Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

About to be replaced by a machine? We must add value. In some cases, employers must allow us to add value.

Amazon recently made news with a grocery store that has no cashiers. Wow. How convenient for the shoppers. Wow. There go a bunch of jobs as all the cashiers who weren’t hired won’t be paid.

Many more of us are and will be facing the same thing. Software and hardware will take our jobs—if we allow them to do so. We can beat the machine, if we try harder. We have to add value over what the machine can do.

Does the machine smile and call you by name and wish you a good evening? No, but a cashier who tries harder can do those things. A cashier can also ask about how your ill mother is doing and send her a Get Well card, if he tries harder. And the cashier can tell you about a product you didn’t buy and why it is better than what you did buy and where it is “hidden” on the shelf and how to get a discount on it, if he tries harder.

And then we come to the last point: many of us don’t add value over a machine because we are not allowed to do so.

• The cashier doesn’t mention the new, better, less expensive product because the grocery store chain has a deal with the other product maker and doesn’t allow that.
• The restaurant server can’t discount certain items on the menu or substitute this for that, because the restaurant manager doesn’t allow that.
• The gas station won’t hire teens to wash your windshield while you pump your own gas, because the corporation doesn’t allow that.
• The school teacher doesn’t hug a child who has made a breakthrough because the school board doesn’t allow that.

We could go on. If we try harder, we can provide value that a machine can’t and keep our jobs. First, however, the employer has to allow us to do so.