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0 pointsddtaylor1mo ago0 comments

> and the on-premise employees do little else than heat it up

This is correct. This also is a lot more complex than it sounds and creates a lot of work. Cooking those products creates byproducts that must be handled.

> and the cashiers have largely been replaced by self-order terminals so that employees no longer even need to speak rudimentary English

Yet most of the customers still have to interact with an employee because "the kiosk won't let me". Want to add Mac sauce? Get the wrong order in the bag? Machine took payment but is out of receipt paper? Add up all these "edge cases" and a significant amount of these "contactless" transactions involved plenty of contact!

> It will happen to you.

Any labor that can be automated should be. Humans are not supposed to spend their time doing meaningless tasks without a purpose beyond making an imaginary number go up or down.

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saulpw1mo ago

> Cooking those products creates byproducts that must be handled.

Okay so the job of "cook" just became "grease disposal engineer"?

> Yet most of the customers still have to interact with an employee because "the kiosk won't let me"

That hasn't stopped some places I've visited from only allowing people to order from the kiosk. Literally I've said something to the person behind the counter who pointed to the iPad and when I said I wanted something else, shrugged and said we can't do that.

ddtaylorOP1mo ago

> Okay so the job of "cook" just became "grease disposal engineer"?

That is the current way the job works. The idea that even the most basic "burger flipper" job is isolated into a single dimension (flipping a burger) is false. That worker has to get supplies, prepare ingredients, stage them between cooking, dispose of waste product, etc.

> Literally I've said something to the person behind the counter who pointed to the iPad and when I said I wanted something else, shrugged and said we can't do that.

That's because corporate told them to maximize kiosk usage or because the employee was lazy. That's always going to happen. The McDonalds in Union Station DC has broken glass on the floor, because it's a shithole and the employees don't care, but it means not much else IMO

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