James' World 2

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Amid one of last summer’s oppressive heat waves, Boston once again hit its record for the hottest June 28 ever. Thermometers read 97°F, a temperature also recorded in the city on that day in 1901 and 1991. During that first record-breaking day in 1901—one summer before Willis Carrier invented air conditioning and revolutionized the way we keep cool in the modern world—an enterprising Boston Globe reporter went about asking prominent citizens how they kept cool in the (then) unprecedented heat.

“I don’t,” said J.B. Smith, the governor’s private secretary, before shooting the reporter a look he characterized in a shockingly modern way: “How the—do you suppose a man can keep cool in this weather?”

Smith’s frustration was no doubt shared by everyone at the time, and anyone today, who has to get by without A/C. It’s therefore no surprise that people have come up with a range of ingenious, harebrained, and sometimes grim but often remarkable ways to stay cool during a summer scorcher.

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Some advice from a speech trainer: Don’t be boring.

The originality of your speech has everything to do with your credibility and whether or not people want to listen to you. If you use language riddled with bromides and jargon, people have no way to know how smart, credible, and alert you are — because you don’t sound like it!

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“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”

“Please place item in the bag.”

“Please wait for assistance.”

If you’ve encountered these irritating alerts at the self-checkout machine, you’re not alone.

According to a survey last year of 1,000 shoppers, 67% said they’d experienced a failure at the self-checkout lane. Errors at the kiosks are so common that they have even spawned dozens of memes and TikTok videos.

“We’re in 2022. One would expect the self-checkout experience to be flawless. We’re not there at all,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who has researched self-checkout.

Customers aren’t the only ones frustrated with the self-checkout experience. Stores have challenges with it, too.

The machines are expensive to install, often break down and can lead to customers purchasing fewer items. Stores also incur higher losses and more shoplifting at self-checkouts than at traditional checkout lanes with human cashiers.

Despite the headaches, self-checkout is growing.

In 2020, 29% of transactions at food retailers were processed through self-checkout, up from 23% the year prior, according to the latest data from food industry association FMI.

This raises the question: why is this often problematic, unloved technology taking over retail?

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Self-checkout is everywhere, despite its issues.

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