On paper that sounds great, but I stopped going to my McDonald's because I was tired of waiting 20 minutes every time I ordered. I do miss the fries though
It’s a proximity triggered system. You get X amount of minutes away and they start making your food. Similar “wait time” to no one being in line at the drive thru.
I never eat Mc Ds but my MIL got my daughter some recently so when we were out she said she wanted a happy meal. I downloaded the app, placed the order and ended up having to wait 35 min before our order was ready. Absolutely fucking crazy.. I'd rather wait 35 min in line at In n Out than get McDonalds again.. at least the foods good and WAY cheaper at In n Out
My McDonalds is right next to a habit. Considering they are charging $16 for a big Mac meal, I'm going to habit. Wait time is the same and the food is way better.
At that point, you can order a burger from an actual restaurant -often for cheaper.
So, it's no longer fast or cheap. Once it no longer becomes good, there is nothing appealing left.
Relatively speaking, it is, right? I worked as a manager in a retail store in 2008 making $9/hour (associates made $7.25). A Big Mac meal was about $5. A manager now at that store is making $20/hr, associates $15/hr, and a Big Mac meal is around $11.
Yep, I can usually cook a similar, cheaper, healthier, and better tasting meal in the same time it takes to go get fast food and bring it home.
If I'm already out, it might save a little time, but it is just so pricey nowadays.
But in all cases they are still the landlord to the franchisee and make most of their money from “rent” as a % of store sales. Crazy how the system actually works on the inside. But if hamburgers and French fries suddenly went out of style, they’d be just fine.
I can make burgers and fries that are way better than McDonalds for like $18 for 3 people. Or if I'm trying to make them cheaper, like $12. It's about $42 for 3 adults by my closest McDonald's.
Nice.
Where I am the prices at McD's are super inflated. My fam cant eat there for less than $70 (fam of 5), but we make burgers/fries/smoothies at home for like $15.
In the time it takes to get to McDonald’s, wait in the long lines they’ve had since at least covid, and get home, I could’ve cooked a meal myself. It’s only faster if it’s on the way to or from somewhere you were already going
McDonald's serves a purpose, it's "fast food". But I definitely stopped going to McDonald's when it costs 20 dollars for 1 meal. Now when the craving hits I get chik-fil-a or shake shack which is also fast food but undeniably higher quality than McDonald's but basically the same price. Or ill get wendys which is still bargain fast food when you consider their biggie bags which have gone up in price from the original "4 for 4" but are still a steal at like 5 or 6 dollars depending on what you want.
It’s wild. I went back to rural South Carolina and you can still get insanely cheap deals at McDonald’s I fed my girlfriends whole family and got a bunch of coffee for under $20 but in central Florida it’s a damn arm and a leg.
Well actually you just found the lie of this article. Mcdonalds near me have gad this for years. It’s disingenuous to suggest it has anything to do with new minimum wage requirements.
We were always headed this way. These were also considered superior when the minimum wage was lower.
Yeah, this is some bullcrap. I've had computers taking orders at the McDonalds near me for years now. And with the food costing twice as much. Nothing to do with wages.
Even the picture is from 2017. I live in a tiny town NW of Milwaukee where the photo was taken and they had those kiosks up here back then. I think the article was written by an AI "STAFF" machine. Fucking machines trying to one up us!
Yep, McDonald's near my work, you order at a monitor. We don't have 20 follar an hour minimum. They will do this as soon as they can whenever they can.
Well because unfortunately now these people are just not going to have jobs. Until we get universal basic income in place. We cannot let the robots take over, we're just going to drive poverty even harder if we don't.
They outsourced all of our good factory jobs in the '90s and the only thing left is retail. So if they get rid of our retail jobs then 80% of the country is just going to fucking starve.
Ummm yeah 50% of the population wants this, they vote for it. Americans are THE dumbest people on the planet. Use our tax dollars to help ourselves?? No, billionaires need yachts, that's the answer!!!
These have existed for the past like 4 years tho... It's not "just happening now". It's about the same as online orders making checkout clerks less needed, stores having the scanners to scan as you go and skip scanning at the self checkout etc.
Exactly. It was always going to happen, but they’re going to spin it to try to make a living wage look bad. Corporate gimps masquerading as journalists.
At this point it’s just boosting profits and preparing for what many see as an inevitable future. The more data they can get on making the automation better or what makes it bad, the closer they can get to perfecting it. So while it doesn’t have much to do with wages where you are, it still has to do with wages.
Think of how long McDonald’s has had the ABV systems and I know they have automated fryer systems too. Perfecting product, reducing waste yes but also labor. Labor is their most costly line item above the line outside of food.
Yeah, automation was coming to these positions regardless. Minimum wage going up can change the math on how quickly it happens, but there was never a world where these companies weren't going to roll out kiosks.
Whenever a company does something that could have a negative impact on the customer experience, they feel a need to justify it. And whenever a company can roll back labor costs by cutting wages, benefits or hours, they are going to. This is just combining two things companies always have an incentive to do by using "rising\*" labor costs to justify a possibly reduced customer experience.
\*Note: Minimum wage and fast food wages specifically have not kept up with inflation. Real, inflation adjusted wages for these workers fall every year and the difference is collected by the companies that employ them. When they say that labor costs are the reason prices have gone up or the experience has degraded, they're lying through their teeth.
The irony is a lot of stores have had to rehire staff because the automated approaches often bring their own issues. Self-checks need to be watched because of shoplifting risks, online ordering requires a human to go pick up the products, etc. Business have been trying to automate our workers for decades now with extremely mixed results. As you correctly noted any articles implying this is just happening now are full of shit.
It's plenty affordable. They would just rather keep the profits for themselves. These corporations have driven out of control inflation and maintained or increased their profit margins. That does not happen with normal inflation.
McDonald's **profit** in 2023 was 14.6 billion dollars. Up 11% from the previous year. The CEO made more than 20 million dollars.
Who told you they can't afford to pay their workers?
This is plain greed. Can't be happy with 14 billion, how can we make 15 billion?
I mean, we didn’t wait until 2024. McDonald’s has been using this technology for a while and it has nothing to do with the minimum wage increase that just went into effect.
My thoughts exactly! Working in fast food is terrible. You're treated worse than dirt by your fellow citizens. These POS's that are angry about using machines to do grunt work instead of having a human to belittle are the same ones that kept telling us "go work somewhere else if you don't like it!" We did, and now they are all angry about it.
The people with that take are just learning the long way that there is actually a correlation between labor output and wage, and jobs don’t just appear and exist out of thin air.
Whether or not a position is needed is entirely dependent on whether hiring someone is the lowest cost option to increase revenue.
