All the McD*nalds in my area have been upgraded with order kiosks. Regardless of all the controversy around self-checkout, and minimum wage, and automation taking our jobs, I personally love them. I can take my sweet time composing my order, I can see the full selection (such as it is), I can see pictures and prices clearly without having to strain my eyes to read 12pt font on the tableau, and I don’t have to shout at the cashier to be understood or struggle to hear back. I really believe this is the right way forward.
My only complaint so far has been that the order kiosks only accept card. There is actually a way to pay by cash that the machine never lets you know about - you have to press “cancel” on the keypad when it asks to insert card, and then the screen gives you an order number to give to the human cashier (each store still has one register open) so you can pay in cash. So I still have to wait on line, but at least my order selection is locked in, I can have exact change ready, and there isn’t usually a line anyway anymore.
I know all yall Europeans are proud about your nearly total transition to cashless economy or whatever, and you like to boast how not a single euro banknote has graced the inside of your wallet in months. However I personally like cash, and I genuinely believe that a cash payment system is a necessary element of a liberal democracy and secure society. So at least understand my pleasant surprise when I saw these reverse-ATM cashboxes at this restaurant. They work and were being actively used too! (It spat out my dollar coins though, those bastards!) I hope they find their way into more places.
In a just society these would be allowed to relieve all cashiers from their positions to pursue their passions.
But we must slave away to justify our existence because a few rich fucks don’t want to share and established that mindset as the cornerstone of society.
I just wanted to wail into the void about automation and how our loves could be so much better if people would just lose the chains already.
Yup yup! In a just world, if you have 100,000 workers at a factory, and then they get replaced by robots maintained by 1000 robot technicians, you should have ended up with a Star Trek utopia where 99,000 people now don’t have to work and can pursue culture and passions. In the real world, the factory product price gets halved, the technicians get paid 10x what a worker used to get (20% of total revenue), and the factory owner gets 80% of total. The former workers are now jobless, homeless, and penniless and can’t afford the product they used to make.
They tell us “Replacing jobs is OK! We’ll invent more new kinds of jobs, as old obsolete jobs free up labor. Everyone will be better off!” but the new jobs are mostly “telemarketer”, and “tech support scammer”, and “ornamental hermit” at factory owner’s mansion.
But all that still doesn’t convince me we should be smashing the robots as a job protection scheme. I wish there was a way to keep the automation and have the Star Trek utopia instead!
I miss the early days of the internet when I was dreaming of gay luxury space communism.
I’m thinking of printing some calling cards with the title of Ornamental Hermit.
Or does one just put up a sign?
Out of all the positions at fast food restaurants, cashier seems to most appealing to me.
Enjoy!
https://www.delish.com/food-news/a25337533/mcdonalds-touchscreen-fecal-bacteria/
Test Finds McDonald’s Touchscreens Are Covered in Fecal Bacteria
https://www.fatherly.com/news/study-fecal-bacteria-mcdonalds-touchscreen
Etc
Welcome to pretty much every public surface.
Now let me tell you how many of the guys at your business meeting today washed their hands between their last toilet use and shaking your hand.
So underpaid and overworked entry level laborers aren’t cleaning them to sterile perfection. Oh no. Shocker
Counter point: if the screen is covered, what makes you think the door handle those same hands are touching is sanitary? What about the table and chair you’re sitting at? Other people sit there too, do you really think those tables are getting wiped down after every single patron leaves?
This is why we wash our hands before we eat.
Your mom is covered in fecal bacteria.
I occasionally deliberately put a capsule filled with fecal bacteria in my mouth and swallow it and it makes my pooping better.
You’re going to eat McDonalds food.
12 pt font on the tableau
Just putting it out there fast food everywhere that have overhead menu screens seem to LOVE to keep swapping the displayed items, or cover up half the screen with random seasonal product ads which makes this problem 10x worse.
I like the order kiosks when they run fast and are no bullshit steps to order. A Costco hotdog I can order in 2 quick taps and one more with my card. Others are more annoying for one reason or another, some to the point where I’d rather someone do the cashier work for me.
Yeah, the Costco food kiosks are the gold standard. One screen with all items, big buttons, responsive, and obvious checkout process. I can literally order for the family in under thirty seconds with the receipt in hand. It’s like magic.
Yeah, I’m in the drive thru and about to order when suddenly the list of items is replaced by a fucking ad. I’m already here and ordering, calm down with the fucking marketing.
I’m living in Europe now and would like to share my experience with this:
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When you proceed to pay, the machines here have 2 options side by side on the screen for you to select how you want to pay - cash at the counter or card at the machine. So I’m quite surprised that your machines work differently
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Quite a few European countries actually still rely heavily on cash to the point of cash-only for a lot of shops, for example in Germany and Italy
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Besides your list, one other advantage I found was being able to order overseas when the locals didn’t speak English at all and I couldn’t read the menu. In Norway, there’s an option to select English or Norsk. In Poland where I went, there wasn’t a choice but it didn’t matter because the menu is mostly universal so the pictures were sufficient
machines here have 2 options side by side on the screen for you to select how you want to pay - cash at the counter or card at the machine
Good to know, thanks! It used to be this way here too, but they stopped displaying the “cash at counter” option on the screen entirely after one of the interface redesigns. What they really want to force you to do is use the app all the time, so they can have better tracking and would have no need for cashiers OR kiosks.
