Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

My garbage, the refuse created by my household, must now be separated into three categories: compostables, recyclables, and, well, garbage. It’s a chore I now have to do, a decision, an evaluation I must now perform each and every time I want to dispose of something. Is this OK to go into the yard waste? Does this plastic have the little recycling triangle, and is it one of the accepted recyclable plastics? Is it clean enough? Yes, I now have to wash my trash before disposing of some of it.

Many stores now have “self-checkout” queues, where I can scan and bag my own groceries. This is sold as a time-saver, but usually it isn’t. Usually, I have to get approval to buy a beer, and usually, I put something into the bag too fast or too slowly for the machine to register it, requiring an override from a person, which means that usually, it’s not a time-saver, it’s a pain in the tuchas and, almost always, it’s slower than letting a pro do it, especially if the pro has been teamed with a bagger.

We pay many of our bills online, but it can be a hassle. The way it used to work, we got a bill, we wrote a check, we mailed it off. It took, literally, like thirty seconds. Now, there are login IDs, passwords, account numbers, and procedures, and if there’s an issue, it can take days to resolve. It is definitely not faster, but when they change the due dates so you only have six or seven days to pay the damned thing, well, sometimes online bill-pay is the only option if I want my payment to arrive in time.

Yesterday, reading an article online, there was a button at the bottom. “Report a Typo,” it read. Excuse me? You want me to proofread your articles? I mean, I expect that from some of the more dodgy publications, but the Boston Globe? CBC? ABC? The National Post? I’ve become so inured to poor editing in online news—typos, bad grammar, extraneous words—that it’s obvious they’re all cutting corners by cutting editorial staff. But asking the public to report typos? Have you seen the posts regular folks put up these days? That’s like asking a sixth-grader to tune-up your car.

My point here is this: Increasingly, we are all being used as unpaid employees and, along with increased automation, we are all tacitly complicit in the ongoing loss of jobs. Every time we check out our own groceries, separate our trash, or edit someone else’s article, we’re taking a job away from someone who can do it better, faster, more efficiently.

Better, faster, more efficient, but also more costly for the corporation. Employees cost money. We, on the other hand, are free of charge. We cost them nothing.

But we, by our compliance, cost someone a job.

My options are limited, of course. I must separate my garbage or deal with it all myself. I can pay my bill with a check but risk it being late. However, I can go the the checkout line with a human (or two) behind the conveyor. I can click that “Report a Typo” button, but not tell them exactly what it is or where.

It’s a small thing, I know, but if it keeps one person from being laid off, it’ll be a big thing to them.

k