You’re the farm

I was stooged again by the missus and ended up at Southland Shopping Centre on Sunday.
She’s got a way of making lunch not seem like shopping and I fell for it again like the pasty I am.

So there’s a new Japanese that seems nice and the missus told me about the robots that bring the food like its a good thing.
We went there.
Bad move.

This joint’s automated and the first thing that happens is we get instructions from one of the humanoid kiddies:

1: select from the touch-screen
2: add to the cart
3: send the order
4: your food will be delivered
5: and pay at the counter when yr done

Then she gestures with an open hand to the cash register where there’s another possible humanoid with a permanent grin.

No immediate threat, I thought to myself but that was when I noticed what was behind her on the shelf. One of those Asian gold cats with the kitten-eyes and an arm that’s waving waving … always waving.

So while waiting for food and with one eye on that freaky cat, I watched.

All the actual human kiddies stood around essentially doing nothing until a robot arrived and then they unpacked the food dispassionately. No visible emotion, it was almost like they were trying to out-robot the robots.

Cold like the pot-stickers ultimately were.

A returning robot smacked straight into the chair leg of the table beside us.
I’m sitting there smiling at the farce and saying “stupid bloody robots” … just a little bit too loud.

And the missus is cringing because she knows that I could equally be commenting about:
a: the wait staff
b: the machines
c: the customers
d: the sheer absurdity of it all

But this old Polish bloke beside me at the next table is chuckling because he can overhear me.

Looking at him and smiling, I peck peck pecked the touchscreen for more food. Raising my eye-brows I said, “I feel like a chicken”, and exaggerated the pecking motion with my hand.

The bloke’s wetting himself while his wife is pretending to search her hand-bag and mine is pretending that this isn’t really happening.

Maybe its my weird sense of humour but I think its hilarious that I was actually ordering more chicken at the time.

Nov 30, 2022 7:00 AM

MatrixTransform

Culture, Ethics and Morality, Popular Culture, Science, Technology

freedom, post-modernity

31 responses to “You’re the farm”

Mater

Nov 30, 2022 7:20 AM

LOL!

9
NFA

Nov 30, 2022 7:37 AM

MT

Recalcitrant!

3
duncanm

Nov 30, 2022 7:54 AM

The waving cat is the giveaway – he’s having a laugh at the customers.

We don’t keep cats, we serve them.

8
calli

Nov 30, 2022 8:07 AM

Lunch and a floor show!

They had those stupid robots at a resort in Slovenia. The only thing they’re good for is taking the dirty plates back to the washup. Frees up the staff for more important things like interacting with the customers.

Sushi trains are more fun, and definitely more practical. I suppose the scamdemic has put paid to them too.

1
MatrixTransform

Nov 30, 2022 8:38 AM

Sushi trains are more fun, and definitely more practical

when the Sushi Train Drivers got the arse … they all learnt to code

5
GreyRanga

Nov 30, 2022 8:56 AM

Never go to a Japanese restaurant with more than 12 tables. The less the better. Went to a Japanese restaurant in Sydney that had touch screen ordering. Never went back even though it was OK. If the owner isn’t working in it you can bet it’s no good. Used to go to Sydney every 2 months for Japanese coz there was nowhere good in Canberra then. Now in Canberra Raku is good, but expensive. The good ones usually have a limited menu with a few dishes that make it worthwhile. These days I make it myself at least twice a week.

6
Wally Dalí

Nov 30, 2022 9:14 AM

I hope I don’t sound extreme Luddite when I say it’s every sensible man’s duty to forsake all screens, codes, apps, QRs, pre-orders, touch-n-go’s, memberships and logins.
That way lies nothing but drone jobs, digital currency, tracking chips and iris-scanning, and an obvious pivot for social credit systems.
Smith W 6079, you have exceeded your alchohol unit e-purchase allowance for a 24-hour period!
In particular, look out for the roll-out around industries which would normally give unskilled youngsters their first part-time job. Restaurants, cafes, supermarkets. A year or so ago I said “escuse me” and turned away from the bar of a local hipster beer house because they were card only- another time i left a trolley and walked from the Coles screen mill foyer because the obese and rainbow-haired tatoo’ed mastodon told me I couldn’t go through a till, I had to self-scan. She seemed to exist soley to display a pronouns badge and tell people face-to-face that she wouldn’t be doing any traditional supermarket work- ie opening and extra lane when things got clogged, being chatty and bipping the items through- Fortunately i had no wifey but two well-trained kids who were used to me moving boldly through the world, they fell in behind me and we were out of the automatic doors before the soft-handed bint could page for assistance.
I don’t think it’ll change anything at supermarket land, but when the grandies ask me why they’re all going to a five-year university social work course instead of a job where, like in the odd old paper books that grandad hordes, the young teens do jobs where they lift things and sort out things and count physical money and get paid physical money… I can say that I was part of the resistance.

25
Roger

Nov 30, 2022 9:23 AM

Sushi trains are more fun, and definitely more practical. I suppose the scamdemic has put paid to them too.

