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The Doorman's Fallacy in action

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Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#31

Post by epolanski »

rwmj wrote: post #5

What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. It's the same thing with sending parcels, where I must now sit on my computer at home filling in a complicated online form and printing out my own labels. This takes me like 30 minutes, but saves time and money for the Post Office (not for me!) There's no downside for the company here, especially when they ar…

I never make the mistake to go to places with qr codes twice in my life.

I can live with giant tablets in fast foods, but there's no chance I go to qr code restaurants ever.

As the article points out, it's super inconvenient and absolutely breaks the mood for the night and cheapens and ruins the experience.

Even worse one of my favourite steak houses has removed phone booking and implemented a super slow and inconvenient form.

Another place that will never get my money again.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#32

Post by cactacea »

cobbzilla wrote: post #26
cactacea wrote: post #24

> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.

I’ve seen rare places where the server has a handheld and every single item is always individually charged. Then they can keep things separate or combine it however you want. But, I’ve seen that maybe twice in my entire life. Once might have been in Vegas. Everywhere else is as you say; it’s just not a reasonable post-meal request.

Yeah there's a Pho place in Seattle I'd go to lunch at (iykyk) where we'd regularly have 20 people at a table and pay individually. But they didn't even use the check for that, they'd just ask what you had and ring that in as they went around the table with the handheld. Literally the only place I've ever seen that even offered to split a check at a table with more than 3-4 people.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#33

Post by mhb »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #20
jen20 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know which country you’re in (and don’t disagree with you) but even if the estimate of 30 minutes to shipping labels were accurate, that would still be a net win where I am in Texas - the line at the post office is regularly longer than that.

Because staffing can/has be/been reduced since they made it possible for people to print their own labels. They aren't interested in making the queues faster.

Uh, the queues at the post office have never exactly been fast.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#34

Post by chunky1994 »

cactacea wrote: post #24

> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.

Yes, this is quite standard outside the US. In Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia etc. this is more the standard practice than the opposite.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#35

Post by ValentineC »

ralferoo wrote: post #19
devindotcom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget self check out at the grocery store. I don't mind personally (I find ways to make it worth my while..) but it's a version of the same thing. Shifting labor under the guise of convenience. Like all the other versions of this, the savings are absorbed by the company, not passed on to the consumer. It's rare that the opposite happens.

My supermarket has the handheld scanners and they are a game changer. They fit handily into the trolley if you want and you just scan stuff as you go. If you want 8 of something, you can just tap the item and increase the quantity, none of the having to scan each one and add it carefully to the bagging area, etc... And best of all, at the end you just scan a self checkout screen (and they have special ones as well wi…

> Oh, and maybe Decathlon deserve a special mention here for their self-service checkouts. Every item has an RFID price tag usually sown into the care labels of their own-brand products. They don't have a self-scan machine, handheld or otherwise, you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done.

Uniqlo too. I guess it helps that they own their entire manufacturing and retail process.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#38

Post by gib444 »

devindotcom wrote: post #12
rwmj wrote: post #5

What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. It's the same thing with sending parcels, where I must now sit on my computer at home filling in a complicated online form and printing out my own labels. This takes me like 30 minutes, but saves time and money for the Post Office (not for me!) There's no downside for the company here, especially when they ar…

Don't forget self check out at the grocery store. I don't mind personally (I find ways to make it worth my while..) but it's a version of the same thing. Shifting labor under the guise of convenience. Like all the other versions of this, the savings are absorbed by the company, not passed on to the consumer. It's rare that the opposite happens.

> Like all the other versions of this, the savings are absorbed by the company, not passed on to the consumer.

Grocery stores (at least here in the UK) are notoriously low margin and have been for a long time. I think this is the one sector where savings are indeed passed on to the customer.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#39

Post by 3-cheese-sundae »

simianwords wrote: post #15

People have now clung on to doorman's fallacy as a way to justify keeping outdated jobs around. There should be a new fallacy named for this phenomenon otherwise we would have people justifying having travel agents jobs and translator jobs being protected.

I am curious to hear why you believe those roles don't provide any value.
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