Think!

This sign on the left is found at a coffee shop in Singapore. A customer has a choice –after queuing for food – you queue again for drinks, or wait for an uncle/auntie who takes drinks orders and you pay upon delivery. The sign shows a productivity drive by the coffee shop owner.

Productivity can be defined as output per worker; so by encouraging customers to by-pass the uncles and aunties and going straight to queue themselves, there are less workers for roughly the same volume of drinks sold; abracadabra! Productivity goes up. The coffee shop owners might even gain even more: http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/press-releases/2015/0819-leds

People who have lived in Singapore for a while will certainly understand that using the terms ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ are words that push people to action. And there now is a long queue of customers at the drinks stall, and fewer uncles/aunties employed to collect orders.

As customers, what have we gained?

1.      Are the drinks cheaper? No.
2.       Is the waiting time for drinks shorter? No, on the contrary, instead of preparing 5 hot coffees,5 teas, and 3 milos the people manning the counter have to prepare them individually, increasing the time taken for each drink.

So we are paying the same amount for the drinks, only we are spending time queuing rather than spending the time with our friends and families and sharing a full meal together.

This is a simple example of an organization shifting costs to the end customer. The customer ‘pays’ more and the organization reaps savings. What savings? Some of the uncles/aunties are no longer seen at the coffee shop. I found one uncle, at a coffee shop in the next town, presumably further from his home.

So my question is, why do we as customers help these organisations fire people who obviously need the jobs?

I was having dinner with this friend last week and she was arguing that no one can stop progress automation…. Please, think!

This is not automation, no some soulless blind machine taking over the jobs of these uncles and aunties. We, as customers are actively taking hammers to the rice bowls of the uncles and aunties by reacting like Pavlovian dogs to the words ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’. We are choosing to take the extra effort upon ourselves to drive these people out of their livelihoods. And they might end up on the right side of the picture above, a cardboard auntie’s life is much harder than a drinks auntie’s life.

Think people, think!

I would have no problem paying an extra 5 or 10 cents per cup of coffee that would have meant the uncle/aunties could retain their jobs; I can’t be the only one right?