The real new normal.

From die-hard maskers to cashless tip jars...we ain't in Kansas anymore...

Slowly but steadily the move to cashless has crept up on us like a thief in the night. No longer can you even count on paying for a simple cup of coffee out of the change in your pocket.

There are a number of excuses used to justify this, particularly in the cafes near where I live. From bank charges for cash deposits to the ‘inconvenience’ of it to ‘risk’ of Covid living on money, there’s a plethora of ‘reasons’. Harking back to the days of watching people sanitise their groceries at the store, that old chestnut is being used to justify not being able to pay with our country’s legal tender in a multitude of settings. I focus on cafe’s (and restaurants) here as this is where I have noticed the most change.

Its gotten to the extent now where the doubling down on cashless has entered pure Twlilight Zone territory. Many of the cafes I have frequented over the last 5 years are now cashless. Some remain enrobed in perspex, counter staff routinely ducking down to speak to customers or shouting from behind the screens, with no sign of them actually just being removed as per basic logic. No, some now have taken this cash-hate-hysteria to new lows where actual payment in cash is treated like an affront, a personal slight, offensive to the ears of the pasty woke workers. Merely asking if cash is taken results not in a 'sorry Sir, we don’t accept cash’, but rather in a sideways glance and a finger rigidly pointed at the little reservation style table sign saying Cards Only on the counter. Oddly, and rather unbelievably, these little signs are often accompanied now by a cash tip jar sitting lonely and unloved just to the side. I have more than once pointed this out to the often overweight, sad and gormless looking staff who seem offended at my gaul to raise such an issue. Pointing out the obvious, not being able to pay with cash, while still being asked for cash tips usually results in being looked at quizzically like I’ve just flown in from a distant land where logic and common sense still reign supreme. As with much of the cognitive dissonance many of us have experienced these past years, I’ve more than once heard staff try to justify it as though it hasn’t harmed tip takings. Someone told me just the other day, quite defiantly that their tip takings were still raking in “a couple of thousand a year…”. A year!?

No cash but…cash. © Kerry Murray Photography 2023

Some retailers are still charging a minimum for using cards mind. Up until not long ago some shops wouldn’t even accept cards at all, now it’s no cash. The speed at which this change has occurred, just under the radar, moving stealthily below the comprehension of unsuspecting quad-jabbed vegan soy ‘milk’ addicts faster than the speed of science.

Not only is it just the method of transaction thats gone to the dogs. Its the general vibe and approach to customer service which seems to have all but committed Hari Kari at the altar of Whogivesashitanymore. The amount of times I’ve felt more depressed leaving than when I arrive in a cafe or restaurant due to the ironic customer service is just unbelievable. Almost everywhere now it seems commonplace for customers to be treated like garbage by people who would clearly rather not be there. Scowled at like an inconvenience when simply asking for coffee or ordering a substandard, glorified ready-meal is a new low. Cafes and hospitality establishments should be places you want to go, right? Places one looks forward to. Isn’t it the job of those running these establishments to ensure staff are properly trained and service levels are higher than the next place to draw in more customers? This abject apathy to the customer has spread like orange bollards down a locked-down high street. Perhaps its just asymptomatic customer service and they’ve been great all along. Is there a PCR test for that?

It’s not just the independents who have gone to pot though. It’s the bigger retailers that are leading the charge towards utter dystopia.

We’re now met with a face sized ultra close up screen when using a self service checkout now too with some retailers are trying to go completely cashless, even drawing the attention of one Piers Corbyn this week, rightly paying in actual legal tender for a punnet of strawberries at one of these automated hell-holes. Not only is there a ‘security guard’ on the door monitoring the already prolific CCTV in these places but now we are confronted with our own faces at the checkout. What are they there to stop pray tell? I’ve worked in plenty of cafes, bars and restaurants in my time. Theives used to be the responsibility of every staff member. We were expected to intervene. Not any more, thats all taken care of by the multi million pound rollouts of these monitoring machines. Is there really that much of a theft problem? If there is, you might deduce by now that the soft approach from the staff and the CCTV cameras aren’t working. Why introduce even more? It’s not a stretch to imagine that all this data capture (lets be real, thats what it is) has nothing to do with protection from theft and more to do with marrying purchase habits with faces and of course with transactions (think loyalty cards etc) building a profile of the customer. I’m told by staff at one such supermarket that I would be surprised at the theft. Given that I have never witnessed a theft in these places I’ll defer to my actual senses in favour of the second hand info likely passed from managers to staff and then passed on to me as an additional justification for the encroach of Big Brothers technology. Still the machine itself doesn’t actually work very well or recognise my purchases correctly by their weight. Try scanning a packet of coriander and getting that in the bag without the robotic voice shouting at you. Instead of tackling actual thieves who, lets face it, probably aren’t that deterred by your cameras, nor going through a self service checkout, they have turned every customer into a suspect. My local Asda (Walmart) actually tried to introduce a receipt scanner and automated turnstile which would only grant amnesty once a valid proof of purchase was presented. This of course in addition to the camera trained on my mug, seemingly able to get a shot of me from all angles. I’d become quite adept at sidestepping the camera or holding my thumb over the little dot where it lives, or so I thought. Some of these things, it turns out, bark at you when covered up, like you’ve just walked out of NEXT with the security tags still on. They’re alarmed?!…just incase.

The sleepwalk of many into a safe-space-society where we are monitored in every way from the moment we leave the house, but mustn’t make a fuss because its for our own good (or so the man on the telly told me), is perhaps though the biggest issue of all. If we simply refuse or make it clear we aren’t having it, it will stop. The issue is that it’s done in such a way that the fight to stop it only begins once it’s already in place. Like so many of these new restrictions, they’re introduced without anyone asking for them or being demand driven. No, they appear swiftly and silently. One day they’re just there. They arrive as if out of nowhere but present as a permanent fixture of the new-normal™.

Masks are still here too. Not everywhere as they once were, but there are enough hangers on, enough die hard maskers that they’ll never give it up. It’s become a comfort blanket for the weak of mind. Are they really convinced that the mask, despite most others not wearing them, is the thing which is going to keep them safe?! I’d thought it only works if I wear the mask too though?! What does go through these peoples minds?

I’m often left curious when I see a group of staff split by the mask wearers and those who don’t (think my recent airline encounter in Freedom Fighters at 40,000 ft). What does one group think of the other? Presumably the maskers think those who don’t are irresponsible superspreaders putting us all at risk of death? Likewise the reverse, what do those not wearing the mask think of those who continue to? Do they think they’re all nuts, or just a bit overcautious? I sometimes see families with one parent masked and the other not. How does that conversation go in the morning before going out of the house? “You wear the mask today honey to keep us all safe.” Heaven help us.

These are far from the only examples of the new abnormality, rather a glimpse at where we are headed, fast. Will my kids scoff at paying with cash as they scan their biometric QR codes to gain access to basic good and services, or will we stop it in its still warm tracks?

I dont know, but I know I won’t be tipping any time soon.