shower thoughts..Wendy's serves up kiosk as wages go up

[SearchMaster]

When was the last time any of you were in a Fast Food place? Count how many are working and then subtract the number that ONLY work the register.

At most its 1-2 out of 8-15 people. Even then you will still have to have at least 1 person to help idiots that can't figure it out. Like someone else said watch people at self checkout at grocery stores and now ask them to push more buttons with more options.

I've never been behind anyone at self-checkout that had problems figuring things out, just scanners and weighers that don't freaking work. I don't even go to my local Kroger unless I absolutely have to (or only have 2 or 3 items to purchase) because their scanners and weighers are awful, and if I'm going to see "Please wait for attendant" every other time I run something through, I may as well go to the cashier. I go to the Walmart Neighborhood Market because it's very new and the technology actually works.

 

[Moonbeam]

Hmm I bet it won't work as well as they hope, I mean just look at the self checkout lanes in grocery stores and see how many people need help with it/fuck it up/take forever. We like to laugh at fast food employees being slow or stupid but personally I doubt people who frequent mcdonalds or wendys will do things any better on their own.

Shit, I constantly fuck up in the express lane. I face imminent starvation. The Italian government is after me to pay fines for not knowing how to operate their toll booths on the freeway. I'm going to pay them as soon as they learn to speak English, the fuckers. No wonder all my Neanderthal genes come from there. Thanks Grandma.

 

[sm625]

The #1 problem with self-checkout is when it cant read the barcode.
The #2 problem with self-checkout is when an item doesnt have a barcode and you dont know the 4 digit number.

Both of these problems also impact the human checkout lanes.

The #3 problem with self-checkout scanners is when they ask you to remove the last item and scan it, and when you do that you get charged twice for the item and so you have to get someone to fix it. That problem is definitely unique to self checkout.

and then there's #4:

 

[senseamp]

Is that a bad thing? Is people doing jobs that can be done by a kiosk a good thing?

 

[Moonbeam]

Is that a bad thing? Is people doing jobs that can be done by a kiosk a good thing?

In the store I shop at one person can help 5 morons at a time plus me.

 

[boomerang]

I can already sense the liberal minds in action: "Better raise the minimum wage more to offset the loss of jobs."

Plus tax the rich which is pretty much their answer for everything.

The owner of a franchised fast food business is making very little profit. They have two choices when faced with government mandated higher wages for entry level jobs. Automate or close. Closing essentially means bankruptcy so automation is their only hope.

What is playing out is yet another unanticipated consequence of feel-good legislating and/or mandating. It's all based in feelings with no real thought put towards consequences. But when the failure associated with it has become so obvious that it can no longer be ignored, a way will be found to blame it all on the right. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Sonikku]

Unfortunately if it costs less than $7.25 an hour to maintain those kiosks then no amount of settling is going to preserve jobs.

 

[Zaap]

I'm just not buying yet that a kiosk machine is really more effective and cheaper than a human being, even if wages are pushed up. In some cases, sure. In many cases, no way in hell.

I like for there to be a human being to tell not to give me those soggy fries that have been sitting under a heat lamp- I'll wait til they drop a fresh batch, thank you. I can't effectively tell a kiosk that someone fucked up and put onion on my burger, do over.

Heck, Burger King's theme song used to be all about letting me "Have it MY way." I think they should get back to that, just update it:

"Hold the pickle. Hold the lettuce.
Special orders don't upset us.
You can shove your fucking kiosk
up your Mc A.."

 

[1prophet]

Is that a bad thing? Is people doing jobs that can be done by a kiosk a good thing?

As long as rich people like yourself don't mind reaching in your pocket and providing those displaced by kiosks a living wage income.

 

[sandorski]

Kiosks? How quaint. Just wait until they release the Phone App.

 

[alien42]

Really? Where do you shop then, because every time I go to Target or the rare occasion I go to wal mart, half the machines are down, you have a few people sitting there scratching their heads because something isn't working, or you have people with a huge basket slowly scanning stuff. Maybe they do actually save money, I've never looked into it, but the more popular grocery stores here don't even have them anymore.

