Yesterday I popped into my local Amazon Fresh store.

I still can’t get my head around their technology.

Lifting a whole chicken off the shelf and lowering it straight into my backpack seems so CHEEKY.

And pilfering two chocolate chip cookies and dropping them into my pocket seems even cheekier.

I don’t know exactly how the technology works, but I do know this…

I feel sorry for the guy sitting at the control panel, trying to keep track of what everyone stuffs into their bags.

Anyhow…

When I went into the store, the lady by the entrance was on her phone.

I think she’s there to make sure you get into the store okay.  But all she was doing was swiping on Hinge.

As I strolled, I came across another staff member.  He was standing in front of the booze section.  And he was also on his phone, grumbling about his football bets.

And round another corner, close to the cous-cous, was a third member of staff.  And he was ALSO glued to his phone.

So is this what the headlines mean when they say technology will take everyone’s jobs?

I guess it is. 

After all, the checkout people are gone.  They’ve been replaced by infra-red sensors, precision scales and hundreds of state-of-the-art cameras.

And it won’t be long before robots are stacking the shelves.  While the staff left behind stand around twiddling their thumbs.

Of course, there’s a flipside to all this.

Like all the jobs for the guys and gals designing the store layout, the systems and how the technology fits together.

So how could this trend play out long term?  And what does it mean for the future of work?

Well, it depends who you believe.

Some stargazers predict an automated utopia where we never work again and robots tend to our every need. 

While the doom-mongers forecast mass unemployment and the collapse of society.

Which is another way of saying…

No-one knows.

But one thing we do know:  more automation is on the way.  It’s inevitable.  And it’s inevitable that, over time, there will be changes to the way we work.

In the past, I sometimes saw future changes with unknown consequences as something to fear.

But with hindsight I see this differently.

I don't think I did have a fear of the unknown.  Instead, I feared leaving the safety and familiarity of what I knew.

So now I try to be thoughtful, curious and open-minded about the unknown.  Whether it’s automation or anything else.

And I try to cling less to what I know and stay open to change.  Because if I don't, I'm just standing still.

That’s my take.  What do you think?

Have a great weekend.

- Tom

p.s. one other thing I do know: soon I’ll be re-opening the doors to my short, email-based time management challenge.  More details next week.