This job has consumed my very being. Smoothed out, hollowed out—I am nothing more than an empty shell.
I am a cashier in a small grocery store, which is to say, a smiling machine.
My work consists of greeting customers, scanning items, processing payments, saying thank you and goodbye. This is how I spend my days—performing automatic gestures wrapped in standardized politeness.
It’s only been two months, yet this job has drained me completely, leaving behind a gaping void.
I see hundreds of customers each day, and I must smile at every single one of them—a smile that must always be perfect. But how can it be sincere when it must be held for seven hours straight? How can it be sincere when I smile at people I don’t know and will never see again? Its forced constancy erases its authenticity. Sometimes, people thank me for my smile—"but madam, this smile is nothing more than an empty reflex in a mechanical body."
The same repetitive gestures, executed every second, turn me into a machine. My body becomes an automaton, performing identical movements with millimeter precision—its rhythm shifting, yet always dictated by the machine I work with. Politeness is my last remaining tie to the living—the only thing that confirms I am still human. But it sickens me. It is a constant reminder of my mechanical existence, the symbol of an alienating job where this brief exchange, this sliver of attention, is the only thing that keeps us from slipping into the inner death imposed by the machine-world.
How many customers walk in without a greeting? How many have I processed at the checkout without them ever lifting their eyes from their phone? How many have I served without receiving so much as a glance? How many? And how many times? The Other no longer sees you, no longer acknowledges you, no longer recognizes you as their equal—as human.
It is in our relationship with others that we feel we exist, right? So, if I am just another machine in the techno-industrial landscape, who am I?
When you do this job and encounter so many people every day, you start to notice a few sociological patterns. Customers are unbearable, rude, and unfriendly. The repetition of these ungrateful behaviors is revealing, and its roots lie in the broader context of the technological society.
Customers no longer know how to search. Who even knows how to search anymore in a world where anything we want is delivered with a click? Customers no longer know how to wait. Who knows how to wait in a world where immediacy is king? Customers touch everything, all the time, but of course, the physical world sparks curiosity when our daily lives are dominated by the digital world and its screens.
Some customers, or rather some female customers, sometimes try to make small talk with me. When they ask me a more personal question, unrelated to the store, I am thrown off, almost blushing, uncomfortable with being anything other than a cog in the machine. And then we both quickly realize the awkwardness—we both know that I’m here to serve them, that’s my social role, and under these conditions, we don’t have much else to say to each other.
The emptiness creeps in quickly—just a few weeks is enough. I say "the" because it’s not just any emptiness. The structure of the industrial system, and the social order it produces, demands a division of labor where everyone must fit into their designated role, like a cog in an endless, often global, chain of design, production, and consumption. This emptiness always originates from the same place: the pawn that industrial society reduces us to, stripping us of all power over our lives.
I follow the rhythm of the machine. I am—am I? I am no longer a thinking being, devoid of responsibility and autonomy. My body simply reacts to the commands of the machine. I have no time to think; I am not here to think. "A rhythm whose first consequence, even before physical fatigue, is to induce a mental emptiness," said Sebastian Cortès. Even after work, my brain shuts down, numbed by the automation of tasks. I constantly stare into the void, a void I want to dive into; absurdly, since the void is everywhere. It surrounds me, it seeps into me. The void is nothing, the negation of my emotions, of who I am. One cannot fill the void; one must learn to exist with it. So, social media, TV shows, YouTube videos temporarily mask it. Alcohol doesn’t erase it, it soothes and tries to fill it, but the crash is brutal, because along with the void, the feeling of failure emerges. Coffee gets me to work; alcohol gets me to return. Drugs become both the engine and the reward. Without substances that distance us from reality—and from the void—surviving becomes difficult.
I work with three machines. The first is used to clean the store floor, the second to register the packages dropped off by the delivery person and customers, and the third is the register—a computer that generates a receipt and tracks each scanned item. Each one has its own rhythm, its own specificities. In all three cases, the machine is not a tool. The machine dictates my actions, stripping—no, stealing—my ability to think.
If a mistake occurs, even though it reassures me by reminding me of my humanity, the screen will tell me what to do. I must follow the machine’s instructions because it is always right.
We do not control the machines. To believe we control them is to believe we have power over them.
What power do we hold over them when they dictate our rhythm, our thoughts in their absence, our movements, our words, and in doing so, shape everything that makes us human?
We are subjected to the machine.
My point is not to criticize each machine individually, as there are no inherently good or bad machines. First, because the machine is fundamentally responsible for the emptiness we feel. It is the source of the division between our thoughts and actions—so long as it exists, that separation will always persist. Second, because all of them are the product of technological progress, which relentlessly strives to automate and digitize every task that can be replaced. In essence, they are the foundation of alienation and industrial exploitation.
One day, a woman asked me if it wasn’t too hard to stay surrounded by so many pastries without getting frustrated by their smell. I had never thought about it before. They aren’t really croissants; they’re just labeled "Bake. 1.10," because that’s what I type into the machine when I sell them. That’s it. Leeks: 239, carrots: 237, apricots: 160, plums: 167, lettuce: 200, heirloom tomatoes: 217, vine tomatoes: 215, watermelon: 157, eggplants: 222, zucchini: 220, garlic bulb: 223...
Each fruit, each vegetable is reduced to a number. Regular customers have accounts, and they too are just numbers. The machine alters my connection to reality; everything around me becomes something to be coded, emptied of any real material presence. I spend seven hours a day typing numbers into a computer, seven hours a day staring at a screen, with my eyes serving merely as the physical interface for a number I announce, dictated by the machine. Every day, this work sinks me further into emptiness. I have nightmares about it, terrified of the possibility of malfunctioning.
Maybe I’m a bad cashier, perhaps it’s my personal responsibility to bring joy to what I do, or maybe it’s just my bad mood that makes the customers annoy me. But as Jean said, “Even when I’m determined, I’m destined to scan barcodes.” Regardless of my mood, the rationalization and optimization of tasks reduces me to a machine, stripping me of my dignity. No matter how much energy or care I put into the "hello" or "goodbye," they will always be mere tokens of a hollow social interaction, the result of inhuman work.
The existence of self-checkout machines proves that my job can be entirely automated. If what I do can be replaced by a few wires, a scanner, and a touchscreen, it’s a clear indication that I am expendable.
Technology creates its own world, one where we must constantly adapt, subordinated to it, now interacting more with machines than with other humans.
We are slaves to technology, subject to the class of scientists and engineers who design it.
The general dulling of the masses, the widespread lack of meaning in our lives, and the dignity stripped from workers are not solely the result of the capitalist economic model, but of the entire technological infrastructure. It is the material foundation of the current production and economic system. This is what we must target, along with the technocracy that humiliates and enslaves us, leaving behind empty bodies, deprived of all their humanity.
