[Current & Culture]I Will Help You With the Payment

These days, there is a phrase often heard when making a purchase: "I will help you with the payment." Not only that, but when asking for something in a store or when finishing a meal and cleaning up, the phrase "I will help you" is frequently heard. Even though they are earning wages for their labor, they offer help to consumers who are buying goods. This is clearly a culture that did not exist before. Some say this is a characteristic of the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) lacking a sense of ownership, while others see it as consideration to avoid making others uncomfortable.

Here, I recall the concept of "shadow work" introduced by Ivan Illich. It refers to the idea that unpaid labor by someone is an essential complement to the production of goods in modern society. This is even more true in the service industry. Even when buying a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant, everyone is mobilized for that labor. You choose the hamburger, drink, and side menu one by one at the kiosk, insert your card to pay, go pick up the food yourself when your number appears, find a suitable seat competing with others, and after eating, politely place the leftovers on the tray and sort the trash yourself to finish the meal. Shadow work continues in large supermarkets as well. They lend you a cart and tell you to pull the products yourself, scan the barcodes at the self-checkout, stuff them into your own shopping bags, and walk to the parking lot.

Furniture stores no longer provide delivery and installation as a given. After browsing the displayed furniture, if you find something you like, you go to the designated area, put each piece of material into a cart, barely load it into your car, transport it home, and use tools to assemble and install it yourself. The same goes for gas stations. If you look for a slightly cheaper place, it is almost always a self-service station. You wait through several cars ahead filling up, stand in front of the machine, put on plastic gloves, touch the static electricity pad, press various buttons, grab the gas nozzle covered in oil, finish fueling, securely close the fuel cap, and get back in the car to start the engine.

Recently, I ate pork cutlet with my children at a snack bar and got up to leave. The owner watching me said, "This is self-service." At the tip of his finger was a clear notice that customers must take their used dishes to the return station themselves. He said it was to provide cheaper and more hygienic meals. Ah, I see. There was a reason the food was a bit cheaper.

Although the reason given is to improve consumer convenience and reduce costs, companies are now continuously shifting labor that they used to provide onto consumers. It does not seem that the cost savings are being returned to us.

However, for the younger generation raised in such a culture, labor seems to have become a concept created together rather than one-directional. For them, the language of labor, "I will help you," may have naturally been ingrained while living as consumers in a post-industrial society. Looking at the language of a generation reveals the culture of an era. When someone working says they will help with my purchase and payment, perhaps it is a new era's spirit to feel solidarity and say, "Yes, let's finish our labor together."

Kim Minseop, Social and Cultural Critic

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.