Kroger, the largest grocery store chain in the US.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'm just not buying yet that a kiosk machine is really more effective and cheaper than a human being, even if wages are pushed up. In some cases, sure. In many cases, no way in hell.

I like for there to be a human being to tell not to give me those soggy fries that have been sitting under a heat lamp- I'll wait til they drop a fresh batch, thank you. I can't effectively tell a kiosk that someone fucked up and put onion on my burger, do over.

Heck, Burger King's theme song used to be all about letting me "Have it MY way." I think they should get back to that, just update it:

"Hold the pickle. Hold the lettuce.
Special orders don't upset us.
You can shove your fucking kiosk
up your Mc A.."

This is nothing more than a UI problem. You choose your main item, say a biggy burger. Then you show a picture of a Biggy Burger and all the items that can be on it, then the person can touch the items to add or subtract items in a graphic format, and it shows the items being added or removed from the Biggy Burger in a simple graphic. There, you have a UI that a mentally challenged child can use to order a burger with out pickles and ketchup instead of mustard in seconds.

 

[alien42]

Plus tax the rich which is pretty much their answer for everything.

The owner of a franchised fast food business is making very little profit. They have two choices when faced with government mandated higher wages for entry level jobs. Automate or close. Closing essentially means bankruptcy so automation is their only hope.

What is playing out is yet another unanticipated consequence of feel-good legislating and/or mandating. It's all based in feelings with no real thought put towards consequences. But when the failure associated with it has become so obvious that it can no longer be ignored, a way will be found to blame it all on the right. Rinse and repeat.

the financial sector takes 25% of corporate profits but only creates 4% of American jobs, the problem is quite clear.

 

[werepossum]

Goddammit, I sell the tin-foil hats around here. Step off my kool-aid

lol +1

First off, yes it's politics.

Second, processes get automated no matter what the minimum wage is. The cotton gin was invented when the cost of labor in the South was zero. It's just handy to take a process that was already going to be automated anyway (Sheetz and Wawa have kiosk ordering, and I imagine many other places) and pretend it's because of minimum wage increases.

You have a fundamental lack of understanding of business decisions. Companies considering automation do a study of the costs and savings. An automated kiosk that makes net profit at $15/hour might be a net loser @$7.25/hour, so it isn't getting installed "no matter what the minimum wage is." It isn't even whether the change is a net savings or loss; most companies require break-even in six to twenty-four months depending on investment.

And as Oyeve cogently points out, the cost of labor has never been (and will never be) zero. Or anything close to it. Slave labor for obvious reasons is extremely inefficient, meaning it's relatively expensive labor for the per-person return; it is mainly useful for concentrating wealth, not efficiently producing it.

There are a lot of crisscrossing issues in this.

First off- businesses complain about "higher wages" pushing for things like more illegal workers that they don't have to pay shit, and to turn back the clock 100's of years of labor laws and conditions for. We in this country LOVE to willingly fall for this for some stupid reason.

So in many cases, businesses complaining about higher wages and the inability to find workers (ie: workers who will work for shit wages and feel they have very few rights or ability to improve conditions) are completely full of shit and just exploiting our nations (INSANE) tendency to allow the labor laws to be completely skirted in the name of some bullshit sense of civil rights for people who aren't even citizens here.

On the other hand- the push toward automation of things like fast food may work in some ways, but it'll fail in others. I personally don't eat much fast food, but when I do I want to order it from a human being. Pay that person whatever the market for their job will bear, but I will not order food from a machine. Places like Sonic here in California that have automated ordering systems I find confusing and not worth my time.

So maybe companies will save some money moving to kiosks, but they'll 100% lose customers like me. I have no idea which way will balance into more profits, nor do I care that much, it's up to those companies to figure out for themselves.

In other cases, I can see where artificially increased wages will hurt businesses. Just jacking around with numbers (including that of a minimum wage) does not lead to higher purchasing power in the long run, and that's the bottom line. Purchasing power trumps a jacked-with wage all day, every day.

