Jewelry sale in the Uncanny Valley

Rob Cockerham takes a closer look at a robotic sign spinner on his blog, Cockeyed.com.

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hep cat

I get the concept that a person holding a sign is exempt from the laws governing signs on posts or stands, probably somehow related to the first amendment, and it is way better than handing out fliers that people have to get rid of.

What I don’t get is the spinning and waving part. Someone is holding a big sign with an arrow on it pointing to a subdivision, and they are spinning around pointing all over. What’s the point of that? I mean literally , what’s the point ?
wfrancis

@#40 – As at least one other person mentioned, sign spinners are exempt from many signage regulations which clearly a mechanical one is subject to. In my city (San Francisco) a quick call to 311 will give you access to a wide variety of city services, including reporting issues like illegal advertising. I’ve used it to great effect to report business which block sidewalks with illegal A-frame signs they chain to posts on corners.
Anonymous

I work about two blocks away from that place and drive by that all the time and believe me, it is creepy. It appeared a few weeks ago and the first time I saw it looked odd. That teriyaki place is a good place to eat though.
coaxial

I’m confused why sign spinning is a job, and relatively recent one at that. It makes no sense. We have these things called “posts”
Anonymous

Secondary YouTube link was to real human sign spinners which was actually pretty dance like and neat.
Jonathan Badger

It seems these would work despite the uncanny valley because who actually makes eye contact with human sign-spinners? I realize that logically, they probably aren’t the worst off of workers, but it just seems so degrading that I feel embarrassed and depressed on their behalf whenever I encounter them.
- Skidds
  
  I often feel the same way when I see someone in such a position. I experience a handful of emotions in the time it takes me to pass. It angers me to think that the employer(s) could be taking advantage of someone who is in need of work. There should be a law that states an employer has to spend and equal amount of time on the sidewalk holding the sign. Either that or a mandated 100 bucks an hour wage.
- millie fink
  
  Degrading?
  
  Well, maybe, but many people can make the most of nearly ANY job:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAQT6D7FM4
  
  â€œIf a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.â€
  
  –MLK
Anonymous

I feel like bugs bunny when he saw the mechanical rabbit at the dog races. I’m in love!
Dave Faris

You may not want to believe it, but there are dozens of these fake humans selling clothes in each and every major department stores all over the world! Uncanny!
neurolux

They must like their jobs. I’ve never seen a sad sign spinner…..until now.
ecobore

Here’s superwoman up to the same tricks… nasty…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psV33tyC8Bo
EeyoreX

So we now have a automated sign looking like a real person holding a sign, wich is something we originally got because we wern’t allowed to post regular signs.
The thing is, a real person holding a sign draws extra attention because we’re wired to recognize faces, and people, and give them a little more attention than we give to other stuff on the side of the road.
So, swapping the person for mannequin is kind of double-bluff to get your advertisement a ticket on the “social express” into your brain.

Anyway, IÂ´ve seen plenty of sign-spinners advertising various downtown diners or eaterys. In that context I don’t really see how it’s any different from handing out flyers for your buisness.

Pesonally, I think IÂ´d be much more comfortable doing this sort of job than, say, working at a callcenter. But to each his own.
- millie fink
  
  “Anyway, IÂ´ve seen plenty of sign-spinners advertising various downtown diners or eaterys. In that context I don’t really see how it’s any different from handing out flyers for your buisness.
  
  Pesonally, I think IÂ´d be much more comfortable doing this sort of job than, say, working at a callcenter. But to each his own.”
  
  Right. But, what is it about THIS job that makes so many people feel sorry for those doing it? It’s gotta be more than the possibility of bad weather.
Anonymous

that mannequin is going to get carpal tunnel!
LightningRose

I’m no Luddite, but by Dog,there are some jobs that should be reserved for humans!
Gilbert Wham

Well, given the choice between no job (which is what I have now) and sign spinning, I’d be out there spinning signs like a shot. And it’s snowing here. Damn robots, taking our livelihoods…
bjacques

Uncanny Valley Girl OMG!
johnnyaction

A similar company making these types of robots exists
http://www.signwavers.com/

It was posted earlier this year here.

I find these a bit creepy myself.
Jason Rizos

I find the paid task of “sign spinner” to be one of the most degrading, arrogant, and wasteful of our time.

It communicates only one thing to me–”Our business is doing so well that we can afford to pay this person to sit out on the street and not do a damn thing!”
holtt

I think she belongs in the Uncanny Alley
frankieboy

Two thoughts; the folks who feel so sorry for the human sign spinners, just come off condescending, in the guise of compassion. Honest work is just that, who are you to be so smug in your own position to look down on what another is doing to earn their way. You don’t know where they’re going or where they’ve been.
And the people who condemn the businesses for using this method to attract customers and stay in business, so they can continue to employ people! The comment that the business owners should be made to do this too? What a laugh. They started the business, worked night and day and sacrificed. If they had to, you better believe they’d be out there waving a sign. Instead, they grow and hire people to do the jobs that need to be done. Elitist comments made by people looking down their nose at people and businesses they think are low. millie fink got it right. Don’t look down on a man doing honest work.
- Skidds
  
  There is a difference between being condescending and compassionate. A person can exhibit one without implying the other. Some people would enjoy this job, but it is a job that undoubtedly comes with a lot of abuse from ignorant individuals passing by. At least in my case the compassion stems from the idea of someone enduring hours of unsolicited remarks. It does not come from a smug idea of class. There are plenty of other ways to draw people into your business that donâ€™t involve as much abuse and you could hire the same person to do it.
- millie fink
  
  Two thoughts; the folks who feel so sorry for the human sign spinners, just come off condescending, in the guise of compassion. Honest work is just that, who are you to be so smug in your own position to look down on what another is doing to earn their way. You don’t know where they’re going or where they’ve been.
  