Faux Japanese sushi places with conveyor belts seem to be very popular in the local metropolis. Now, if you’d told my grandfather Australians in the future would be eating rice rolled in seaweed with miniscule amounts of protein…

6
OldOzzie

Nov 30, 2022 9:25 AM

GreyRangasays:
November 30, 2022 at 8:56 am
Never go to a Japanese restaurant with more than 12 tables. The less the better.

Sushi Izakaya Waka
155 Pittwater Rd, Manly, AU 2095

Known locally as Waka – Fits the bill – is around 12 tables – great takeaway as well

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g552103-d6607244-Reviews-Sushi_Waka-Manly_Greater_Sydney_New_South_Wales.html

another

Ryo’s Noodles

125 Falcon St, Crows Nest, AU 2065

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g552091-d1223573-Reviews-Ryo_s_Noodles-Crows_Nest_North_Sydney_Greater_Sydney_New_South_Wales.html

3
Wally Dalí

Nov 30, 2022 9:27 AM

Frees up the staff for more important things like interacting with the customers.
Oh Calli, you poor trusting fool. Cleaning up is interacting with customers, and I don’t think that Australia has ever had any shyness, shame or workplace hierarchy around taking plates.
Having said…. one of the gilded restaurants around here which I used to go to twice a year (knew the sous chef and supplied spuds) had a bad set of drone-like humans who would take plates away the minute they were empty, which I thought was obsessive and intimidating to the slower eaters- it ironically had mindnumbingly slow prep as well. I could only assume that the plating-up time was so extended…. I would have to nicely grab the wrists of the poor chicks who were instructed to grab the 1/4 acre bits of porcelain and ask them to please leave everything until she could see the table’s eating irons were all down and dusted.
That chef has now changed workplaces, but taken the auto-pour instructions to the staff with her, which is infuriating. I nearly chipped a bloke and said, look chump, you don’t know what anyone here wants to drink, how much or when, so stop swinging in every five minutes, put our bottle down and fck off. Or, do us the courtesy of eye contact and asking if we’d like a 50mL top-up, you obviously think you’re part of our party, otherwise you look predatory, and instructed to push us through the bottle and so into ordering another.

7
MatrixTransform

Nov 30, 2022 9:30 AM

… I can say that I was part of the resistance

hehe
Wall-e, resistance is futile

3
calli

Nov 30, 2022 10:34 AM

Oh you great bunch of purists!

My childrens’ first introduction to Japanese cuisine was sushi train. It was fun. Then we progressed to teppanyaki, with the chef standing in the middle and hurling eggs at them. More fun.

They, of course, have bypassed all the daggy stuff with their own children and headed for the real deal. 😀

4
calli

Nov 30, 2022 10:36 AM

Bother. Apostrophe man strikes.

Children’s

2
NFA

Nov 30, 2022 10:51 AM

Wally Dalí says:
November 30, 2022 at 9:14 am

I hope I don’t sound extreme Luddite when I say it’s every sensible man’s duty to forsake all screens, codes, apps, QRs, pre-orders, touch-n-go’s, memberships and logins.
That way lies nothing but drone jobs, digital currency, tracking chips and iris-scanning, and an obvious pivot for social credit systems.

definite extreme Luddite

3
132andBush

Nov 30, 2022 12:15 PM

I will refuse to be served by a robot.

Unless it’s name is Manuel and it says “Si, Si” a lot.

If it’s going to be like this I want some comedy.

8
duncanm

Nov 30, 2022 12:19 PM

That absolute pits is, of course, when you visit such a place and they have the gall to ask for a tip in the ordering process.

Sorry mate, no service, no tip.

4
Bruce

Nov 30, 2022 1:20 PM

Slightly off topic: You are more than “the farm”;

You are the”incubator” and the controlled “vector”:

https://metatron.substack.com/p/why-the-puppets-in-clown-world-want

1
Wally Dalí

Nov 30, 2022 2:31 PM

Challenge accepted, MT.
I’ll tell you when I compromise and bend the knee to the touchscreen.

3
Bruce of Newcastle

Nov 30, 2022 3:41 PM

One of the fun things in Larry Niven’s Known Space universe is the Food Dispenser. You can dial up all sorts of nice stuff. Truffle cheese? No worries*.

I want a Food Dispenser. I also want a Quantum II hyperdrive spaceship. I wonder if Long Shot is available for a used spaceship price?

(*Actually I saw truffled cheese on special in Coles today, but didn’t buy any since it was $35 per kg.)

2
Arky

Nov 30, 2022 4:33 PM

Automation is the way to compete.
It is absolutely essential that businesses invest in automating as much as possible.
I remember working in the auto shop as an apprentice and the disdain the older tradesmen had for the CNCs, a disdain that some of the older apprentices picked up. I found the Okuma lathes and machining centres fascinating and loved working with them.
We want to survive against a nation with a billion pairs of little hands, a nation prepared to enslave and kill, we need every technological device, technique and system deployed and people to get very comfortable with it all.
So robot waiters might be shit, but the general thrust is in the correct direction.