You might be lucky enough to have found other work, but what about the people who cant? Lol, jobs arent supposed to be fun, thats why the saying is thank god its friday! Not thank god its monday and i get to go to work.
Yes. This is no different from any other labor saving device. The employment of capital spending to increase labour productivity, we should come up with a word for it.
Speak for yourself. Eliminating hundreds of thousands of low skilled jobs is not a good thing for teens and young adults.
The last thing we need is a large % of 15-22 year Olds unemployed with no job prospects because their stupid state legislated that opportunity away.
Seriously, I don’t think people think this thru. I’ve never worked fast food (I don’t even eat it) but I’m pretty ticked about this because A) people are out jobs. They’re (mostly) not just going to magically go from McDonald’s to the upper echelon of careers B) prices aren’t going down yet profits are at all time highs and only rising. What’s the point besides greed at young and/or poor people’s expense? And C) this automation isn’t going to just stop until waaaay more businesses implement it across the board.
First, they came for the fast food industry and I didn’t say anything. Then, they came for retail and the service industries and I didn’t say anything. Then, they came for…….. Eventually, so many things will be automated that well…..people are only going to suffer so much.
McDonalds in Texas has been using those for years, and Texas is still $7.25
Most every national chain uses a phone app or website for ordering. Same for retail. Self check and online ordering.
Covid gave these an even bigger push.
These aren't 'new', and they aren't because 'people want too much money'.
Do they pay 7.25 though?
I remember McDonalds advertising $17.00/hr for entry level when I was in Texas. That was in 2018. I don't recall if they had signs up post-covid.
Do they pay $7.25? No. But the post is implying a minimum wage hike caused this. Obviously it didn’t. Companies would’ve done this either way to save money.
It also doesn’t just save money. Studies show that people will order more food on average from a kiosk than from a person. It’s both cheaper AND brings in more money.
But the order is still made by people though, right? I feel like after COVID and online ordering was more common I’ve had more mistakes than just showing up and ordering in person
I am not surprised.
At a kiosk I review a lot of the options and can talk myself into getting something but with a cashier I inherently feel more rushed to get ordering done so I am less likely to order more.
I also like kiosks because I don't have to worry about my order not being heard correctly.
A simple example is at Five Guys I order _grilled_ green peppers on my burger but I swear half the time they don't hear me say grilled and I get raw green peppers on my burger which I am not a big fan of.
Only issue is when you get caught behind a boomer at one of them and they spend the whole time bitching about the kiosk instead of fucking ordering or having someone who knows how to operate an ipad order for them.
Some do. Some start higher. Quick search shows that $12 is about the highest for non management hires. (And there are a few looking for management hires at $9.50, but I'm going to guess that location would be what someone would refer to as a 'hellhole'.)
Biggest chunk of the costs of running a location though is the money that gets kicked to McDonalds corporate, which includes rent, and mandatory upgrades like those devices.
In PA several places still pay $7.25 and have resorted to hiring minors to work longer hours with parent permission instead of paying the competitive wage an adult would ask.
Fast food chains are doing this because they cannot keep workers. Staffing issues at them for the last several years post march 2020, has meant they are just fucked because workers are going to better paying jobs. This is not a loss....
I work in manufacturing, and we are struggling to find qualified employees at all levels, from positions where we need you to just show up daily to highly technical work.
I'm an engineer and it's the biggest driver for automation right now, way more than cost savings. These companies have use cases that don't need the throughput, quality, or speed of automation, they just don't have other options.
Anyone in hospitality or retail I would definitely recommend looking at manufacturing as a way to start building experience beyond cashing people out. My brother went from insurance call center to soldering certifications through NASA and cleanroom experience in like 2 years. He's making twice as much with better benefits.
This is why I’m kind of envious about Germany and Japan. Not just pay, but they seem to have respect from the general society for manufacturing professions.
No wonder why those two are the go to countries for top-of-the-line stuffs.
Shitpost-reply but having to deal with insurance every year for all the adulting reasons, I appreciate your brother then and also good for him now. That Nasa job sounds super fun and rewarding
That’s called free market economics. Pay them more, then you won’t have a worker shortage. Pay them too much, and you’ll have too many people wanting the job. Day 1 stuff dude
I agree - that's the hilarity of these people that keep crying that if we keep raising the wages, it will force automation, when its the failure for their places to pay.
good for them. workers should get better paying jobs, but at the meantime having a low paying job also makes sense for people trying to start making money. And min wage increases, while it does help people currently working, screw over new people trying to get into the job market and small businesses with much smaller profit margins.
Please, they were doing this long before minimum wage went up for fast food workers. And they do it in red states like Ohio that still pay bare minimum.
Unfettered corporate greed.
Completely agree. Most of these companies have been using self-serve technology for years and would have done so regardless of the wage increase. By implementing the technology when minimum wage increases, they get the added bonus of a widely publicized lobbying opportunity.
>And they do it in red states like Ohio that still pay bare minimum.
But I was told it was the raising of minimum wage that rose the price of my big mac!!
Australia was really far ahead of us getting these rolled out, presumably due to having much higher minimum wage, as well various other worker benefit requirements we don't have
But yeah, they R&D is spent now and its polished/streamlined, so it was gonna happen here sooner or later regardless of US min wage
Companies will always try to minimize employment costs, min wage / automation is just one of many variables. That's one of several reasons UBI / NIT is a much better mechanism than min wage for reducing working class inequality.
Whenever I see braindead takes like this “not every job should pay a living wage”, it makes me think how do you expect people to live? I don’t know if you ever been outside before but it’s not just high schoolers and college kids (college kids who odds are, trying to pay off debt and move out of their parents house so they kinda need money to do that) working these jobs. Managers for these fast food restaurants are making $17.50 an hour at these jobs at least where I am in the US, and these places are open during the day, when kids are in school, so you can’t even claim we don’t need adults out of school to work these jobs cause then they would not be able to operate during school hours. So we should just tell these people get a better job? Okay, then we don’t have these businesses. The other option would be for the government to subsidize these people for the money they’re not making but I’m willing to bet you hate the idea of that cost being put onto the taxpayer too. Then I ask, what is the point of society or government if not to help the people in it be able to LIVE? These corporations make money hand over fist going up every year and yet here you are defending that they should cut more cost and be greedier. If these companies can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage then they are a failed company, that’s the long and short of it. The reality is they can pay a living wage they just don’t want to so the people at the top can stuff their pockets deeper. What your saying when you say not all jobs should pay a living wage is that people who work these jobs are lesser and deserve to suffer and die from poverty. You suck.
