this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

As a non American: What are these people doing? Only time I've seen fast food personal outside around here is to empty the bins and pick up trash from the parking lot. Otherwise they are inside.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They take the orders on iPads 80% instead of having you drive up to the speaker.

I think they do this to keep the kitchen constantly moving instead of waiting for an order to get finished. Also a personal touch.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Also a personal touch.

if i ever want or need this from a fast food place please find me and shoot me

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Welcome to Chick-fil-A, I love you

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (5 children)

WTF, really? People around here order using a touchscreen, same as the kiosks inside. If you want you can press a button and talk to someone inside to ask a question. But the UI on the kiosks is pretty good, ordering is easy and it includes all the info you could ever want. I've never had a reason to press the assistance button, but I like it's there.

Sending actual people to stand in the rain for such a simple task seems very weird to me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Volume. Cfa are extremely busy. It’d hard to grasp how much chicken they sell.

The order takes typically walk the line to take all the orders that way they just pull to the window to get their order.

Some states asked cfa to help with Covid vaccine coordination since they are experts at handling large crowds.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Which states asked for CFA help? That seems ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

A quick search turned up one town in SC, but I'm not seeing much else.

It's really not at all ridiculous to seek knowledge from experts when implementing a new system. However, it's not surprising people wouldn't think of the overlap between fast food and vaccine distribution, especially since most fast food does a piss-poor job of managing their own lines.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

ordering on phones / kiosks is far far better in every way - no awkward interactions, you can see the price of everything, take as long as you need, see the ingredients in everything, see what you can modify / at what price, you know you've entered it accurately, etc.

only people against it are technology-reticent boomers whose only joy comes from bossing around underpaid workers. unfortunately we have a lot of those in the US; they also think seeing people being humiliated like this is actually smart business and a blessing unto the workers. and this particular chain heavily caters to those sorts of people

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I don't like having to use public touchscreens. People are filthy and never wash their hands. I don't want to touch the same things they do.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Providing jobs is very much in alignment with their professed political beliefs... Spending the kind of money they did on these ridiculous rain suits also is, to a degree. Not speaking for or against it, just sayin that's the professed beliefs.

Conservatives don't like anything that threatens entry level jobs. It's the basis of their approach to immigration (incorrect logic IMHO) and they apply the same to automation (correct logic, but there's better answers for that problem).

The kiosks in our area rarely work, usually because they aren't plugged in. The kids working there make well over twice the minimum wage though, because there's a LOT of competition for jobs since COVID (lots of folks jumped on the work from home train), so it's a good thing. Walmart didn't replace anyone at all after COVID, they went full self checkout/kiosk. There's less than half the pre-covid workforce, and I doubt the ones remaining are seeing any of the money Walmart saves on payroll from it. I'm certainly not getting any of those lost wages when I scan my entire grocery cart for them...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Robots are more expensive than human labor I guess...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

For now...

Also having a human stand outside in the rain for your enjoyment gives you that great feeling that you are superior to them, in terms of deciding which parents you wanted to be born to:-).

C'mon, you are laughing b/c you know it's true? Or else you are crying b/c you are an empathetic liberal:-(, which only makes the other side laugh all the harder! (now at you) :-P

It even says directly in the Bible: "the worker deserves their wages", oh no wait not that one, um... "treat the poor and oppressed among you as one of your own", no wait not that one either, how about "whatsoever you do to the least of these, therefore you also do unto me", ah... well anyway I'm sure it's there somewhere!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

I don't think you understand the throughput these places are moving lol.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The early days of drive in was waiting in your car in the parking lot and wait for a server to come out to you to take your order. Then they return to your car with the food for you to eat in your car in the parking lot. They often had trays that hooked onto your window or trays that would sit in your lap to eat from. This food was diner style food and wasn't quick to make like fast food today is.

These styles of restaurants fell out of style when cheap and quick fast food came along. This combined with Americans are usually only interested in the latest things or styles, many of these old style restaurants went under and disappeared into history. The Founder movie covers some of this when the McDonald's brothers came along.

The ones that didn't die like A&W adopted the eat inside model with a drive thru window for pickup abandoning the older model where their waitresses would roller skate out to your car to take your order and deliver food.

Then there are newer chains like Sonic in the US that have this old style pull up parking and a drive thru with outside seating. This is more of a nostalgia play for consumers and it worked as it was a trip to something that wasn't around anymore so it was new again.

I assume this Chick Fil place is doing something similar in this photo or they are just delivering food during the pandemic to people that preordered ahead of time in the rain.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Chick-fil-A has a more or less normal drive through. You drive your car through and get the food at a standard pickup window. The people outside are taking orders on ipads, but not delivering food.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They are literally taking orders. They don't deliver your food. Their drive thru ordering is literally hell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Kind of reminds me of Dutch Bros. Coffee. They have people out in the line for the drive thru with iPad taking orders. By the time you get to the window the orders are ready for pickup.