Robots have overrun the local Walmart

I'll fight you for that bottle of ketchup!
London, ON
March 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I’ve run into the store for a bottle of ketchup. Yet I’ve ended up in a staring contest with an anthropomorphic floor cleaning robot.

A few thoughts come to mind as I stand motionless and stare into its cold autonomously dead eyes:

• Lightning McQueen need not worry. He’s still way cuter.
• In-store staff don’t appreciate when customers attempt to ride this bad boy.
• Endless fun can be had by watching others encounter this device.
• Perhaps I’ll start a TikTok channel.
• If the employees who once did the job by hand have been “reassigned”, they must be cleaning shopping cart bearings with a toothbrush in an off-site warehouse. The floor on this day is devoid of staff.
• The self-checkout area at the front of the store remains strangely unclean. Coincidence?
• I’m pretty sure the positioning cameras are collecting more than positioning footage. So I wave to our retail overlords.
• I wonder if they’d mind me plugging in my phone for a top-up.
• If these things are supposed to make the multinational operator of this store more efficient, why haven’t prices been reduced accordingly?
• Seriously, where did all the human floor cleaners go?

As ever, I seem to have more questions than answers. But at least they have more than enough ketchup on the shelf.

So I pick up a bottle and head for the checkout. The one with a human cashier.

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