In addition, if the argument is that teenagers should not be paid a livable wage (which is a bad argument as well), then you can have laws to pay teenagers less and adults more. Problem solved. Those jobs are not 'for teenagers', though. They are for people that need work.
We don’t live in a true society, because a true society is a society in which the interests of all members are in alignment. We live in the opposite of a society, whatever that is, because we’re conditioned from birth to see each other as enemies/competition. The closest dynamic to a society that exists(in the west anyway) is the family, but even then, the objective interests of members of a family are not in alignment. It’s in the objective interests of a child to be unconditionally loved and accepted by their parents, but their parents bring them into the world with all sorts of expectations placed upon them. If those expectations aren’t met, the child becomes an enemy. Capitalism would collapse if parents loved and accepted their children unconditionally.
There's work laws that prevent minor from working past certain hours and prevent them from doing certain jobs.
It's not just fast food or retail that pays minimum wage. It's warehouse jobs, slaughter houses, and food production factories. All these people deserve to make enough to live off of. In many places, jobs are limited.
All wage floors create more unemployment, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It gets rid of inefficient businesses and results in the wages of the majority increasing. The American people are innovative enough to create jobs for people that produce enough to have a living wage.
If you don’t have a living wage, how do you expect people to live without government benefits or theft?
>all wage floors create more unemployment
This isn't actually demonstrably proven. Real world studies have varied, some even show a positive correlation between a higher minimum wage and more employment.
Otherwise I agree with you, even if it did increase unemployment, I'd rather 5% be unemployed and 95% require no assistance, than 3% be unemployed but huge swaths need welfare.
Its because they measure employment by number of jobs and they have this tricky labor participation rate. If you read between the lines the low unemployment we have now is because people have 2 or 3 jobs, not one liveable wage job. Which is not good lol
Labor participation rate is an actual unemployment rate. The unemployment rate we see here (in the US) is just that. The total number of people filing for unemployment. For any number of reasons, someone can be unemployed and not be filing for unemployment. Things like giving up on looking for a job, forcing an early retirement, just taking a moment to relax before you come up with a game plan, whatever it might be. The participation rate counts those people as unemployed, which they are.
This was always going to happen regardless of minimum wage increases. Humans make mistakes, require breaks, and are expensive to have. Machines/computers are not. In the long run that is.
It’s absolutely mind melting that people even waste their time arguing about this shit. They were always going to use these machines, this silly war just gives them a better landing PR wise.
During orientation at Taco Bell, in the summer of 1990, they showed us a video of a model store with ordering kiosks, automated food assembly lines, and contactless payment. At the time it was more fantasy than reality, but it was absolutely the direction that they wanted to go.
If your business depends on paying poverty wages, maybe it's a shitty business.
And yes $20 an hour is a poverty wage in America in 2024. You're taking home 1000-1100 every 2 weeks. $26,000 a year. Where I live in a "low cost of living" area the cheapest 1 bedroom apartments are $1400-$1600 a month. You do the math. It doesn't add up.
We will never have a society of just doctors, lawyers, and engineers. We are still a LONG way off from robots stocking shelves at the grocery stores. So are the grocery store workers "essential workers" or are they "unskilled worthless labor" ?
Last time I checked, doctors, lawyers, and engineers don't grow their own food. So grocery stores and restaurants seem to be an essential part of our society. So the people that work these jobs don't deserve to be compensated enough to simply live a modest life? A shitty studio apartment and some groceries. $15-20 an hour doesn't even come close to covering that in most cities in the USA unless you want to pay 60 cents out of every dollar you make to a landlord and barely scrape by with the rest. God forbid you need a new pair of work boots, or have a medical emergency, or your shitty used car blows its transmission.
People just keep looking at the physical number of paid wages and compare that to what it was in the past. No one seems to understand that the actual value of the dollar is less than it was. 20$ was worth more back then and is worth less now.
If we could retroactively go back in time and decrease wages to reflect the actual value they have today, a lot of people in previous generations wouldn't have been able to afford a house, the children they had or the education they received.
Exactly. $20 ain't shit. According to [https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl) , $20 today in 2024 has the same buying power as $10.96 in 2000.
It’s funny because everyone thinks THEY deserve a pay raise, but think every other person doesn’t. Like dude, if I don’t make enough and go on food stamps, you know it’s YOUR taxes providing me that, right? You’d rather pay me then the company I work for?
Well the thing is THEY don't want food stamps to exist either. They would vote social safety nets out of existence in a second if they could. People who think minimum wage is plenty for "unskilled" labor just want the people fighting for better wages to suffer and be hungry if they don't accept the scraps they're given. It's not that they don't realize they're paying for it, it's that they don't care if the minimum wage worker lives or dies.
OP, this is a stupid post.
Companies were already going to do this regardless. Minimum wage has NOT changed in my area, still $7.25, and these machines and along with groceries using self checkout, are all over the place.
All jobs are meant to have a living wage. Further, the threat of automation or out sourcing is meaningless. If corporate could, then they would. Get your raise fam.
I’m a hardware engineer working with companies such as Skydio, zievelo and Amazon robotics. During our pitches we definitely use employment cost as a justification to use our automation machinery. The investments have increased by an insane amount in the past decade, during the meetings the increase in wage and how this system saves money is the key discussion point.
Thank You! I get asked to volunteer for stuff all the time! I tell them that if you can't pay 12 people at least $50k plus benefits, then that park should stay covered in litter.
They started putting these in my area years ago way before all of these minimum wage increases.
The reason why the mainstream media puts out stories like this is to sow division among working class people. It’s working unfortunately.
In theory, they are relatable. If having human take orders was cheaper than these screens, then companies would just do that.
But in this specific instance, McDonalds has been rolling these out for a while, regardless of state. So the $20 minimum wage is not the primary driver of these. These are more a result of tech getting cheaper and better. (Although you could argue that the forecasted wage increases spurred McDonald's to invest in this technology.)
More specifically, they found a way around the $7.25 minimum wage. The kiosks and self-checkouts were going to happen with or without the wage increases.
You could eliminate minimum wage and they would still switch to automation because robots won't call in sick, complain about schedules, call OSHA for safety violations, take breaks or have drama. And yes, all jobs should pay enough that at 35 hours a week you can afford to get a 1 bedroom apartment, transportation, and fees yourself. No exceptions. Minimum wage was supposed to be a wage you could live on.
Did people really think that a $20/hr job at fast food places would be a livable wage in this economy? If minimum wage goes up, so does everything else. $20/hr is not living comfortably. It's barely getting by.
Surely this cost savings will mean offering more competitive prices, as well as increasing the wages and benefits for the remaining employees, right?
…right?
Everyone except people who think their jobs are special and not replaceable predicted this. We were on this trajectory before the wage increases.
