Automation is causing many casualties. Technology marches on, but there’s a yearning for moments of precious connection, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
They aren’t sitting there twiddling their thumbs for 12 hours, they are providing a service which evidently people value. “Savings are savings” is the kind of argument an accountant who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing would make.
We’re talking about the cost a human being sitting around selling tickets to people. You can value that service all day long, but if the human being is wasting their life doing something a machine could do you’re literally wasting human life.
If a job can be killed. Replace it. This isn’t about money, money is a proxy for what actually matters. Time and resources.
Human potential far surpasses selling you tickets, and any human potential wasted in this way is a tragedy.
The ticket office staff don’t merely sell tickets - and I know because I’ve done the job - much of the job is assisting people in a way a machine still cannot.
That’s still plenty of time. “It won’t save much compared to…” Is almost always a bad argument. Savings are savings and labor is expensive.
The ticket machines not being up to the task is a reasonable argument though. I can’t comment on that.
They aren’t sitting there twiddling their thumbs for 12 hours, they are providing a service which evidently people value. “Savings are savings” is the kind of argument an accountant who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing would make.
We’re talking about the cost a human being sitting around selling tickets to people. You can value that service all day long, but if the human being is wasting their life doing something a machine could do you’re literally wasting human life.
If a job can be killed. Replace it. This isn’t about money, money is a proxy for what actually matters. Time and resources.
Human potential far surpasses selling you tickets, and any human potential wasted in this way is a tragedy.
The ticket office staff don’t merely sell tickets - and I know because I’ve done the job - much of the job is assisting people in a way a machine still cannot.