I’ve helped people order at various restaurants here in Japan before, and the kiosks definitely help in cases where people need to customize to avoid certain foods, etc. which are often hard when neither party speaks the same language.
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I know all yall Europeans are proud about your nearly total transition to cashless economy or whatever, and you like to boast how not a single euro banknote has graced the inside of your wallet in months.
Tell me you’ve never been to Germany without telling me you’ve never been to Germany
Yeah, very odd assumption that one.
I’ve seen that on Lemmy many times. “I’m in Europe and we only have tap to pay and contactless pay and psychic powers to pay and it’s been that way for the last 700 years.”
We had a storm recently that caused power and Internet outages across our city for about a week. Many businesses opened up with no power and just accepted cash while writing down sales with a pen and paper. If you didn’t have cash on you, you were screwed. None of the ATMs worked. Nobody’s credit card machines worked. The banks didn’t have power, so they were closed. Going cashless leaves you in a heap of trouble in an emergency.
Only in a society that requires cash. They could have just handed people a meal when the walked up and asked for one. there would be no difference except a few executives don’t get their cut.
I always carry cash, probably around $100. Not enough that it would be a problem if I got mugged but plenty if I hit a point where I need something essential (food/fuel) to get home or something. I also keep a $20 in the car for fuel if I somehow forget my wallet and run low.
Granted, I only ever use it in a pinch, might as well get the rewards on my credit card instead. But I do on occasion hit a restaurant/store where their internet is down and it’s cash-only.
In Canada less just over a year ago one major telecom provider’s network went down completely for a couple days… a bunch of businesses couldn’t accept debit or credit, ATMs stopped working, at some places but others running on competitor networks were working. It was still a big annoyance and people got nothing except for sorry! and maybe 20 dollars from carrier at fault (Rogers)
I personally hate them for most of the same reasons that you like them.
First off they are slow to use. Part of that is because things are buried in menus, and part is from the annoying up-selling screens. Using them take 4-5 times longer in my experience. I don’t go there often enough to justify it.
Second, if you are paying cash, you still have to wait in line and see an actual human. Might as well just order with them.
Third, I am nearsighted but I have good glasses. The small font on the menu boards don’t bother me. I would rather see the entire thing while in line. Make my decision and order to a person.
All good points! When these kiosks started out, they were ridiculously laggy, way more than a simple GUI had any right to be, as if every tap and swipe had to be proxied through New Zealand. Thankfully the lag has been solved in one of the interface updates since.
The upsell spam is still annoying, but having used the interface a couple times I have become the Neo of offer dodging. *Tap tap tap* (No I don’t want to log in. Yes I am sure I don’t want to log in. No, I don’t want to make it a meal. No I don’t want to add a soda or side of nuggets. Checkout. Cancel payment. Done!) Would be better without, but currently manageable. As others have mentioned, they already managed to fuck up the tableau screens above the counter by having the images move around, so that if you want to know how much a medium fry would cost you have to wait through 30 seconds of slideshow first, and then not miss the 2 seconds that the price is actually on screen. The kiosk is actually the winner for me here.
The waiting in line to pay cash was my last problem, which is why I got excited to see these automatic cashboxes installed. Money goes in, food comes out.
When I was traveling in South Korea they had these at some counter service and fast food restaurants. Since often people didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Korean they were immensely helpful. They had several languages and settings that made ordering so much easier. From an accessibility standpoint they are awesome.
Haha, you eat at McDonalds!
Honestly, I feel like it gets an unfairly bad rap. Their fries are super good imo. I can get 20 chicken nuggets and a large fries, which feeds me for 2 meals, for $7. It’s really hard to beat that.
It’s not great food, but it’s cheap AF, it’s really fast, and I think it’s not as bad as people act like it is.
McDonalds was good, for is price, when they had a dollar menu meal. And value menu items were 2(ish) to 3(ish) dollars.
It’s certainly not as bad as people make it out to be, but give me Wendy’s any day over McDonald’s. This is obviously subjective but I like Wendy’s fries and chicken FAR better than McDonald’s. That said, there is something about McDonald’s breakfast (especially those hash browns).
A&W has pretty good breakfast, too. They don’t have the burritos but their sandwiches and hash browns are great. Good for dinner, too. I go back and forth between A&W and Wendy’s. Arby’s would be on that list, too, if it wasn’t so far.
This is America, pal. We don’t have your weird Canadian fast food restaurants. What’s next, telling us to fill up at the Esso station? Bah.