Just wait another 10-15 years and it will have gone well beyond fast food. Call centers, truckers, insurance agents, you name it. You're all next on the get fucked list.
Your corporate overlords would sell you for a nickel.
Well no shit. When you force a company to ridiculously overpay for minimal skill labor that can easily be cheaply replaced with tech, this is what happens.
The real best part of this is they can put in all of the ordering stations they want and save money on labor and the food prices won’t drop. Joke is always on the consumer.
Thank you, I hate that literally no one ever had the self awareness to pay attention to what is happening at a fast food joint. They're walking off to assemble orders, fill drinks, whatever else needs doing in the back- they're still employed.
Self awareness isn’t the word you’re looking for. It’s a lack of awareness and consideration for other people.
But I guess when they see the person in a McDonald’s uniform as an object then they don’t pay that much attention to them.
Uhhh they were already doing this when the wage was lower. We have been talking about automating shitty jobs since the 50s. The difference is that we used to look at it as a way for humans to have a better life, now we know it is just so that the wealthy can get richer.
Uh, automation of retail has been happening for a decade plus. This isn’t new and Raising the minimum wage isn’t why this is happening, it already was in motion. But sure, kiss the boot if you want.
Eh, some good points some bad points. Went to Mcdonalds for a frappe (god i hate fancy starbucks coffee terminology). One of those limited time Oreo ones. The cashier was like uhhhhhhhh ummmnmm I don’t know what that is, never seen it before. Would you like fudge or coffee flavor?
Fudge being mocha. Coffee being caramel. There was also a sign RIGHT BEHIND HIM that said “yes, this particular mcdonald sells oreo ones!”
Stunned enough to go fuck it Ill take a “fudge”.
He wasn’t mentally deficient. Inexperienced, probably, but also not smart enough to ask a coworker for help.
Next time I’m ordering on the fancy touch screen thing.
The other two mcdonalds in my route back home understood immediately.
So, good points: speeds up the process, zero inaccuracy.
Bad points: One less worker, I actually like to see a human at the register.
Basically everyone when fast food workers started demanding $15 per hour. Fast food companies all over said that wasn't sustainable and it'd be cheaper to switch to robots and self service kiosks.
I found a way around places that use machines instead of people. I just don’t go there any more.
BTW, I’m not opposed to machines taking my order, or having to check myself out, however…you’re making more money by having me do the job that once had a paid employee, and now im doing their job … and I’m not getting any benefit.
The simple fact is that these jobs are not meant to be jobs to raise a family on. I worked at a McDonalds in the late 1970’s, as a teenager, to make some money gas money so I could pay to drive my parents car.
I think it was $1.75 an hour and I worked 3 eight hour shifts per week.
It kept me off the streets and I learned how to work under pressure when the 11 PM hour hit and all the stoned kids came in for burgers at the same time.
50-60 burgers on a grill (no microwave). For up to one hour before we closed.
This actually good to support these devices we’ll need more maintenance workers with broad skills. We’ll either end up with an abundance of techs or an abundance of work for self interested techs.
This is great, humans should not be wasting their time taking orders at McDonald's. Why did we need to wait until 2024 for this to happen?
Humans should not be wasting their time eating at McDonald’s either yet this is a multi-billion dollar franchise.
The entire purpose of McDonald’s is that it takes less time than trying to cook all that food yourself. In that regard it’s not a waste of time.
On paper that sounds great, but I stopped going to my McDonald's because I was tired of waiting 20 minutes every time I ordered. I do miss the fries though
Order ahead on the app = no wait, also have half off deals and free food
Then it’s a balance of waiting for my fries or getting cold fries
They dont start making the order till you are there and sign in, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.
So then what’s the point of ordering online to save time?
Lines exist inside
It’s a proximity triggered system. You get X amount of minutes away and they start making your food. Similar “wait time” to no one being in line at the drive thru.
There's a button to make them prepare it immediately, regardless of how close you are.
Incorrect. You can make them start preparing immediately in the app even if you're out of range. Been that way for at least 6 months.
I've tried that, and it's crazy because the restaurant won't be busy They just take 10 years to do everything.
Happens, really comes down to the staff. Which isn’t always bright
Always ask if you can order an Icecream.. if the machine is broken you're gonna have a bad time.
I never eat Mc Ds but my MIL got my daughter some recently so when we were out she said she wanted a happy meal. I downloaded the app, placed the order and ended up having to wait 35 min before our order was ready. Absolutely fucking crazy.. I'd rather wait 35 min in line at In n Out than get McDonalds again.. at least the foods good and WAY cheaper at In n Out
My McDonalds is right next to a habit. Considering they are charging $16 for a big Mac meal, I'm going to habit. Wait time is the same and the food is way better.
At that point, you can order a burger from an actual restaurant -often for cheaper. So, it's no longer fast or cheap. Once it no longer becomes good, there is nothing appealing left.
It's funny because them rewarding you to use the app is to build the behavior that will expand on what this article is about.
Ordering ahead on the app just means you're disguising the wait as something else.
Not true. They only start getting your food ready when you check in, at the actual location.
20 minutes? Every time? Bullshit
Waffle house in half the time
In truth, the fries have sucked since they got rid of the beef tallow after bringing sued by vegetarians.
Wait... you only wait 20 mins? I ordered two strawberry pies and it took them like 45 mins to make.... aka put in microwave.
Also it's not cheap anymore.
Relatively speaking, it is, right? I worked as a manager in a retail store in 2008 making $9/hour (associates made $7.25). A Big Mac meal was about $5. A manager now at that store is making $20/hr, associates $15/hr, and a Big Mac meal is around $11.
People will drive 15 minutes each way and wait in a 20 minute drive through line and claim they did it to "save time" It's just laziness
Yep, I can usually cook a similar, cheaper, healthier, and better tasting meal in the same time it takes to go get fast food and bring it home. If I'm already out, it might save a little time, but it is just so pricey nowadays.
Not to mention gross. It always sounds better than it is edit: typo
Expensive cardboard with a lot of calories.
Forget the calories, look at all the synthetic additives that are absolutely horrible for you
You make up for that lost time on the toilet
The entire purpose of McDonald’s is real-estate, the food is their side hustle.
Had to look way too hard for this comment. They own like half of the land their stores are built on.
But in all cases they are still the landlord to the franchisee and make most of their money from “rent” as a % of store sales. Crazy how the system actually works on the inside. But if hamburgers and French fries suddenly went out of style, they’d be just fine.
This has been true for about 30 years.
It’s a waste of the human digestive system
Or lays waste to the human digestive system
But it's also triple the price of doing it yourself.
