Good People at Wal-Mart

A Pennsylvania friend of mine, Renton Bond, says he at first resisted the self-checkout lines at Wal-Mart, "thinking like a Luddite." Then, frustrated by long waits, he gave it a try.

He ran into problems, such as clicking the Spanish button by mistake, but "There was always a clerk standing by, supervising about four or so self-checkouts, who does a good job of helping and educating how to avoid the problem next time."

As technology takes over routine tasks, smart employees will hyper-humanize their jobs -- put much more emphasis on helping customers, informing them, or just making them feel welcome.

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