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The Doorman's Fallacy in action

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Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#301

Post by strogonoff »

goobatrooba wrote: post #267
strogonoff wrote: post #185

When I was in Bangkok a good while back, I was surprised how there’re doormen at shopping mall—humans to handle simple things which in many parts of the world would certainly not involve a person. A bit later I thought that it makes sense: it improves customer experience and slightly reduces unemployment in local population—a doorman job is better than no job.

It feels a bit like you didn't apply the lesson of the article - these "doormen" have often different functions (theft prevention or at least reduction, information provision, support for those that need help, some minor cleaning or caretaking roles, and the greeting/visibility/we-are-a-fancy-place vibe ;-) In countries where labour is cheap it is common to have staff for less essential things as humans are just more…

Personally I thought opening doors was about the only thing they did—never seen them engage in any other activity.

I am not sure you provide a counter-argument, IMO offering more people a way to earn money and do something useful (as opposed to delegating these duties to [generally foreign-made] equipment) as a way of maintaining a healthy society still holds.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#302

Post by carlosjobim »

Telaneo wrote: post #295
carlosjobim wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can go to a good supermarket with plenty of cashiers and no lines instead.

I'm yet to see one. There have always been lines at supermarkets, even when I was a kid. It's hard to pick an alternative that doesn't exist.

If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas.

The supermarkets focusing on self checkout do so because their owners have calculated that the increase in theft is offset by their savings on salaries. They consider honest customers to be suckers who will pay for what the thieves steal. With time, these supermarkets start seeing an increase in thieving customers and a decrease in higher value honest customers. And it starts the downward spiral with worse and worse clientele and just becoming unkept in general. Once this has started, owners will just try to squeeze out as much as possible before selling the property.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#303

Post by Telaneo »

carlosjobim wrote: post #302
Telaneo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm yet to see one. There have always been lines at supermarkets, even when I was a kid. It's hard to pick an alternative that doesn't exist.

If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas. The supermarkets focusing on self checkout do so because their owners have calculated that the increase in theft is offset by their savings on salaries. They consider ho…

> If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas.

There are at least 20 grocery stores within a 3 km radius of me. I think one has more than 2 checkout lines if you don't count self-checkouts (and I've never seen more than two of them be staffed at any one time). The next closest one one I can think of is at a big shopping centre 5 km away, and even then, it used to have 8, 4 of which have been converted to 18(?) self-checkouts.

Not to mention that whatever this customer service supposedly provided to me in a normal checkout is something I don't want. I see no labour saved by going that route, but I see time saved in many cases when I opt for the self-checkout. Not to mention the bonus of not having to talk to a human.

It's like customer service in anything else. If I need it, something has gone wrong, and I direct my business somewhere else next time. Before self-checkout, customer service was mandatory to do anything. Now I don't need it. I fail to see any disadvantages (to me at least).

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#304

Post by carlosjobim »

Telaneo wrote: post #303
carlosjobim wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas. The supermarkets focusing on self checkout do so because their owners have calculated that the increase in theft is offset by their savings on salaries. They consider ho…

> If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas. There are at least 20 grocery stores within a 3 km radius of me. I think one has more than 2 checkout lines if you don't count self-checkouts (and I've never seen more…

> Not to mention the bonus of not having to talk to a human.

This you will have in due time when you enter the eternal sleep. In the meanwhile, life is to be enjoyed.

Regarding supermarkets I guess I'm lucky then, because I have supermarkets nearby focusing on customer service with many cashiers. And they are absolutely ten times faster at scanning my groceries than I would be, since it's their job and they do it all day. Usually they have baggers as well, even though I don't mind bagging my groceries.

So to me as a customer it's quicker, more pleasant, and the biggest bonus of all is that it provides jobs for the local community, including jobs for young people as grocery baggers. That's something I'm very glad to support with my grocery buying buck. Instead of having that money go to pay for the groceries that other people steal in the self checkout.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#305

Post by Telaneo »

carlosjobim wrote: post #304
Telaneo wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sample the supermarkets around you, you'll notice some will focus more on customer service. They will have all cash registers staffed and no lines or small lines. Other super markets will have few registers staffed and big self-checkout areas. There are at least 20 grocery stores within a 3 km radius of me. I think one has more than 2 checkout lines if you don't count self-checkouts (and I've never seen more…

> Not to mention the bonus of not having to talk to a human. This you will have in due time when you enter the eternal sleep. In the meanwhile, life is to be enjoyed. Regarding supermarkets I guess I'm lucky then, because I have supermarkets nearby focusing on customer service with many cashiers. And they are absolutely ten times faster at scanning my groceries than I would be, since it's their job and they do it all…

> This you will have in due time when you enter the eternal sleep.

I already look forward to that a lot more than most people think I should.

> life is to be enjoyed.

I never really figured out how to do that reliably.

> Usually they have baggers as well, even though I don't mind bagging my groceries.

If they have baggers, that would be a genuine advantage. I've literally only seen them in films though (unless you want to count really tiny stores where the cashier will also bag for you).