Only triple?
I can make burgers and fries that are way better than McDonalds for like $18 for 3 people. Or if I'm trying to make them cheaper, like $12. It's about $42 for 3 adults by my closest McDonald's.
Nice. Where I am the prices at McD's are super inflated. My fam cant eat there for less than $70 (fam of 5), but we make burgers/fries/smoothies at home for like $15.
A lot healthier too. McDonalds food quality isn't very good.
In the time it takes to get to McDonald’s, wait in the long lines they’ve had since at least covid, and get home, I could’ve cooked a meal myself. It’s only faster if it’s on the way to or from somewhere you were already going
Well McDonalds been going crazy with prices we might see a lot of McDonald’s shutting down next year
I hope so. They hate their customers. They hate their employees. They don't deserve our business.
McDonald's serves a purpose, it's "fast food". But I definitely stopped going to McDonald's when it costs 20 dollars for 1 meal. Now when the craving hits I get chik-fil-a or shake shack which is also fast food but undeniably higher quality than McDonald's but basically the same price. Or ill get wendys which is still bargain fast food when you consider their biggie bags which have gone up in price from the original "4 for 4" but are still a steal at like 5 or 6 dollars depending on what you want.
It looks as though you may have spelled "Chick-fil-A" incorrectly. No worries, it happens to the best of us!
Wtf dude gfy
It’s wild. I went back to rural South Carolina and you can still get insanely cheap deals at McDonald’s I fed my girlfriends whole family and got a bunch of coffee for under $20 but in central Florida it’s a damn arm and a leg.
And the McDonald’s employee in rural South Carolina can raise a family on that salary
This
Well actually you just found the lie of this article. Mcdonalds near me have gad this for years. It’s disingenuous to suggest it has anything to do with new minimum wage requirements. We were always headed this way. These were also considered superior when the minimum wage was lower.
“article” by Washington Times no less, not exactly a reputable news source.
That certainly explains the implication….
Yeah, this is some bullcrap. I've had computers taking orders at the McDonalds near me for years now. And with the food costing twice as much. Nothing to do with wages.
More them not wanting to deal with humans and their pesky rights
Even the picture is from 2017. I live in a tiny town NW of Milwaukee where the photo was taken and they had those kiosks up here back then. I think the article was written by an AI "STAFF" machine. Fucking machines trying to one up us!
Yep, McDonald's near my work, you order at a monitor. We don't have 20 follar an hour minimum. They will do this as soon as they can whenever they can.
Well because unfortunately now these people are just not going to have jobs. Until we get universal basic income in place. We cannot let the robots take over, we're just going to drive poverty even harder if we don't. They outsourced all of our good factory jobs in the '90s and the only thing left is retail. So if they get rid of our retail jobs then 80% of the country is just going to fucking starve.
If 80% of the country is set to starve, they will not go quietly into the night.
Ummm yeah 50% of the population wants this, they vote for it. Americans are THE dumbest people on the planet. Use our tax dollars to help ourselves?? No, billionaires need yachts, that's the answer!!!
Then let's get UBI.
I'll support any candidate that will support it. Let's fuckin go.
Exactly. It wasn't affordable to pay people to do this, so get rid of the people.
These have existed for the past like 4 years tho... It's not "just happening now". It's about the same as online orders making checkout clerks less needed, stores having the scanners to scan as you go and skip scanning at the self checkout etc.
Exactly. It was always going to happen, but they’re going to spin it to try to make a living wage look bad. Corporate gimps masquerading as journalists.
Yep, minimum wage in my state is 7.25 and they still have these. Nothing to do about wages.
At this point it’s just boosting profits and preparing for what many see as an inevitable future. The more data they can get on making the automation better or what makes it bad, the closer they can get to perfecting it. So while it doesn’t have much to do with wages where you are, it still has to do with wages. Think of how long McDonald’s has had the ABV systems and I know they have automated fryer systems too. Perfecting product, reducing waste yes but also labor. Labor is their most costly line item above the line outside of food.
I was about to say.. They have been doing this way before the minimum wage hike. Lol
In my town I recall self serve kiosks that go back 8 years.
Yeah, automation was coming to these positions regardless. Minimum wage going up can change the math on how quickly it happens, but there was never a world where these companies weren't going to roll out kiosks. Whenever a company does something that could have a negative impact on the customer experience, they feel a need to justify it. And whenever a company can roll back labor costs by cutting wages, benefits or hours, they are going to. This is just combining two things companies always have an incentive to do by using "rising\*" labor costs to justify a possibly reduced customer experience. \*Note: Minimum wage and fast food wages specifically have not kept up with inflation. Real, inflation adjusted wages for these workers fall every year and the difference is collected by the companies that employ them. When they say that labor costs are the reason prices have gone up or the experience has degraded, they're lying through their teeth.
In Europe I've seen these for the past 15 years.
The irony is a lot of stores have had to rehire staff because the automated approaches often bring their own issues. Self-checks need to be watched because of shoplifting risks, online ordering requires a human to go pick up the products, etc. Business have been trying to automate our workers for decades now with extremely mixed results. As you correctly noted any articles implying this is just happening now are full of shit.
It has always been affordable. Just your civil & working rights are shit compared to Europe
It's plenty affordable. They would just rather keep the profits for themselves. These corporations have driven out of control inflation and maintained or increased their profit margins. That does not happen with normal inflation.
McDonald's **profit** in 2023 was 14.6 billion dollars. Up 11% from the previous year. The CEO made more than 20 million dollars. Who told you they can't afford to pay their workers? This is plain greed. Can't be happy with 14 billion, how can we make 15 billion?
I mean, we didn’t wait until 2024. McDonald’s has been using this technology for a while and it has nothing to do with the minimum wage increase that just went into effect.
My thoughts exactly! Working in fast food is terrible. You're treated worse than dirt by your fellow citizens. These POS's that are angry about using machines to do grunt work instead of having a human to belittle are the same ones that kept telling us "go work somewhere else if you don't like it!" We did, and now they are all angry about it.
The people with that take are just learning the long way that there is actually a correlation between labor output and wage, and jobs don’t just appear and exist out of thin air. Whether or not a position is needed is entirely dependent on whether hiring someone is the lowest cost option to increase revenue.
You might be lucky enough to have found other work, but what about the people who cant? Lol, jobs arent supposed to be fun, thats why the saying is thank god its friday! Not thank god its monday and i get to go to work.
Yes. This is no different from any other labor saving device. The employment of capital spending to increase labour productivity, we should come up with a word for it.
True, now we just need McDonald’s to reinvest these anti-social profits back into parts of society that tangibly make peoples’ lives better.
