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.
I wouldn’t call doing someone else’s job for free and upgrade.
Iceman as a job is now extinct thanks to freezer technology.
Lamplighters are obsolete thanks to electricity and lightbulb technology.
These are examples of forgotten jobs that used to exist, and noone bats an eye about them.
Jobs come, jobs go.
Those are both examples of improvements. Self-checkout is not an improvement, it’s outsourcing of work to customers.
That’s a good point. My examples are pretty bad in that regard, I admit. I would still argue that jobs do come and go though. We have many jobs today that didn’t exist 40 years ago.
About outsourcing work to costumers, I kindly disagree: I personally love self-checkout in my grocery store though. I see it as an improvement over standing in line, having to think which order to put stuff on the conveyor for optimal packaging (gotta put the heavy stuff first), still clogging up the conveyor after the cashier because you happen to have just enough bagspace, but only when you pack optimally, while 2 people look at you angrily because they now have to wait 5 seconds longer because your brain freezes over this stressful situation.
No, this didn’t happen everytime I went grocery shopping at a cashier. But enough to see self scanning as a way more relaxing time.
So for me, it’s not soing someones work, but rather that I, as the costumer, am in full control of the tempo and way I want to so things. But I understand not everyone feela the same way, and that’s ok.
There’s always a line for self-checkout now too though, and you still need to consider what to package first. Ultimately it’s down to personal preference. There are a lot of people on this platform with social anxiety who prefer self-checkout. Personally I hate it, and everything it represents, but I understand why some people prefer it. As an express lane it’s pretty okay, but self checkout for an entire cart of products is bullshit.
That… That’s a terrible comparison. Go home.
Sitting home comfortably, thank you!
They haven’t had dedicated cashiers for years. These allow them to spend more time making food and less time dealing with taking orders and handling cash. That’s it. If anything, it makes the employees’ jobs easier without eliminating positions. Speaking as someone who worked at a McDonald’s before that has had these kiosks for years now.
How can you be sure it doesn’t eliminate positions? Is there some rule that states “every franchise must be staffed by exactly 8 people at all times”? Seems more likely to me the schedules will be adjusted until every worker is still occupied 100% of the time.
I’d personally prefer to focus on making food too, but there could be others who actually prefer manning the register.
Did you miss the very first sentence of my comment? They haven’t had a dedicated cashier position for a long time. Until that kiosk can also make the food, nobody is losing their job to it.
You really don’t see the difference between 5 people working, spending 80% of time making food and 20% floating at register, versus 4 people working 100% making food serving the same total number of customers now that registers have been nearly entirely replaced by kiosks and apps?
No. Because not only do they hire the bare minimum for the restaurant already (which yes, actually there are rules for; they’re set by corporate), the kiosks aren’t the only way to order. You can still go up to the counter and get a real person to come off the line and take your order. Nobody is floating around the register at all until a customer comes up to it to make an order. Again, these simply stop the need for anyone to stop cooking or doing literally any other more time sensitive tasks and take an order.
I don’t see why you are being so stubborn about this. If you don’t like the numbers I gave you because “you can still go up to the counter and get a real person” it’s an easy adjustment to make that tells the same story: before kiosks = 5 people working 75% at food and 25% at register, after kiosks = 4 people working 95% at food 5% at register. The conclusion is the same - your claim that automation does not eliminate positions is simply incorrect. I thought maybe you had some insider knowledge on mandatory staffing levels, but it seems you are just bad at math. Everyone else in these comments was arguing about jobs disappearing (not me! I only wanted to show off the cool cashbox) - it must have been really confusing to see all those people upset about something which you can’t even comprehend as a problem.
Because it doesn’t fucking happen and your figures are entirely made up? You and everyone else claiming these have taken jobs clearly have never actually worked at a McDonald’s and are talking straight out of your asses.
This is a different situation than self-checkout at supermarkets. There yes you could argue a cashier who is experienced with scanning items all day and has access to a fully-featured POS can scan all your items faster and more efficiently than you could ever do on that locked-down self-checkout pos, and owners who take away cashiers are purely saving money at the expense of your time. But here you yourself have to communicate your order either way. I much prefer to browse at my leisure and tap at pictures rather than shouting my order 3 times while there is an impatient line behind me.
To each their own I suppose. You’ll get your way on this one, since every checkout that can be automated eventually will be.
We can keep the supermarket cashiers, we just have to demand it. Always choose the full-service line, and complain loudly if there are not enough cashiers to keep the line short, scoff at any suggestion to use the self-checkout and demand to speak to a manager and corporate. As I said elsewhere, one person can only do so much, but when a million people keep doing it the mountain will have to move. I feel personally responsible for the installation of these cashboxes by insisting to pay in cash every single time for the past several years.