As things are though, I have to bag myself, and that's the main bottleneck, so even if the cashier can scan more quickly than me, that doesn't actually make the whole process go any faster. Scanning at the self-checkout is marginally slower than just bagging, but in my case at least, it's usually just a case of swiping an item past the scanner, hearing the beep, and putting it a bag. Some items have barcodes in weird places, but if they're items you frequently buy, you quickly figure that out.

> and the biggest bonus of all is that it provides jobs for the local community, including jobs for young people as grocery baggers.

I'm not sure this really should be as much of an advantage as it might be. Sure, them bagging groceries is better than nothing, but the fact that the alternative is nothing is what should be fixed in that case, rather than having them do jobs that are mindless busywork, or just barely above that (not that I have anything against them. If you want to be a bagger, go for it, good for you, but I'd quickly become even more suicidal than I already am). Sadly, we're apparently not quite ready to have that conversation yet.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#306

Post by gcanyon »

lkey wrote: post #238
gcanyon wrote: post #200

I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative: - physical menus are hard to update - physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate. - physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you'…

* the primary vector of contagion is unfiltered air circulation, not touching tables and menus (which are wiped down). * I want you to go and tell another human being, in person, that paper menus cannot possibly 'scale'. Your brain has been deeply addled by SV culture. * HUMAN TIME IS THE POINT AT A SIT DOWN PLACE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? * YOU HAVE YOUR HUMAN EYES FOR 'SEARCH' * QR CODE SCANNING IS NOT "GETTING BETT…

You're very rude.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#307

Post by gcanyon »

jmye wrote: post #224
gcanyon wrote: post #200

I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative: - physical menus are hard to update - physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate. - physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you'…

These are absurd positions, invented solely for the purpose of being contrarian and not because any of them make any sense or add any value to the conversation. I'm so tired of this thoughtless, tired crap passing as legitimate discussion. > physical menus are hard to update It is not hard to print a few sheets of paper off a word document. > physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions…

The assumption that I'm just being contrarian is inaccurate and a bit rude.

To respond to just one or two items:

Printing is no longer as easy as it once was. I bought an ink jet printer a few weeks back because my wife needs to print. Setting it up took an hour, and it had streaks out of the box. I spent fifteen minutes figuring out how to clean the print heads, we'll see if that worked.

I don't understand your comment on searching. It is literally true there is no "search" for physical menus -- only human scanning. And browsers do have a search function. If it's unintuitive, that's a universal problem that can be improved.

I didn't say splitting the bill is not easier for the customer. I said it's not easier, because I was including the server's effort. And your discounting of the server's effort is unfortunate. In a world where the orders are placed through a QR-code/web site, individual payment can be easy and accurate. If it isn't, it will improve.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#308

Post by gcanyon »

JsonDemWitOster wrote: post #206
gcanyon wrote: post #200

I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative: - physical menus are hard to update - physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate. - physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you'…

You make some good points but some are, excuse me, cringey-wrong. > physical menus are hard to update How often does a restaurant update a menu? Those that need to update frequently already solved that by having a chalk board. > physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency... How does a digital menu solve this? All o…

I'm not sure why "cringey" has to enter the conversation. People seem to be taking this personally.

QR codes work across a conference room (personal experience) how old is your phone, exactly?

QR codes have gotten easier to use over the past ten-ish years, I've seen it.

The point isn't that there aren't ways to make physical menus easier; it's that the objections to the digital experience are weak.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#309

Post by carlosjobim »

Telaneo wrote: post #305
carlosjobim wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention the bonus of not having to talk to a human. This you will have in due time when you enter the eternal sleep. In the meanwhile, life is to be enjoyed. Regarding supermarkets I guess I'm lucky then, because I have supermarkets nearby focusing on customer service with many cashiers. And they are absolutely ten times faster at scanning my groceries than I would be, since it's their job and they do it all…

> This you will have in due time when you enter the eternal sleep. I already look forward to that a lot more than most people think I should. > life is to be enjoyed. I never really figured out how to do that reliably. > Usually they have baggers as well, even though I don't mind bagging my groceries. If they have baggers, that would be a genuine advantage. I've literally only seen them in films though (unless you wa…

A job is not a persons identity or destiny. The world has long ago moved on from the paradigm that the first job you do is where you stay for the rest of your life.

The baggers in my local supermarket are high schoolers getting some extra money, while probably studying. It's good for them to learn the basics of what it means to do a job, and be exposed to other people in the community except for psychotic screeching teachers or TikTok brain rot. It's still good that these jobs exist, even if grown ups are doing them. It might be somebody who is between other stuff, or needs some extra cash because of changes in life situation, or for some reason isn't at the moment capable to do another job.

More jobs are always more better, no matter what the jobs are, because it puts firm upwards pressure on other salaries. Bagging groceries is an easy job, so it pressures every other job which is worse to pay better. Otherwise your potential employee will say "I'll just bag groceries instead, if you don't pay me better".

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#310

Post by [deleted] »

makeitdouble wrote: post #128

> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. Hasn't that been a fact of life ? If anything, apps made it barely made easier through splitting either the whole bill equally or offer a bit by bit checking interface. Otherwise on the role of QR codes and online menu, it actually helps a lot for allergies as everyone can check their for each individual item and adjust accordingly…

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