Life in the future
Took my son to a soccer tournament this weekend. On the way to one of the games, we needed a quick bite. He wanted chicken nuggets from McDonald’s. We had time to sit down so we ate in the restaurant. We walked in and there were about 6 kiosks where people could order without a cashier. They just enter their order on the screen, pay, and it’s delivered to their table. The lines were backed up 2 to 3 deep and consisted of mostly youngsters and millenials. However, the only cashier had no line at all. We walked right up to her, ordered, and got our food.
Not sure why none why they’d wait for a kiosk rather than order from a human.
October 22nd, 2018 at 4:25 pm
The have no social skills, they would rather keep their noses in their phones.
October 22nd, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Young people have rather extreme social anxiety when talking to people they don’t know, face to face. Its gotten really severe, and most would rather use a kiosk than have to talk to a human.
October 22nd, 2018 at 7:45 pm
I like using the kiosks because my wife and I are picky eaters, and 9/10 times requesting a burger with no sauce and another with no tomato results in the guy behind the counter punching it in wrong and suddenly I don’t have an order of fries.
October 22nd, 2018 at 9:16 pm
Bottom line is, the party of luddites and their minimum wage idiocy is putting young people out of work through automation.
See, the robots really are coming to kill us all.
October 22nd, 2018 at 9:17 pm
Around here (central Virginia), McD has not yet figured out the kiosk thing.
If I order from a human, they hand me my drink immediately (or empty cup for soda). When the food comes up, it’s just food.
The kiosk does not hand me a cup. And when the food comes up, it’s just food. I then have to request the drinks I paid for.
If you pay attention to the order number, you’ve probably realized the lower two digits are sequential across all cash registers/kiosks. The 3rd digit specifies which cash register/kiosk took the order.
They KNOW whether or not I have my drink. But they refuse to handle it correctly.
But that’s OK because Arby’s serves a better gyro π
October 22nd, 2018 at 11:16 pm
I don’t frequent McD’s. But on match day Sundays, my favorite breakfast place is not open so I hit the nearest one for a quick breakfast snack on the way to the range. And by my usual luck, the nearest McD’s is the most incompetent franchisee in our state.
And so every single visit, I get a brand new cashier on his first day. Every time.
This shop does not have self serve kiosk’s yet, but when they do, I’ll use them 100% of the time.
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:17 am
I was in two different McDonalds restaurants when they first put the kiosks in, and the cashiers wouldn’t take orders. Seems to me like corporate ordered the employees to push customers to use those kiosks.
October 23rd, 2018 at 8:49 am
From an engineer’s perspective, this is how the $15 minimum wage thing is going to play out:
McD’s employees: “We want $15 an hour!”
McD’s management: “That’s fine. You three are fired and you two, pack your bags, you’re going to robot school for a week to learn the burgermatic 9000.”
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:04 am
So if your order is wrong or missing an item, can you tell it you need another order of fries?
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:09 am
Docmerlin is correct that Millenials avoid social interaction. It’s a big problem in the business world, because these younger people avoid the phone like, well, the plague. I have to train them to call clients rather than bombarding them with texts and emails over something that could be resolved in a three minute phone call.
That aside, the McD kiosks are annoying as heck. They are slow, you spend a lot of time trying to focus on what you want, and it’s even worse if you want something special. I travel a lot, and often end up at McD’s just because the food is consistent if not dull. I can walk up to a human cashier and submit my order in fifteen seconds vs. two minutes or more (eight times longer) at the kiosk.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:42 am
And when the kiosks go down(as they frequently do) the sheep stand around them waiting for a border collie to round ’em up and move them to the(only) human cashier, heh, heh, heh.
October 23rd, 2018 at 11:28 am
If the bot doesn’t stare at me with a blank look wondering what to do when I give it a twenty, two ones, and .54 in change for my 12.54 order, that’ll be a big advancement.
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:57 pm
I travel extensively for work, and, thanks to a lousy per diem, frequent McD’s for their cheap nuggets. Many of the locations I visit have the kiosks, but I always try to order from the bipedal carbon-based lifeform behind the counter. Touching the same panels complete strangers have been touching is chancy at best.
October 23rd, 2018 at 1:16 pm
“Touching the same panels complete strangers have been touching is chancy at best.”
Yes! What MrSatyre said.
October 23rd, 2018 at 2:52 pm
To not have to deal with randos, or risk someone getting my order wrong because they can’t punch the buttons right?
(“Touching the same panels complete strangers have been touching is chancy at best.”
Didya … touch a door on the way in? How ’bout a table, once you sat down? The seat, itself?
You’re already bathing in random germs by being in public, sorry.)
October 23rd, 2018 at 3:08 pm
MrSatyre / Ron W:
Kiosks, shopping carts, etc. are why you should always carry cheap plastic gloves gloves, or Hand-Sanitizer wherever you go. Here’s one example (apologies for the link, Unc.); I’m sure it can be purchased for less elsewhere:
Purell Hand Sanitizer Gel 1 Fl Oz (3-Pack) $6.53 ($2.18 / Fl Oz)
https://www.amazon.com/Purell-Advanced-Sanitizer-Refreshing-3-Pack/dp/B00ECKFHQ6/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1540321065&sr=8-4&keywords=hand+sanitizer+travel+size&dpID=51CoL6sjMNL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
October 23rd, 2018 at 7:21 pm
It seems like businesses don’t want to interact with their customer base anymore.
October 23rd, 2018 at 8:03 pm
I don’t eat at McDonalds, but I did see a male carhop at Sonic the other day…
October 23rd, 2018 at 8:31 pm
More concerned about fingers, sweat, and spit in my food than germy fingers on the screen.
When the ‘bots can take the order and deliver the goods untouched they’ll have me for good.
Then just the interchangeable manager and cleanup guy will need to get $15 hr.
October 24th, 2018 at 1:06 pm
Huck:
Businesses don’t want to interact with us DEPLORABLES, anymore.
JTC:
An interesting argument for eliminating the “human touch” altogether: If McD’s – or any other fast-food ‘restaurant’ – has order Kiosks with touch-screens, WHY can’t these Kiosks be voice-activated, instead?
Or, maybe when we all get those chips implanted in our heads?
October 28th, 2018 at 3:44 pm
I went to a “hood” McD’s around DC. Everyone, about 5-6 per a line, for 3 lines, was paying cash. The kios were totally empty. I walk up put my order in and I got it pretty quick. But I watched all those people with cash trying to pay. One of these days, only criminals will use cash π