Shopping

A few days ago I saw someone say that they will never use self-checkout because they don’t want to do someone else’s job, and they want to be paid for the act, if they were to self-checkout. In New York, recently, there was talk of a ten percent discount for people who checkout by themselves, rather than use a cash register.

For me, the beauty of self-checkout is that the time you spend in food shops is finding the food and other things, and then within thirty seconds paying for everything without queuing. At Décathlon as well self-checkout works extremely well. You pick up some stuff, dump it in the “bin” and it recognises the RFID codes, and shows how much you owe. Within a few more seconds you’ve paid, and you can leave. The more you do it the more fluid the action becomes.

I know of two chargers that I can use when shopping. One of these costs 2 CHF just to connect, and then the cost of the charge. At the second shopping centre I can plug in for five minutes, or two and a half hours and I will only pay for the charge. Not having a connection fee makes the cheaper option more attractive.

If people want to charge quickly they have four fast chargers outdoors, by McDonald’s but if people want to charge slowly then they have the cheaper indoor parking chargers.

Today during my walk this afternoon I surprised a cat on some stairs and I moved patiently. It brushed up against me so I started to stroke it. During this pandemic the only living things I have had physical contact with are cats. During a pandemic, if you’re not living with people, you are very limited.

Yesterday I did go out for a bike ride with a group of people, virtually. Before the ride I was feeling really down, and negative. After the ride I was feeling refreshed and relaxed. For the first time in three weeks I was able to do something physical without having to avoid people, worry about routing or anything else. All I had to do was pedal to the limit of my motivation and endurance.