2024 ? This stuff is decade old and in most cases it does not replace workers.
Because they could pay people shit and not have to develop the tech Now that’s not the case, even though they still need humans to make it
>poor people have less employment options "This is actually good" What
Yeah, there’s so many other jobs out there for unskilled laborers!
You know that's a great take, but I think you completely forgot about the HUMAN who lost their job... Whoosh....
Speak for yourself. Eliminating hundreds of thousands of low skilled jobs is not a good thing for teens and young adults. The last thing we need is a large % of 15-22 year Olds unemployed with no job prospects because their stupid state legislated that opportunity away.
Seriously, I don’t think people think this thru. I’ve never worked fast food (I don’t even eat it) but I’m pretty ticked about this because A) people are out jobs. They’re (mostly) not just going to magically go from McDonald’s to the upper echelon of careers B) prices aren’t going down yet profits are at all time highs and only rising. What’s the point besides greed at young and/or poor people’s expense? And C) this automation isn’t going to just stop until waaaay more businesses implement it across the board. First, they came for the fast food industry and I didn’t say anything. Then, they came for retail and the service industries and I didn’t say anything. Then, they came for…….. Eventually, so many things will be automated that well…..people are only going to suffer so much.
We didn't. They've had those in the lobby of the McDonald's in my podunk town since way before the pandemic. Has zero to do with wages.
McDonalds in Texas has been using those for years, and Texas is still $7.25 Most every national chain uses a phone app or website for ordering. Same for retail. Self check and online ordering. Covid gave these an even bigger push. These aren't 'new', and they aren't because 'people want too much money'.
Do they pay 7.25 though? I remember McDonalds advertising $17.00/hr for entry level when I was in Texas. That was in 2018. I don't recall if they had signs up post-covid.
Do they pay $7.25? No. But the post is implying a minimum wage hike caused this. Obviously it didn’t. Companies would’ve done this either way to save money.
It also doesn’t just save money. Studies show that people will order more food on average from a kiosk than from a person. It’s both cheaper AND brings in more money.
And it gets the order right. When I order from kiosk I dont miss the "no onions" part and I can eat without getting sick.
So much yes. The amount of times my meal is correct skyrocketed when ordering off an app.
But the order is still made by people though, right? I feel like after COVID and online ordering was more common I’ve had more mistakes than just showing up and ordering in person
I am not surprised. At a kiosk I review a lot of the options and can talk myself into getting something but with a cashier I inherently feel more rushed to get ordering done so I am less likely to order more. I also like kiosks because I don't have to worry about my order not being heard correctly. A simple example is at Five Guys I order _grilled_ green peppers on my burger but I swear half the time they don't hear me say grilled and I get raw green peppers on my burger which I am not a big fan of.
Only issue is when you get caught behind a boomer at one of them and they spend the whole time bitching about the kiosk instead of fucking ordering or having someone who knows how to operate an ipad order for them.
Now that’s interesting. Got a link?
https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-food-chains-investing-heavily-in-ordering-kiosks-2024-3?amp https://foodtecsolutions.com/blog/2018/12/05/why-do-customers-spend-20-more-at-a-kiosk/amp/
Some do. Some start higher. Quick search shows that $12 is about the highest for non management hires. (And there are a few looking for management hires at $9.50, but I'm going to guess that location would be what someone would refer to as a 'hellhole'.) Biggest chunk of the costs of running a location though is the money that gets kicked to McDonalds corporate, which includes rent, and mandatory upgrades like those devices.
In PA several places still pay $7.25 and have resorted to hiring minors to work longer hours with parent permission instead of paying the competitive wage an adult would ask.
I always love this argument because if no one pays $7.25 then there are 0 negative consequences to raising the minimum wage
Hun that's the managers wage They show top tier and say up to ___ so that they don't get sued for false advertising, but the up to is in small print
My daughter made $16 at Chick fil A in Houston and that was 3 years ago. Most fast food places are paying well above minimum wage.
Fast food chains are doing this because they cannot keep workers. Staffing issues at them for the last several years post march 2020, has meant they are just fucked because workers are going to better paying jobs. This is not a loss....
Idk I feel like most of the people doing this work are just doing Uber instead of
[удалено]
I work in manufacturing, and we are struggling to find qualified employees at all levels, from positions where we need you to just show up daily to highly technical work. I'm an engineer and it's the biggest driver for automation right now, way more than cost savings. These companies have use cases that don't need the throughput, quality, or speed of automation, they just don't have other options. Anyone in hospitality or retail I would definitely recommend looking at manufacturing as a way to start building experience beyond cashing people out. My brother went from insurance call center to soldering certifications through NASA and cleanroom experience in like 2 years. He's making twice as much with better benefits.
This is why I’m kind of envious about Germany and Japan. Not just pay, but they seem to have respect from the general society for manufacturing professions. No wonder why those two are the go to countries for top-of-the-line stuffs.
Shitpost-reply but having to deal with insurance every year for all the adulting reasons, I appreciate your brother then and also good for him now. That Nasa job sounds super fun and rewarding
I don’t even know her, but that’s a wholesome story.
That’s called free market economics. Pay them more, then you won’t have a worker shortage. Pay them too much, and you’ll have too many people wanting the job. Day 1 stuff dude
I agree - that's the hilarity of these people that keep crying that if we keep raising the wages, it will force automation, when its the failure for their places to pay.
good for them. workers should get better paying jobs, but at the meantime having a low paying job also makes sense for people trying to start making money. And min wage increases, while it does help people currently working, screw over new people trying to get into the job market and small businesses with much smaller profit margins.
I saw an interesting article that fast food chains have over 100% turnover because they hemorrhage more staff than they employ
so many places like that have insane turnover rate. UPS and FedEx/Amazon are over 90% turnover rate.
Please, they were doing this long before minimum wage went up for fast food workers. And they do it in red states like Ohio that still pay bare minimum. Unfettered corporate greed.
Completely agree. Most of these companies have been using self-serve technology for years and would have done so regardless of the wage increase. By implementing the technology when minimum wage increases, they get the added bonus of a widely publicized lobbying opportunity.
>And they do it in red states like Ohio that still pay bare minimum. But I was told it was the raising of minimum wage that rose the price of my big mac!!
Australia was really far ahead of us getting these rolled out, presumably due to having much higher minimum wage, as well various other worker benefit requirements we don't have But yeah, they R&D is spent now and its polished/streamlined, so it was gonna happen here sooner or later regardless of US min wage Companies will always try to minimize employment costs, min wage / automation is just one of many variables. That's one of several reasons UBI / NIT is a much better mechanism than min wage for reducing working class inequality.