5
Bob Sewell

Nov 30, 2022 4:42 PM

Bruce O’Newk:

One of the fun things in Larry Niven’s Known Space universe is the Food Dispenser.

I’d be the one who didn’t notice the the Food Dispenser programming was 300 years out of date…

2
Arky

Nov 30, 2022 5:04 PM

Australian retail businesses are terrible at efficiently serving customers.
Their systems are horrible.
Three examples, one good, one bad and one very, very ugly:
The two main supermarkets went from checkouts where the check out person did everything: scan, bag, take payment, assist with faults, and theft prevention, to a model where the customer self served the scan, bag and pay, but left the assistance and theft prevention lacking, had to then redeploy people into the self serve area to address those two issues AND keep traditional checkouts running in parallel to cater to those who did not take up self serve.
Look at the good: Aldi checkouts are designed so the employee does the scanning and takes payment, but the customer bags. Their conveyors are much longer to efficiently queue up customers, and theft prevention is effectively done by this set up without needing a seperate staff member. Aldi does with one checkout setup and less staff overall what the other supermarkets require two entirely different types of checkout set up to achieve. You will get through the Aldi setup quicker and with less stress, but self serving the bagging function, which is the only function that can be left to the customer unsupervised if theft prevention is required. Common sense, innit?
Now the ugly: A retain haberdashery chain had the worst systems in place. If you want to buy fabric you must go through two entirely seperate systems in store. First you go to the fabric desk with your chosen self served bolt of fabric line and prepare for a long wait for a person to cut it to length and bag it. Then you take your purchase through entirely seperate set of checkouts to leave the store. This system somehow manages to be part self serve, but make the customer totally dependant on staff and to seperate out the theft prevention function from payment and exit.
In general you can see how stupid retailers are by the way so many of them are following the trend to have checkouts in the middle of the shop and then have to invent an entirely new category of employee to stand at the door in an attempt to shame shoplifters by confronting them with a grinning, bored and otherwise functionless “greeter”.

8
MatrixTransform

Nov 30, 2022 6:26 PM

bloody ‘greeters’
I left bunnings the other week with a handful of junk
young kiddie on the way out says, “can i scan your docket?’

I actually stopped and looked at him and said after a second, “no. no you can’t”

he looked crestfallen

who says that robots don’t have feelings?

5
Arky

Nov 30, 2022 6:45 PM

“no. no you can’t”

..
I used to be like that.
Now I happily show them the docket, but only because these days that is the only social interaction I get all week due to having no mates at all.

4
Arky

Nov 30, 2022 6:46 PM

“Can I see your docket”?
“Yes please. Will you be my friend”?

2
calli

Nov 30, 2022 7:15 PM

Arky…your comment covers my frustration with supermarkets perfectly. I too have noticed the obvious shortfalls in their processing models.

A new Aldi has opened here. Bigger, better, brighter…even more meerkats for the garden. And true to the Aldi model – physically separated from the other supermarkets. Simultaneously, the Big Two have replaced their conventional checkouts with the abysmal “self serve” corral. The halfwits will be scratching their heads wondering why turnover has dived.

The Aldi model is ideal, covering all the important profit leakages.

5
Roger

Nov 30, 2022 8:06 PM

In general you can see how stupid retailers are by the way so many of them are following the trend to have checkouts in the middle of the shop and then have to invent an entirely new category of employee to stand at the door in an attempt to shame shoplifters by confronting them with a grinning, bored and otherwise functionless “greeter”.

My wife is a paid up member of Costco.

Imagine that just for starters…you have to pay them for the privilege of shopping there!

I refuse to accompany her on her expeditions thereto on the grounds that after having paid for your goods and thereby being their legal owner they still presume you are guilty of being a shoplifter unless you can prove otherwise to an employee before exiting by presenting your docket to a pimply teenager who then proceeds to go through the list item by item.

Hard to believe this retail model was developed in the land of the free and not some totalttiarian shithole.

2
132andBush

Nov 30, 2022 10:30 PM

Arky says:
November 30, 2022 at 6:46 pm
“Can I see your docket”?
“Yes please. Will you be my friend”?

Sí, sí.

1
GreyRanga

Dec 1, 2022 10:07 AM

Matrix you’re a tradie that fixes things, I’m surprised you get suckered with the shopping thing all the time. You know it’s going to happen but you still go there. When I used to shop with my missus I knew everything she didn’t like but never knew what she did like. She’d say to me do you like this, No. Guarantee that was the thing she brought. When the kids were getting their hours up driving they would take her to the local supermarket for a couple of things. 5 minutes in and out. No, 20 minutes looking a stuff she wasn’t going to buy. Go figure.

1
MatrixTransform

Dec 1, 2022 11:38 PM

GreyRanga,

I do believe you mistake telling the story, and the story.

seems to be a very common mode these days
Delta A

Dec 6, 2022 9:28 PM

Loved this post, Matrix.

Well done.

New Catallaxy

You’re the farm

31 responses to “You’re the farm”

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