If $15 becomes the new $5 in terms of what it will buy (and over time, I believe it will- minimum wage IS minimum wage- there's nothing that says it will remain a higher tier wage than... minimum over a long term) then nothing has been accomplished except to make a lot more people into minimum wage workers. Higher dollar amounts are also harder to come up with than lower ones in the long term. For example: I can probably walk around my house and dredge up $5 from under sofa cushions and such. It'd be better for that $5 to actually be WORTH MORE, than to expect I could just as easily dredge up $15 that only holds the same value eventually.

That same effect scaled across large businesses and swaths of the economy just means printing more money that will have less value and spending power over time. We should work to increase the value of each dollar- not jack with meaningless amounts of dollars. But of course that's a MUCH harder sell for the average idiot, who will always tend to think of $15 being better than $5... because MOAR!

Well said and I tend to agree, with a few caveats. First, reaction time for wages is not typically all that quick. Some unions have matching increases for minimum wage increases built into their contracts, but for most people, the raises to accommodate the new cost of living come more slowly than the minimum wage increases. Thus, minimum wage (and near minimum wage) workers are materially better off for some period of time after an mandated increase.

Second, wages are not totally elastic, meaning that if minimum wage doubles, it's highly unlikely that alone causes a doubling of the wage structure. So there is some flattening of the overall wage structure where the average person is a little worse off and the minimum wage workers better off for at least a considerable time.

Third and perhaps most importantly, there are considerable factors that cause price increases beside minimum wage increases. So absent a mandated minimum wage increase, those without job skills sufficient to command a better wage are always going to sink even lower without periodic minimum wage increases. I think one could make a good case for such increases as an ethical imperative for this reason even if the net effect were close to negative.

 

[werepossum]

Shit, I constantly fuck up in the express lane. I face imminent starvation. The Italian government is after me to pay fines for not knowing how to operate their toll booths on the freeway. I'm going to pay them as soon as they learn to speak English, the fuckers. No wonder all my Neanderthal genes come from there. Thanks Grandma.

lol Man, you are on fire. Thanks for the laughs.

 

[OutHouse]

Really? Where do you shop then, because every time I go to Target or the rare occasion I go to wal mart, half the machines are down

this is true. and the other thing are idiots who cant read the big ass signs on the self checkout that say CREDIT CARD ONLY. and cant understand why there is not a cash button on checkout.

 

[Zaap]

This is nothing more than a UI problem. You choose your main item, say a biggy burger. Then you show a picture of a Biggy Burger and all the items that can be on it, then the person can touch the items to add or subtract items in a graphic format, and it shows the items being added or removed from the Biggy Burger in a simple graphic. There, you have a UI that a mentally challenged child can use to order a burger with out pickles and ketchup instead of mustard in seconds.

It's not a "UI problem" or even an order problem. All a person at the counter is doing is pushing buttons anyway. That's not the issue. It's the person in the back not getting things right- ie: giving me cold soggy fries vs. fresh ones straight out of the fryer.

I don't care if I pushed a button or some person at a counter- the onions I didn't want end up on the burger because a human being not paying attention put them there.

It'll be another human being at a counter that fixes the problem, not a kiosk.

Someone else touched on it- the ordering system isn't the problem- there's not that many people needed to take orders in most fast food places that replacing them with machines will save any money, if any at all. The day a robot actually flips burgers and makes the food perfect, vs. a human- now that will make sense for automation.

 

[OutHouse]

tion. The Italian government is after me to pay fines for not knowing how to operate their toll booths on the freeway.

HAHAHAHA yea i got a 2K Lira fine back in 91 for running the toll because i had no idea how to get my stupid ticket out of it.

 

[Moonbeam]

lol Man, you are on fire. Thanks for the laughs.

You're welcome..... Don't forget what I have heard came from the Germans said in the trenches in WW!: Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst.

The situation is hopeless but not serious.

 

[senseamp]

As long as rich people like yourself don't mind reaching in your pocket and providing those displaced by kiosks a living wage income.

