Once upon a time, cash was king. You’d get better prices. You could negotiate more nimbly. And businesses were always more than happy to take it. Then the pandemic came along, and many businesses went cashless. At the same time, many businesses made the move to a self-checkout system.
Ostensibly, it was a move toward efficiency. In reality, many people hate them.
One Edmonton, Alberta, woman recently had the kind of self-checkout experience that perhaps encapsulates the entire, impersonal experience.
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Realtor CarynS (@caryns42) took her annoyance with customer service at Michael’s Arts & Crafts to TikTok. She captioned her video, which has garnered over 16,000 views, “So Michael’s needs to do better. Your staff are there to provide customer service, not to stand around and chat. And there should be options to pay in cash! What the heck?”
While that sums up her frustration, it wasn’t just the lack of a cash option that set her off.
“I just wanted to come on here and say there is something really messed up with our society,” she says. “I went to Michael’s this morning to pick up a shirt for my daughter and something else.”
However, once she’d grabbed her items and was ready to check out, she says, the two employees who were there were just “standing there chatting it up” at the self-checkout kiosks.
“‘Oh, you can take any till,'” she says she was instructed.
Caryn says she then explained to them that she preferred to pay for her items in cash. “And then, the customer service, holy mad,” says Caryn.
She mimics a huge frown and deep sigh she says the two workers gave her before one of them finally went to a till.
Meanwhile, Caryn indicates she thought to herself, “This is your job. Can we do our job, Michael’s?”
The Internet Doesn’t Hold Back
One viewer shared how they use the self-checkout to their advantage. “When I go there, I do use the self checkout because I use that $40 coupon on every transaction I make in every item as a separate transaction to get that sale price,” they shared.
However, not everyone is down to game the system. “It’s not just Michaels. It’s everywhere. No one wants to work anymore,” another viewer claimed.
Caryn agreed, claiming this behavior is indicative of a larger, less acceptable cultural shift. She said, “It happens everywhere in our society, there is a whole generation that doesn’t seem to know basic customer service.”
Then somewhat predictably—maybe because Caryn referred to the workers as “girls,” indicating they are young, or later confirmed it was a generational issue—some in the comments pivoted toward generational biases. “The younger generation has no respect or care for anybody,” another viewer grumbled.
What Do The Numbers Say?
Well, it’s kind of nuanced. Reports do suggest that Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, are fired at higher rates compared to earlier generations. This comes just three months after NYU professor and business journalist Suzy Welch penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling Gen Z “unemployable.”
In the course of her research, Welch conducted a study to see how Gen Z’s values aligned with those of hiring managers. Her findings revealed that “A mere 2% of Generation Z members hold the values that companies want most in new hires, namely achievement, learning and an unbridled desire to work.”
A recent Fortune article appears to back up Welch’s claims. It’s calling out everything from Gen Z’s communication style to office attire and organization. Notably, “one in seven bosses have admitted that they may avoid hiring recent grads altogether next year.”
But the big complaint echoes Walsh’s conclusion: a lack of motivation or initiative. “Fifty percent of leaders surveyed cited that as the reason things didn’t work out with their new hire,” Fortune reports.
Yet, for their part, young job seekers face a brutal, AI-driven job market where hundreds of people apply for one open position. One job hunter even called the process “dystopian,” likening it to running a “digitized gauntlet.”
The same New York Times op-ed says that “once you actually have a job, the real dystopia begins.” A combination of micro-management and employee productivity software result in employees feeling “hyperscrutinized and undersupported.”
That environment may be fueling widespread unhappiness. The National Bureau of Economic Research in July found young worker despair has been rising in the United States for about a decade. For some “workers under 25, [their] mental health is now so poor that they are generally as unhappy as their unemployed counterparts.”
@caryns42 So Michael’s needs to do better, your staff are there to provide customer service not to stand around and chat. And there should be options to pay in cash! What the heck #michaels #customerservice
BroBible reached out to Caryn via her professional email and via TikTok direct message. BroBible also reached out to Michael’s via their corporate press contact. We’ll update this story if they get back to us.