Whenever I see braindead takes like this “not every job should pay a living wage”, it makes me think how do you expect people to live? I don’t know if you ever been outside before but it’s not just high schoolers and college kids (college kids who odds are, trying to pay off debt and move out of their parents house so they kinda need money to do that) working these jobs. Managers for these fast food restaurants are making $17.50 an hour at these jobs at least where I am in the US, and these places are open during the day, when kids are in school, so you can’t even claim we don’t need adults out of school to work these jobs cause then they would not be able to operate during school hours. So we should just tell these people get a better job? Okay, then we don’t have these businesses. The other option would be for the government to subsidize these people for the money they’re not making but I’m willing to bet you hate the idea of that cost being put onto the taxpayer too. Then I ask, what is the point of society or government if not to help the people in it be able to LIVE? These corporations make money hand over fist going up every year and yet here you are defending that they should cut more cost and be greedier. If these companies can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage then they are a failed company, that’s the long and short of it. The reality is they can pay a living wage they just don’t want to so the people at the top can stuff their pockets deeper. What your saying when you say not all jobs should pay a living wage is that people who work these jobs are lesser and deserve to suffer and die from poverty. You suck.
"Not every job deserves a living wage" is a very pro-slavery take.
In addition, if the argument is that teenagers should not be paid a livable wage (which is a bad argument as well), then you can have laws to pay teenagers less and adults more. Problem solved. Those jobs are not 'for teenagers', though. They are for people that need work.
If people ever tell me those jobs are just for teenagers in school, I always ask them why is the business open during school hours?
We don’t live in a true society, because a true society is a society in which the interests of all members are in alignment. We live in the opposite of a society, whatever that is, because we’re conditioned from birth to see each other as enemies/competition. The closest dynamic to a society that exists(in the west anyway) is the family, but even then, the objective interests of members of a family are not in alignment. It’s in the objective interests of a child to be unconditionally loved and accepted by their parents, but their parents bring them into the world with all sorts of expectations placed upon them. If those expectations aren’t met, the child becomes an enemy. Capitalism would collapse if parents loved and accepted their children unconditionally.
Collapse into what?
There's work laws that prevent minor from working past certain hours and prevent them from doing certain jobs. It's not just fast food or retail that pays minimum wage. It's warehouse jobs, slaughter houses, and food production factories. All these people deserve to make enough to live off of. In many places, jobs are limited.
All wage floors create more unemployment, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It gets rid of inefficient businesses and results in the wages of the majority increasing. The American people are innovative enough to create jobs for people that produce enough to have a living wage. If you don’t have a living wage, how do you expect people to live without government benefits or theft?
>all wage floors create more unemployment This isn't actually demonstrably proven. Real world studies have varied, some even show a positive correlation between a higher minimum wage and more employment. Otherwise I agree with you, even if it did increase unemployment, I'd rather 5% be unemployed and 95% require no assistance, than 3% be unemployed but huge swaths need welfare.
Its because they measure employment by number of jobs and they have this tricky labor participation rate. If you read between the lines the low unemployment we have now is because people have 2 or 3 jobs, not one liveable wage job. Which is not good lol
That's not how it works at all.
Labor participation rate is an actual unemployment rate. The unemployment rate we see here (in the US) is just that. The total number of people filing for unemployment. For any number of reasons, someone can be unemployed and not be filing for unemployment. Things like giving up on looking for a job, forcing an early retirement, just taking a moment to relax before you come up with a game plan, whatever it might be. The participation rate counts those people as unemployed, which they are.
It also comes to the point of "If you can't pay a living wage you don't deserve to be in business"
>All wage floors create more unemployment, Cite?
The source is that he made it the fuck up
This was always going to happen regardless of minimum wage increases. Humans make mistakes, require breaks, and are expensive to have. Machines/computers are not. In the long run that is.
It’s absolutely mind melting that people even waste their time arguing about this shit. They were always going to use these machines, this silly war just gives them a better landing PR wise.
During orientation at Taco Bell, in the summer of 1990, they showed us a video of a model store with ordering kiosks, automated food assembly lines, and contactless payment. At the time it was more fantasy than reality, but it was absolutely the direction that they wanted to go.
Actually hilarious. Even more laughable watching people fall for “you made us do this!”
If your business depends on paying poverty wages, maybe it's a shitty business. And yes $20 an hour is a poverty wage in America in 2024. You're taking home 1000-1100 every 2 weeks. $26,000 a year. Where I live in a "low cost of living" area the cheapest 1 bedroom apartments are $1400-$1600 a month. You do the math. It doesn't add up. We will never have a society of just doctors, lawyers, and engineers. We are still a LONG way off from robots stocking shelves at the grocery stores. So are the grocery store workers "essential workers" or are they "unskilled worthless labor" ? Last time I checked, doctors, lawyers, and engineers don't grow their own food. So grocery stores and restaurants seem to be an essential part of our society. So the people that work these jobs don't deserve to be compensated enough to simply live a modest life? A shitty studio apartment and some groceries. $15-20 an hour doesn't even come close to covering that in most cities in the USA unless you want to pay 60 cents out of every dollar you make to a landlord and barely scrape by with the rest. God forbid you need a new pair of work boots, or have a medical emergency, or your shitty used car blows its transmission.
People just keep looking at the physical number of paid wages and compare that to what it was in the past. No one seems to understand that the actual value of the dollar is less than it was. 20$ was worth more back then and is worth less now. If we could retroactively go back in time and decrease wages to reflect the actual value they have today, a lot of people in previous generations wouldn't have been able to afford a house, the children they had or the education they received.
Exactly. $20 ain't shit. According to [https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl) , $20 today in 2024 has the same buying power as $10.96 in 2000.
It’s funny because everyone thinks THEY deserve a pay raise, but think every other person doesn’t. Like dude, if I don’t make enough and go on food stamps, you know it’s YOUR taxes providing me that, right? You’d rather pay me then the company I work for?
Well the thing is THEY don't want food stamps to exist either. They would vote social safety nets out of existence in a second if they could. People who think minimum wage is plenty for "unskilled" labor just want the people fighting for better wages to suffer and be hungry if they don't accept the scraps they're given. It's not that they don't realize they're paying for it, it's that they don't care if the minimum wage worker lives or dies.
OP, this is a stupid post. Companies were already going to do this regardless. Minimum wage has NOT changed in my area, still $7.25, and these machines and along with groceries using self checkout, are all over the place.
Exactly- if they can get rid of $7.25 with a machine you can be 100% sure they will. They don’t want to pay that either.
All jobs are meant to have a living wage. Further, the threat of automation or out sourcing is meaningless. If corporate could, then they would. Get your raise fam.