Shhh, don’t tell them!
McDonalds ketchup contains heroin.
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I actually am on the opposite end of the spectrum, I think cash is pointless, it’s less secure, less authentic and prone to issues. Just make the swap to digital or cards, most checking or savings accounts are 100% free, there’s better protections involved, you don’t need to worry about breaking large bills, don’t need to worry about the shop not having change, easy to track as it’s super easy to just look at your transaction history. Balance is super simple, instead of needing to count the cash I can just pull up the account.
It’s just easier. I think cash should be optional for establishments, it’s better for everyone involved both consumer and business.
I’ve known these for about… 4 or 5 years? I guess. Not much of a fast food client.
But these work. These really work. Less hands on the front, less confusion to deal with, the order goes from the customer hands to the kitchen: if something goes wrong with it, you fumbled it. And with less hands on the front, more hands can be in the back, preparing the cholesterol bombs.
if something goes wrong with it, you fumbled it
You’re making the bold (and wrong) assumption that the people making the order are completely infallible…i still have to go back and get them to make my actual order quite often. As soon as you deviate from default, there’s a huge risk they mess up.
I’ve been ordering deviations of the standard menu since I was introduced to McD in my teens and ever since I started paying for my own food I don’t really order basic menus but instead mix and match to my wims for the moment. I’m weird.
Can not remember ever getting a wrong order but I’m also aware my local McD has less items on the menu than, per comparison, the one from the US market.
So, perhaps a combination of luck and good service on my part?
It really depends what you’re regularly ordering, how busy it is, what modifications you made, and location.
Like say, you wanted a quarter pounder but you wanted the dehydrated onions instead of slivered. Good chance that gets messed up. Ketchup no mustard (or vice versa), also a good chance it gets messed up (due to muscle memory).
What?!
We don’t get that here. Ketchup comes on packets on the side and your sandwhich either comes with or without sauce. No mustard.
Dehydrated onions sound nice but not in a McD.
Less choice, better service, I’ll risk.
What country? The more you say the less it sounds like you’re talking about an American McDonald’s.
Portugal, my good friend
If you’ve regularly had great experience… never ever have McD’s in the USA.
Dehydrated onions are the onions they use (at least in the US) for like cheeseburgers, hamburgers, and Big Macs.
They’re next. Soon enough you’ll walk into a fast food restaurant and the only employees will be a maintenance man and a janitor. Everything else will be automated.
I’ll bet this is why McDonald’s was fine with the $20 minimum wage increase in California. They’ll just use kiosks that smaller places can’t afford, to offset the new labor charges. But then smaller places won’t be able to appeal to employees, since they will be paying less than half of what the chains pay. The result will be fewer actual jobs available, more pressure on small burger joints to shut down, and few people actually benefitting from the new wages.
They’ve been the most vocal opponent to $15 minimum wage increase in New York, which I’ve always found odd, since they’d be the ones to most benefit from it via competitive advantage, as you said, due to economies of scale. They’ve been making threats the entire time “We’ll replace cashier with computers! If you raise the wage, we’ll totally do it, you’ll see!” and I’m like “Dude, if you had the capability to do it, you gonna do it either way anyway, why you extorting us?”
I guess the smaller competitor restaurants will need to get kiosks as well. They can’t develop their own in-house technology like the big chains do, but they can still purchase 3rd-party ready solutions, like all of them have already done with online ordering. Slightly more expensive to use 3rd party, but that’s economies of scale for ya.
This is going to sound like corporate shilling but the mcdonalds app is even better, it’s like your own personal ordering tablet that doesn’t have other people’s germs on it and you can even pre order and check in so they start preparing your food before you enter the building.
The rewards points are really generous too…
This is from a UK pov
Oh yeah, the app is probably even more convenient, especially with the pre-checkin, and the hygiene too, but there is no way I’m using that tracking bundle 😂. When I was born, nobody was counting how many burgers I was eating, and I’m not going to allow that to change. It’s a shame too because they hide all the actually good deals in the app, the ones that make eating there actually affordable, so I find myself not even going to eat there anymore. I feel like a rube paying the full price. Probably better for me in the long run anyway.
Is that because you’re worried about costs of health insurance if they figure out what you’re eating? 😂
Luckily we free health care
All these people saying they don’t use cash… do you never buy weed? Jeez.
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These reverse-ATM cashboxes Work really Well. I have Seen those in some grocery stores. At least in Germany you can actually choose to pay by card or by cash. If you choose to pay by cash you get your receipt and then pay by a cashier.
Last time I went to McDonald’s there was a mess up and I was given the cash difference, I really dunno when I’ll use it offhand. I’m also in Canada, never had a use for cash after recreational weed happened. Weird they make someone go through unknown keypressss to do cash, vending machines do cash why not just be convenient for customers? Oh right, paying people to deal with the cash, cause that’d hurt McDonald’s bottom line heh.