  Exactly, thank you!
  
  There’s an ironic, smug elitism in some of the comments here, springing from an absurd projection of how YOU would feel in that position, onto people who don’t necessarily feel that way at all.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Didn’t Cato the Elder say that slaves don’t feel pain as much as free men?
    - millie fink
      
      Ha!
      
      Actually, I think that’s the (secret) motto of the Cato Institute.
    - travtastic
      
      It just feels right.
  - travtastic
    
    Are you implying that these people enjoy standing out in the freezing cold to shill for some liquidated mattress store?
    - millie fink
      
      No. I’m saying it’s work, and for passersby to think of it as “humiliating” is to project their own sense of how they would feel doing it onto someone else, who doesn’t necessarily feel that way.
      
      That’s different from saying it’s “fun” work (although it could be fun work). It’s saying that it, like any work, can be dignified work, and especially, that those who do it deserve respect, not condescending projection of one’s own feelings onto them.
      - mausium
        
        “No. I’m saying it’s work, and for passersby to think of it as “humiliating” is to project their own sense of how they would feel doing it onto someone else, who doesn’t necessarily feel that way.
        
        That’s different from saying it’s “fun” work (although it could be fun work). It’s saying that it, like any work, can be dignified work, and especially, that those who do it deserve respect, not condescending projection of one’s own feelings onto them.”
        
        It’s objectively a shitty, monotonous, stressful job that pays very little and requires that you sit out in exposure to sun, rain, and snow varying on the area. If you’re doing it to feed your family, you’re not going to be as humiliated as the situation you might find yourself in.
        
        I don’t understand your point in “defending” the honor of the position, the job sucks, as does a ton of other low-end positions that guest workers and desperate citizens may do with as much dignity as they can muster.
      - travtastic
        
        So it’s disrespectful to utilize my condescending projection in thinking that holding a big sign in inclement weather (generally advertising faux-cheap, useless shit) is demeaning?
        
        It’s (frankly) ridiculous to claim that people who are uncomfortable seeing other’s discomfort are some kind of elitist snobs. I wasn’t aware that American Dreamers among us were actively seeking out sign-holding careers, fresh out of HumanAd University.
        
        I have to add by the way, that what you bemoan as projection is better described as empathy.
RufusTheGreat

I got a sudden urge to buy jewelry.
- bkad
  
  I got a sudden urge to buy jewelry
  
  I had no idea what you were talking about until I re-read the article later. Somehow I managed to filter out the content of the mannequin’s sign, and the title of the posting, as “not important” and forgot about it immediately. I wish I could ignore TV and web advertisements as effectively.
tyger11

To make her look more realistic, they could put a pair of headphones on her, and make her bop her head a little bit.
Anonymous

That robot and the humans with similar skill levels, minimum wage. The athletic performers that dance and spin that sign deserve multiples more.
holtt

Damn right frankieboy. And let’s not stop with honest work. Let’s not forget that these are honest ads for honest savings at honest business selling honest to goodness real products.
on the other hand

I, for one, welcome our sign-spinning robotic overlords.
on the other hand

sorry couldn’t resist
yoteach

they took our jerrrbs!!
Jumper42

As someone who has several small businesses, this is a brilliant idea. Most cities, and county’s have very strict regulations regarding signage in front of businesses. A sign spinner is exempted from those rules. You can’t place a sign by the curb in front of your own business. Yet, there is always a fresh crop of yard sign types all over the residential areas advertising all sorts of services by mostly non tax paying unlicensed individuals working from their home. Legitimate businesses are put through a difficult licensing process which is not simply just paying a fee, but having inspections as to the use and fitness of your location and zoning laws. Suffice it say, it’s tough being a small business owner, if you follow the rules and are making money….then you’ve gotta be cheating on taxes or cutting corners somewhere!
Michael_GR

Robot? a bit of an overstatement. “Mannequin” is more like it.
Chuck

But would Google Street View blur her face?

And on the other side of that coin, are there people walking amongst us whose faces would go unblurred by Google Street View? (Sounds like the premise of a horror story.)
Xof

Most cities, and county’s have very strict regulations regarding signage in front of businesses. A sign spinner is exempted from those rules.

So, what you are saying is that a government regulation successfully created jobs.
Anonymous

No one is saying that’s not honest work. No one is saying that the business owners don’t work hard. But honestly I don’t usually see mom-and-pop stores represented by spinners. It’s usually a chain or realtor -middle managers- who usually don’t work as hard as start-up business owners. They also tend to be more of jerks. Anyway, I
feel a little embarrassed and sad for the spinners because I think it’s a cheap and humiliating form of advertising/signage.
That’s just my human, natural, first, gut reaction. Call me an elitist if you well. Are most hired to just spin signs and wear funny costumes or are they regular employees doing this job? It’s easy money I guess but do you think it’s cool to employ a guy to dress up in human-size pickle costume and wave to passing motorists in 100 degree temps or cold rain?
travtastic

Their job is pathetic. You seem to think that they enjoy doing this, like I’m raining on someone’s parade. I’m sorry, but the occasional guy with a huge smile (who’s excellent at it) does not make a trend.

All the proud, 4th-gen sign holders out there are depressed now because I think they could be doing something valuable for their community, if the option was available to them. All they want to do is spin the night away! One time I saw a dude at Subway who loved making sandwiches. I take this to mean that all subway employees are proud to slap fast food together for impatient people. It’s a career!

Again, empathy. I feel that you don’t understand.