Self-service, blessing or a curse?

Clayton Hayes is a lifelong resident of Dyer County.

Remember the good old days when someone actually helped you with things? You'd walk into a store, and a friendly human would ask, “How can I assist you today?” Now, you're more likely to get, “Please use the self-checkout!” from a machine that somehow manages to sound both helpful and condescending.

Welcome to the brave new world of self-service, where every chore, from grocery shopping to printing out boarding passes, is now your responsibility. Want to talk to a human? Good luck. They’ve all been replaced by kiosks, apps, and that soul-crushing phrase, “For further assistance, visit our website.”

It seems like the only thing you can't do yourself these days is perform surgery, although, who knows, maybe there’s a YouTube tutorial for that, too.

Let’s start with the grocery store, ground zero for the self-service revolution. Once upon a time, there were actual cashiers who rang up your items, made small talk about the weather, and sometimes even bagged your groceries! Now, if you see more than one cashier on duty, it's like spotting a unicorn in the wild.

Instead, we've got a herd of self-checkout machines. These devices promise convenience, but we all know the truth. Self-checkout lanes are where optimism goes to die. You enthusiastically scan your first item, only to be interrupted by an error message: "Please place the item in the bagging area.

But guess what? The item is already in the bagging area! You look around helplessly for assistance, but there’s no one to be found—except, of course, for that one overwhelmed employee who has to manage 15 machines and soothe irate customers as they rage against the robotic overlords.

And don’t even get me started on the scale. Somehow, a bunch of bananas weigh either too much or too little, triggering a meltdown in the machine's operating system. Suddenly, buying groceries feels like defusing a bomb. The clock is ticking, the tension is rising, and all you want is your carton of milk.

The self-service trend has crept into restaurants, too. I can’t be the only one who feels a tiny bit sad when I walk into a fast-food joint and see rows of touchscreen kiosks instead of smiling faces behind a counter. Once, ordering a meal was a simple, human interaction. Now, I spend ten minutes tapping away like I’m entering the launch codes for a space mission.

"Would you like to customize your burger?" Sure, but by the time I’ve added extra pickles, held the onions, and doubled the cheese, I feel like I’ve just earned a culinary degree. At the end, I’m not even sure who deserves the tip. Do I tip the kiosk for working so tirelessly on my behalf? Will it split the tip with the employees?

Then, of course, there are the table QR codes. The menu is now on your phone, so you better hope you remember to charge it. No battery? No burger for you. By the time I’ve scrolled through every drink option and paid with an app, I feel like I should be allowed back in the kitchen to flip my own burger.

Ah, the DMV—every self-service enthusiast’s nightmare. You arrive with your paperwork only to be directed to a touch screen that looks like it was designed during the Cold War. You cautiously select your options, hoping you’ve chosen correctly. Inevitably, after 45 minutes in line, you’ll find out you didn’t. Then the “blue screen of death pops up.

At airports, things are just as grim. Remember when checking in for a flight involved speaking to an actual person? These days, it’s you, a machine, and your baggage. The machine instructs you to tag your own luggage, weigh it, and send it off down a conveyor belt. And if something goes wrong, good luck. You’re now part of the system—quite literally—until the self-service gods decide you’ve suffered enough and send a human to rescue you.

Not even banks are immune to the self-service plague. ATMs, once considered a miracle of modern convenience, now feel like an ancient artifact. Today, the push is all about mobile apps, chatbots, and e-depositing checks. If you walk into a bank and ask for a teller, you’re likely to be met with the same bewilderment you’d get if you’d asked for a phone with a rotary dial.

Customer service used to mean talking to someone, usually with a pen behind their ear and a “Happy to Help” badge. Now, customer service means navigating a labyrinth of phone trees or typing out your life story to an AI assistant who cheerfully responds, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

So you hit the back button only to find you have to start all over.

Now, before we start sounding like grumpy old folks shaking our fists at storm clouds, let’s acknowledge that self-service does have its perks. There’s a certain satisfaction in bypassing a long line or being able to do things on your own schedule. But the question remains: Are we making life more convenient, or just transferring the workload onto ourselves? Progress in American life?

After all, there's a limit to how much we should be expected to do. I’m more than happy to scan my own groceries, but if this trend keeps going, will we soon be expected to cook our own meals in restaurants or fix the plane’s landing gear before takeoff?

The rise of the self-service world may save time and money for businesses, but it also feels like a slow erosion of human interaction. And honestly, sometimes, I just want someone else to do the work for me. Is that too much to ask?

In the meantime, I'll bagging my own groceries, flipping my own burgers, and wondering when self-service dentistry becomes a thing. I should probably start watching YouTube tutorials, just in case.