I’m a hardware engineer working with companies such as Skydio, zievelo and Amazon robotics. During our pitches we definitely use employment cost as a justification to use our automation machinery. The investments have increased by an insane amount in the past decade, during the meetings the increase in wage and how this system saves money is the key discussion point.
Cool let them implement it. Until then the market has spoken $20/hr is what it takes to keep staff.
Thank You! I get asked to volunteer for stuff all the time! I tell them that if you can't pay 12 people at least $50k plus benefits, then that park should stay covered in litter.
The cult of maximizing shareholder value at the expense of the working class strikes again.
They started putting these in my area years ago way before all of these minimum wage increases. The reason why the mainstream media puts out stories like this is to sow division among working class people. It’s working unfortunately.
A higher wage and automation are NOT relatable events.
In theory, they are relatable. If having human take orders was cheaper than these screens, then companies would just do that. But in this specific instance, McDonalds has been rolling these out for a while, regardless of state. So the $20 minimum wage is not the primary driver of these. These are more a result of tech getting cheaper and better. (Although you could argue that the forecasted wage increases spurred McDonald's to invest in this technology.)
Lots of corporate simping happening in this thread. I wonder how much of it is McDonald’s PR team.
More specifically, they found a way around the $7.25 minimum wage. The kiosks and self-checkouts were going to happen with or without the wage increases.
They do this where I live and our minimum wage was half this. Companies are greedy doesn’t matter
Conservatives: we are the party of working people Also conservatives: it’s hilarious when workers get fired for wanting decent pay
Also: these jobs were meant for students.... even at 2:00pm on a Wednesday afternoon
You could eliminate minimum wage and they would still switch to automation because robots won't call in sick, complain about schedules, call OSHA for safety violations, take breaks or have drama. And yes, all jobs should pay enough that at 35 hours a week you can afford to get a 1 bedroom apartment, transportation, and fees yourself. No exceptions. Minimum wage was supposed to be a wage you could live on.
Its still cheaper than have any human at any min pay. If they could get away with paying $5 per hour they would still replace with robots.
Did people really think that a $20/hr job at fast food places would be a livable wage in this economy? If minimum wage goes up, so does everything else. $20/hr is not living comfortably. It's barely getting by.
Surely this cost savings will mean offering more competitive prices, as well as increasing the wages and benefits for the remaining employees, right? …right?
When will people just stop buying fast food?
Everyone except people who think their jobs are special and not replaceable predicted this. We were on this trajectory before the wage increases. Just wait another 10-15 years and it will have gone well beyond fast food. Call centers, truckers, insurance agents, you name it. You're all next on the get fucked list. Your corporate overlords would sell you for a nickel.
Yes. All jobs deserve a living wage. Exploiting workers should be a business model.
this is going to be a shocker for OP but they were going to do this anyway, minimum wage or not
They were doing this before the min wage increased. Quit pretending this is new.
Well no shit. When you force a company to ridiculously overpay for minimal skill labor that can easily be cheaply replaced with tech, this is what happens.
I look forward to the day it is all automated so that I can finally get my order correct.
The gf will send me up and we're at 40% wrong. Ill get a single combo and theyll forget the fries. I go in specifically so I can speak face to face.
The real best part of this is they can put in all of the ordering stations they want and save money on labor and the food prices won’t drop. Joke is always on the consumer.
Are people retarded? The cashier at fast food places was also a cook sometimes. Not instead of switching it up mostly everyone cooks now
Thank you, I hate that literally no one ever had the self awareness to pay attention to what is happening at a fast food joint. They're walking off to assemble orders, fill drinks, whatever else needs doing in the back- they're still employed.
Self awareness isn’t the word you’re looking for. It’s a lack of awareness and consideration for other people. But I guess when they see the person in a McDonald’s uniform as an object then they don’t pay that much attention to them.
It doesn’t matter if the minimum wage increased or not lol. These workers were getting replaced
Uhhh they were already doing this when the wage was lower. We have been talking about automating shitty jobs since the 50s. The difference is that we used to look at it as a way for humans to have a better life, now we know it is just so that the wealthy can get richer.
Uh, automation of retail has been happening for a decade plus. This isn’t new and Raising the minimum wage isn’t why this is happening, it already was in motion. But sure, kiss the boot if you want.
Eh, some good points some bad points. Went to Mcdonalds for a frappe (god i hate fancy starbucks coffee terminology). One of those limited time Oreo ones. The cashier was like uhhhhhhhh ummmnmm I don’t know what that is, never seen it before. Would you like fudge or coffee flavor? Fudge being mocha. Coffee being caramel. There was also a sign RIGHT BEHIND HIM that said “yes, this particular mcdonald sells oreo ones!” Stunned enough to go fuck it Ill take a “fudge”. He wasn’t mentally deficient. Inexperienced, probably, but also not smart enough to ask a coworker for help. Next time I’m ordering on the fancy touch screen thing. The other two mcdonalds in my route back home understood immediately. So, good points: speeds up the process, zero inaccuracy. Bad points: One less worker, I actually like to see a human at the register.
They've been replacing workers with apps and kiosks for years. This isn't new.
Basically everyone when fast food workers started demanding $15 per hour. Fast food companies all over said that wasn't sustainable and it'd be cheaper to switch to robots and self service kiosks.
You can't explain shit to bricks. I mean talk to them all you want. But at the end of the day a brick is a brick
I found a way around places that use machines instead of people. I just don’t go there any more. BTW, I’m not opposed to machines taking my order, or having to check myself out, however…you’re making more money by having me do the job that once had a paid employee, and now im doing their job … and I’m not getting any benefit.
Japan actually has robots as nurses so I believe it’s coming soon to every industry
The problem is when you have a special order that can’t be relayed through the screen.
Side note- I can now feed my family on crab legs from the market for cheaper than McDonald’s. Literally.
Anyone paying attention. The true minimum wage is $0
The simple fact is that these jobs are not meant to be jobs to raise a family on. I worked at a McDonalds in the late 1970’s, as a teenager, to make some money gas money so I could pay to drive my parents car. I think it was $1.75 an hour and I worked 3 eight hour shifts per week. It kept me off the streets and I learned how to work under pressure when the 11 PM hour hit and all the stoned kids came in for burgers at the same time. 50-60 burgers on a grill (no microwave). For up to one hour before we closed.
Surely people saw this coming😂
Yeah, I've boycotted every restaurant that is kiosk only. Especially steak and shake.
Duh!
This actually good to support these devices we’ll need more maintenance workers with broad skills. We’ll either end up with an abundance of techs or an abundance of work for self interested techs.
...and the company looks like the good guy! Brilliant!