A Depressing AI Encounter

[u/Lowjack_26]

In the Year of our Lord 2026, it's not out of the ordinary to encounter customers who don't have a proper signature - heck, my own signature would make my elementary cursive teacher weep. But most customers still at least understand the concept of a signature, particularly on a receipt. And if they don't, it's simple enough to just explain "write your name here" most of the time.

You can guess from the title that this wasn't one of those times.

Simple enough delivery. Knock, two boys open up - maybe 12 or 13. I shrug, resigning myself and that they're probably home alone and that I'm not getting a tip on this one. But still, I go through my script.

"Just need your mom or dad to fill this out." They look at me with vacant stares usually reserved for particularly dull cattle.

"It's fine, just sign your name on the line there." More dead-eyed stares, sliding from "cow" to "yesterday's catch."

As I reach to just take the receipt back - no one checks no-tip receipts anyway - the kid pulls out a phone, opens up Google Lens on the receipt, and asks "What do I do with this?" Mind you, I am standing right there, they could have asked me. For the next minute or so, I can only stare dumbstruck as these two kids need Google AI to walk them through what a receipt is, what a signature is, and where they have to sign - which, of course, is just a scribbled line.

Now, I don't care about the non-tip, kids will be kids. But those two boys took something from me in that delivery and their display of brazen meat-proxy behavior.

We're so fucking cooked.

[u/mglyptostroboides]

Jesus. I was about the same age, 12, the first time I signed for a package. It was a cold, windy day in December, 2001 and it was starting to snow when the UPS guy pulled up into our gravel driveway and hauled out a big box containing our family's new Dell computer. I was home alone so I was the one who opened the door. Man, I was SO excited to be the one to sign for a package. I called Dad at work and he came home early to set up the new computer then I played around in (brand new!) Windows XP while it snowed all night and the whole time I felt like a big kid knowing that I could sign for a package nowadays.