And for once, I don't mean mine. I mean internet services and commercial computers. I've been noticing more problems with both lately...
I shop at a grocery store that requires customer use of a touchscreen to pay. First, the display always asks for donations. It's irritating to have to deny a donation at every cash register in every store. But I shop at the grocery store most often.
Sometimes I can't get the "No Thanks" notice to go away. Tap the button with fingernail, fingertip and card corner and it stays for many tries. I give directly to several charities, so I don't need the store to get a "cut" of what I donate.
Then I try to pay for my food. The touchscreen offers tap, slide, and insert. Tap almost never works. Slide or Insert usually do. And my card offers all 3 options. The cashier said they always have problems with Tap. They didn't used to.
And the cashier's computer monitor shows different items than I bought. The price is correct, but a peach is not a nectarine, and green leaf lettuce is not red leaf lettuce. Well, if the price is the same, it doesn't matter too much.
But sometimes I ask the produce manager why they have so much of one thing and not enough of a similar thing. He says the store deliveries are based on the checkout data. Given the inaccuracy of the checkout computer, I can easily see where their problem is. Seriously, if their computer calls all peaches "nectarines", no wonder they have lots of nectarines and few peaches!
Outside at the store gas station (where I can use grocery-purchase points to get cheaper gas), the pumps no longer want to accept my store loyalty card half the time. That it does work sometimes and not others means they have a tech problem.
At a DIY store the other day, the card reader would not accept my card when inserted. But it did when slide.
This seems to be happening more and more often. Are businesses just letting their technology fall behind to save money? Are their profit-margins so tight that they have to let some things degrade to keep prices down? I looked up my grocery store. It had increased profits last year (and so far this year).
On the internet, Google has suddenly gotten worse about Blogger. Suddenly for a week, when I want to upload images, it fails the first time, blanks the 2nd time, and usually works on a 3rd try. Is it just me? I stay updated on all software.
So it is something else. Do they just not care, or are they just being careless about everything? It seems to be happening everywhere I shop.
I'm not any sort of conspiracy-theorist. Most problems are just people not doing jobs very well or getting overwhelmed by tech. And I love tech! It makes my world work. But it feels like we are sliding downhill in some basics.
Do any of you have similar problems?
