I think you'll like it.