Adrian Barich: The good old days, when no machines accused me of ‘unexpected items in the bagging area’

I was in the supermarket the other day and I was laughing to myself. I do that a bit nowadays when I see something that strikes me as a bit bizarre.

Fortunately, I’m at the stage of life where I “don’t sweat the small stuff”, as that famous book by Richard Carlson advocates.

And, as the bestseller goes on to say, “it’s all small stuff” really.

I probably disagree with that final bit, as there are a couple of things life throws at you that are big, important stuff. But I understand that offering strategies to reduce stress by putting daily annoyances into perspective is a good idea.

So back to the supermarket and the self-checkout machines. Let me start by saying I use them several times a week. Which is lucky, really, as mostly there’s no one on the tills.

Now it’s machines ordering us around, in a prelude to what’s coming from AI and the brave new world of robotics.

To digress for one moment, let’s not forget I grew up with non self-service petrol stations.

I told my kids that in the good old days, I wasn’t even allowed to pump my own petrol. Someone would come out and do it for me, and probably clean my windscreen too and test my oil. They were gobsmacked.

I love these conversations and could go on for hours.

How about when we had to wait for our computer to dial-up, which required a phone line to be free and came accompanied by a loud, screeching noise.

And this one: “Did you know, kids, phones were attached to the wall and if you stayed on the line too long, your dad would pick up another handset and say, much to your embarrassment, ‘Get off the phone, Adrian’.” That really impressed the girls — not.

Flipping through massive phone books to find someone’s number or address was also a thing.

Using encyclopedias that were sometimes 10 years old, instead of Google.

Kids leaving the house in the morning and not returning until the streetlights came on, with no way to contact parents or vice versa.

Riding in the back of utes or in the back of the car without seatbelts.

Smoking everywhere, even on planes and at work.

“Tell me more about the golden days, Dad,” the kids would say.

Alright, how about riding bikes without helmets, or being regularly bored out of your brains at home and resorting to reading the same comic for the 58th time?

“That’s not true boomer, you made that up!” They’d say.

But again, back to the self-checkout, which basically tells you off with: “unexpected item in the bagging area”.

Ah, now I know you’re a super-intelligent appliance, but sorry, no, there is not an unexpected item, and how dare you accuse me of such things, bot-face? Let me call your human supervisor to set the record straight.

How guilty do you feel though, despite knowing you’ve done nothing wrong, as they play the video replay of you moving the avocados into the bag?

You get treated like a shoplifter, sadly, until you’re cleared by a video replay.

And the kicker? In the old days, it was you checking up on the checkout operator . . . and sometimes even pulling out your receipt to prove you’d been overcharged.

Now it’s a machine watching us, and you can only glare at a screen while it silently judges your life and food choices and alerts everyone around you that you may well be a thief.

Barra the shoplifter . . . I can just hear the gossip.

My friends, the machines are winning. Sometimes, I long for the simplicity of just handing someone some cash (is that still a thing, cash?) and walking out with your groceries.

Now going to the supermarket is too much like my other world of football: bloody video replays are everywhere.