I think I’m being bolstered by the recent buzz around ChatGPT – which will be interesting to watch for sure – but it wasn’t the beginning of my; “I’m not so sure about this” attitude regarding ‘everything should be tech’.
I’m having a problem with the simple things that have been in place for some time now.
Yesterday, I was at the airport with time to kill and wanted a bite to eat. The restaurant I was near had contactless ordering so you were meant to order from a kiosk; pay the kiosk; be given an order number by the kiosk……then a person would appear with your food.
Not one of the three kiosks was working properly.
None of the food bringing humans knew what to do about that.
They only bring food.
The restaurant lost money that day.
Exhibit B: Have you been to the grocery store and gone through self checkout?
How many times have you seen a sign on one of the self checkout machines that says:
“Cash Only” – “Card Only” – or, “No Cash back”?
When you have seen those signs, how many times have you seen someone working on that machine to restore it to full service?
I watched a friend once, who owned an SAP break-fix company, struggle with something on his computer. I can’t recall, now, what the struggle was about. He was downloading something or connecting his computer to something and…… it wasn’t going well.
I watched him try workarounds and different tech maneuvers for, let’s say, 40 minutes.
I finally asked him: “You are a very techy person, who enjoys tech, do you still enjoy it when you can’t get it to work”?
He told me that it really wasn’t about whether he enjoyed it as much as he was patient with it and his interest in it drove him to continue to find a solution without becoming frustrated.
He didn’t mind 40 of his minutes going to helping the tech help him solve his problem.
I mind.
However, he did cause me to realize that maybe our various tolerances for tech is personality based and not much else.
There are some things I think will suffer when the robots come. Recruiting for one – which is DEFINITELY why we developed a customized, personalized process to find candidates – rather than invest in bots who search resumes for keywords.
Haircuts will suffer. Please send me a picture of your haircut the first time a robot does it.
Tailoring. Cooking. Skydiving…..and on and on.
Yet, maybe some things will be improved.
I can’t tell, and I’m not quite sold, but, I’m open.
What do you think?