Weak social ties

On Saturday we had salmon for dinner. This is a rare meal for us, for while we all live it, it is often too expensive to be able to buy enough to feed everyone. That is until you are doing your shopping and happen to see this.

Yes, that package of salmon cost less than a dollar once the $5 was subtracted. Plus, there were more in this same price range. I bought five. For once everyone got as much salmon as they wanted. It will be a long time before I find a deal as good as this again. 

When I was checking out, the checker and I had a pleasant conversations about my very cheap salmon, which brings me to the title of this post. Aldi, along with practically every grocery store I shop at, has torn out the bulk of manned cash registers and replaced them with self checkouts. Unless I am buying one or two items that don't need to be weighed and don't require an ID, I actually loathe self checkouts. There is something about the impersonal machine telling me that I did something wrong that irritates me to no end. 

Plus, not interacting with actual people is not good for our collective mental health. Those weak (and sometimes they are very weak) social connections turn out to be good for us. Interacting with people can help with depression and loneliness, even if all you have done is agree something is a magnificent price, pay, and leave. Having connected to another human being lifts our mood. Connection is good.

Once again, it's all about the bottom line... doing things with fewer employees regardless of whether something is actually good. It seems in an age where everyone feels disconnected and stressed and anxious that having more weak social connections to interact with would be the better choice.