It's probably going to happen regardless. People increasingly won't be able to compete with computers and robots in terms of cost. The question is whether it's a bad thing. I don't think it is. I mean it's very likely that in a few decades when people hear that humans used to stand up for 8 hours a day 5 days a week to flip burgers, take orders, or do same repetitive stuff over and over, that will sound completely ridiculous and inhumane.

 

[Belegost]

It's not a "UI problem" or even an order problem. All a person at the counter is doing is pushing buttons anyway. That's not the issue. It's the person in the back not getting things right- ie: giving me cold soggy fries vs. fresh ones straight out of the fryer.

I don't care if I pushed a button or some person at a counter- the onions I didn't want end up on the burger because a human being not paying attention put them there.

It'll be another human being at a counter that fixes the problem, not a kiosk.

Someone else touched on it- the ordering system isn't the problem- there's not that many people needed to take orders in most fast food places that replacing them with machines will save any money, if any at all. The day a robot actually flips burgers and makes the food perfect, vs. a human- now that will make sense for automation.

Ok.

The back end stuff is a lot more expensive than the front end kiosks, but the price will drop, and wages go up...

 

[Zaap]

Ok.

The back end stuff is a lot more expensive than the front end kiosks, but the price will drop, and wages go up...

You realize all this is just people trying to go full circle.

Maybe people don't know or realize it, but we used to have Automats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

The format was threatened by the arrival of fast food, served over the counter and with more payment flexibility than traditional automats; in the 1970s, the automats' remaining appeal in their core urban markets was strictly nostalgic. Another contributing factor to their demise was inflation of the 1970s, making the food too expensive to be bought conveniently with coins, in a time before bill acceptors commonly appeared on vending equipment.

At one time there were 40 Horn & Hardart automats in New York City alone. The last one closed in 1991. Horn and Hardart converted most of its New York City locations to Burger Kings. At the time, the quality of the food was described by some customers as on the decline.

In an attempt to bring back automats in New York City, a company called Bamn! opened a new East Village store in 2006, but it closed in 2009.

So sure, there's some people wanting to automate fast food, just as (ironically!) fast food replaced automation.

I'm not holding my breath until it happens. I think it's still just way simpler to have a human beings flipping a burger and dealing with real world human conditions than any current machine.

For example: a few burgers ordered here and there- sure, that clunky machine could probably do it. A few busloads of ravenous tourists arrives, all wanting what they want, exactly how they want it? ( A situation I've seen turn a fast food place into absolute pandemonium) You'd be carting that thing out the back as a pile of useless scrap after.

 

[Jaskalas]

I'm not holding my breath until it happens. I think it's still just way simpler to have a human beings flipping a burger and dealing with real world human conditions than any current machine.

At least you knew to coach your words. Cause maybe in 10 years when you ask Siri to make you a sandwich she'll forgive you, and not make you eat your hat.
Though believe me, I'd have her do it anyway. Comparing robots to mere machines....

 

[waggy]

You realize all this is just people trying to go full circle.

Maybe people don't know or realize it, but we used to have Automats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

I just wan't to note that the Automats were only automated front end. NOT the kitchen.

So that really does not go with what he posted. wich would make the whole process auto. I don't see this happening though for a long while.

 

[Mike64]

I don't often go to Wendy's, but so far I haven't used a McD's kiosk. Mostly because I usually just stop in to grab a shake, and you can't ask the kiosk "so, is the shake machine working today?" before you get on line. (For some bizarre reason, NYC has been experiencing a real epidemic of frequently broken shake machines over the past couple of years. Until it finally dawned on me to ask about it first thing, it had gotten incredibly irritating...) And before anyone says "they could/should/would program the kiosks to know when the shake machines are broken", let me just say: ^_^

I just wan't to note that the Automats were only automated front end. NOT the kitchen.

And of course there was no question of customization. You put a nickel in the slot, and took out your dish of <whatever> just as it came out of the kitchen... and then you had to repeat the process for every item you wanted, rather than getting your entire order on a single tray at the same time. Realistically, if it had remained an efficient way of running even a fast-food "restaurant", they'd still be around...