I’m just old enough to recall when being a cashier or a retail clerk, as this post mentions, was a respected career choice.
when i first got hired as a cashier, my manager who had been doing that since she was like 17 in 1975 told me that back in The Days, when you were hired as a cashier in a grocery store it was a) a well paid job & you could get full time work easily b) a respected career choice c) the store closed at 6pm and was closed on Sundays so the hours were a lot more pleasant d) they made you go to cashier school for 2 weeks, which was basically a fake grocery store and you just learned the trade completely before even meeting a customer.
As I said, I’m old enough to remember some of this. Now, when someone says “cashier,” that implies a person who has Failed in LifeTM, but when my hometown had a semi-functional downtown a cashier or a clerk was seen as a professional who could help you out in ways that sometimes you didn’t even know you needed.
This was all obliterated by the casualization, de-professionalization and corporatization of the profession.
One day I will tell you the unbelievable story of how custodians and janitors used to be held in much higher regard, too.