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.
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.
We really are just catering to a society of antisocial nerds that hate interacting with people and will destroy the jobs of all those they seem lesser than them huh?
But don’t worry those people can go finger paint or something. See it’s kind and a utopia. Says the people that want this because they don’t have to pay or deal with others. Utopia. For sure.
Well, better than forcing everyone to be social and have service people break down over yet an other arrogant karen who thinks they should get special treatment and doesn’t see service people as actual people but more like peons they are allowed to order around.
Uhh no social contracts are how we keep society moving. People need to interact with other people to be reminded other humans and perspectives exist.
This is exactly how we get all this NPC bullshit. Antisocial garbage like this seen as the better option by secluding everyone in their own micro reality. It only serves capitalism and the insane.
The McDonald’s kiosks are hands down the absolute fucking worst I’ve ever seen. With all the self checkout systems that work perfectly easily McDonald’s chose utter shite. I quit going just because of how shitty they are.
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!
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?
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
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.”
Instead of “smashing the robots”, may I interest you in “eating the rich” option? It looks like you have been thinking a lot of smashing, but not enough about eating. Remember your priorities!
Literally starving to death is more difficult nowadays than in the past, but every society is still structured around the idea that you must be doing something wrong if you are not employed. Food, housing, healthcare, all tied to employment, and the substitutes they maybe give you are designed to only barely keep you alive until you find more employment.
Yes, every job that has become obsolete in the past due to automation has been replaced with a new kind of job, many of which could not have even been imagined before. We don’t have buggy whip manufacturers, but we do have programmers. But that doesn’t mean that will continue always. Jobs that disappear now or in the near future may never get replaced. And many jobs that exist now, I’d argue, are totally bullshit already, and we don’t need more of them. We as a society need to reassess our expectations for 100% employment and better reallocate resources according to the new norms.
To be fair, it is literally true that I am at least partially responsible, even if only by one part in a million. If there were a million people like me, and we each individually and separately decided to refuse to use the kiosk and demanded to be served by a human cashier and left the store if one was not immediately available, the owners would have no choice but to keep the humans. I just happen to like the kiosks because I am not a luddite.
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.
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.
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.
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.
How can you be sure it doesn’t eliminate positions?
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.
I don’t see why you are being so stubborn about this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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