What's next, deputizing retail workers?

  • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
    ·
    6 months ago

    Every retail worker is going to have a bodycam before the pigs do. And of course it will just be used to micromanage and surpress workers even more than they already are. Take 5 seconds to chat with a co-worker? That's a write up. "Forget" to charge a nice customer for a small item? That's a write up. Exceed your generous 90 second bathroom break? That's a write up!

    It's already bad enough that almost every square inch of my workplace is covered by cameras (always used to police workers, I've never seen them used to ban shitty customers or otherwise benefit the employees) but at least there are a couple of blindspots if you want to take a minute. I'd like to think I wouldn't put up with bodycams but I also need money soooo....

    Also I hate that I'm constantly being recorded every second of the day. It seems every move anyone makes is being recorded and monitored for the benefit of Mammon. Privacy is a dead concept, sacrificed for all by the few that benefit.

    • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      The nursing home I used to work in had cameras everywhere and I always thought it was standard for the industry for monitoring potential elder abuse. Nope. They used it to micromanage, get a call randomly one day "the door can't be propped open with a chair" on a day when the AC wasn't working and it was ungodly hot inside and that was the only moving air in the place. Or the time they tracked people going into the kitchen to accuse them of stealing food and fire people that had been there over a decade. Or now from what I've heard from people still there, using it to monitor people on their phones and a single time you're caught it's termination on the spot.

      Healthcare sucks but it can always be worse.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      6 months ago

      Privacy is a dead concept, sacrificed for all by the few that benefit.

      I can remember back to the early 90's when stores didn't have cameras and instead they had big mirrors you could see people on. Guess my point is it was already starting even when I was a child.

      • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
        ·
        6 months ago

        Oh yea it wasn't a instantaneous death or even a very quick one, it was a long drawn out process that lasted decades, if not longer.

        Something silly that always stuck with me was one of the (many) "revelations" that various spy agencies were gathering all sorts of data from people's phone calls, and how I had just assumed that was the case after reading one of the Artemis Fowl books in which he deliberately gets the attention of the fairy underground by speaking specific phrases over the phone. I guess I just figured that sounded like something the government would be doing if they were able to. It (probably) isn't as dramatic as some computer lighting up when it hears me say "Lenin was right" over the phone, but even municipal cops here can easily get access to all sorts of data from phones including who you call and who calls you when for how long and where you are. If some city cops can get that stuff then I can only imagine what the fed agencies have access to.

        I guess this is also a reminder to anyone reading this: LEAVE YOUR PHONE AT HOME IF YOU'RE ENGAGING IN ANYTHING LEGALLY DUBIOUS OR ANYTHING LIKELY TO ANGER THE PIGS

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        6 months ago

        I remember when the largest stores would have a ton of the obfuscated camera mounts in the ceiling but only have the cash to put a camera in a small percentage of them.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]M
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      "Forget" to charge a nice customer for a small item?

      Retail worker here and I will get far more cursed than that. Forget to charge the customer $0.25 for their paper bag = fired for theft.

      Mark my fuckin words before the decade is out we will have a headline along that line.

      • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Store worker of 20 years was fired for not paying for grocery bags at the self-checkout

        An employee of the UK grocery chain Sainsbury's, who had worked there for nearly 20 years, was fired after he didn't pay for plastic grocery bags at self-checkout, the BBC reported.

        The employee reportedly purchased £30 ($37) of food, pillows, and bedding from the store after working the night shift.

        When he went to pay at the self-checkout, he clicked "zero bags used" despite having used multiple bags. His employer saw the footage on CCTV and took this as grounds for his dismissal.

          • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            6 months ago

            It's pretty bad when "think of the worst thing possible" and it's already happening or worse than anyone can imagine. Hang on let me google it and .... yea doomer

        • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
          ·
          6 months ago

          Okay, but if we're being honest with ourselves this isn't because they didn't pay for the bags; the employer was seeking a reason to fire the employee. Probably wanted to replace them with someone who doesn't get 20+ years of benefits or some kid who they can abuse into a tougher work schedule the fired employee wouldn't have been able to accommodate/accept.