Braineack

iTrader: (62)

and then laughed when $0 an hour sucked more than $8.25.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

"I've been there 40 years."

Best comeback ever.


But seriously, it's like some people don't understand how free market economies work.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

I really can't believe people think like this. Youtube comments are killing me too. It's like no one told these people when they were kids that they could grow up to do anything they want. Not just flip burgers. And why get knocked up when you have a garbage job and can't afford to feed and take care of your kids? -1 on being a parent. That right there makes her a useless piece of trash - waste of a human life.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Does she ever wonder why she has been in the same position for 15 years? If you don't like your circumstances you need to take steps to change them. Asking your employer to double your wage with no business case for it is not a good way to take action.

I also enjoyed the part about how she can't buy her kids new shoes but some people do this on a monthly basis. Seriously? I need to buy more shoes apparently.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

People that learn a job at McDonalds in like 15 minutes. They deserve as much pay as say engineers who spend 4-7 years learning the trade.

dieselmiata

iTrader: (3)

Let's see here. My wife, a Japanese citizen but resident alien (green card) got her first job here in America last year. Retail at Macy's making minimum wage. She got tired of making minimum wage, so she did the craziest thing.

She searched for anther job that paid better! OMGWTF! INSANITY! MIND=BLOWN!

She found a job with better hours and paid more than double the minimum wage within 2 weeks of starting the search. And this is someone who hasn't been in the country long, and doesn't have a college degree from an American school.

I don't buy into this "oh poor me" BS. Minimum wage/fast food jobs were never meant to be a family supporting career.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

That's the part which baffles me.

An important question to ask in cases like this: "Is the only reason why I have this job is that I am cheaper than a robot?"

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

no.

actually, a robot would be cheaper and easier, but mcdonalds is actually nice enough to keep her employed and overpaid.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

I blame Obama

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I've actually put a lot of thought into that.

In some markets, they do have a robot which automatically dispenses drinking cups onto a conveyor belt, dispenses ice into them, pours the drink, caps it with a lid, and delivers it to the drive-through window. Dispensing drinks is an easy task to automate, because there are only a couple of different sizes and the process is identical for every order. (Cup - ice - drink - lid.)

It would be much more difficult to automate sandwich-assembly. Even if you ignore wraps and things like McNuggets, there are so many different types of sandwiches, very little commonality from one to the next, a number of different package types, and this is one area in which new "limited time" menu items are constantly being added and removed.

It could certainly be done, but the resultant machine would be extremely large, complex and unwieldy.

Then you have the reliability issue. If an automated drink dispenser goes down with a mechanical fault, it's not that big a deal to switch back to manual dispensing. A manual drink dispenser is not large, and specialized labor is not required to operate it.

By comparison, if you have converted your whole sandwich-assembly area to robotic operation, you have pretty much give up the ability to assemble sandwiches manually by virtue of the space which the robot would consume and the fact that you'd no longer have adequate staff to perform that task.


Now, one area which I am a bit surprised to see humans in is the order-taking. There are SOME venues in which humans have in fact been fully displaced by automation for fast-food ordering; the food court in terminal 5 of JFK airport comes to mind (it's all touch-screen.) And I have seen one or two Jack in the Box locations with automated ordering as well, although utilization seemed to be low and they still had a normal complement of human order-takers.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

We don't know exactly what she does, but yeah. I think of sheetz, when you order food, what do you interact with? an easy to use touch screen where you don't get your order screwed up people the person at the register has been getting paid $8.25 for the last 10 years and has issue communicating...


I've seen the automated drink dispensor at mcdonald's; it's pretty choice.



on this same note: It's come to the point where if I order food at any business, especially milkshakes at elevation burger or chic-fil-a I have to double check the order is actually what I asked for and I make a big fuss about it at the counter and take up everyone's time and when they **** up I get loud and irrate.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Any of you guys ever been to a McDonald's in Japan?

Sh*t is super clean, the food comes out promptly and looks perfect, exactly like the picture on the menu. The employees are proud of their work and take it seriously, and extremely helpful and friendly to boot, even if they don't speak your language.

That, and the one I went to for breakfast a few times, literally had two people working their at 7AM in the morning. Those two workers were more efficient, accurate, pleasant, effective, etc. etc. etc., than the 10 sad sacks of poopoo that are usually working at your average McD in the morning around the US.

I'm not sure how McD's pays in Japan, but if they only have to have two or three employees to get the job done of 10 people in the US, then I suppose they can pay them significantly better.

Luckily for me, the McDonald's closest to my house is staffed mostly by white (I'm racist) high schoolers that are happy to have a job. I don't like eating at McD's, but when I do go there, it's refreshing to have decent, competent, kids making my order.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

One time we went to a mcdonalds for breakfast in upstate NY, and my wife was confused.

Tekel

iTrader: (2)

I would of fired every person out there and had them escorted off the premises and then arrested for trespassing. Gone in and run the restaurant myself and then hired some other mouth breathers to do the untrained mundane job. You do a job that any human that isn't a vegetable can accomplish, you are worth exactly what you get paid (Even much less in many situations). Every single thing is as automated as possible. You don't even flip burgers anymore, you put them down, push a button, and take them off the grill when the clam shell opens. Making the sandwiches is just as simple. Everything has a photo tutorial showing how to do it. If you want to make more than $8.15/hr, GET BETTER TRAINING AND BECOME AN ASSET NOT A LIABILITY.

FRT_Fun

iTrader: (19)

I've said this many times, I would eat at McDonalds more often if it was run by robots. I feel it would be quite easy to automate all the tasks, and have just 1-2 people ensure the robots run smoothly and perform maintenance. The gross people that work there ensure I will never eat there.

Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

There is this place called Portillos that we have in the Chicago area, and Diesel will likely back me up on this. It's basically a glorified hotdog and beef place.

Take a look at this video and see if you notice anything:


First, look how many workers they have behind the counter. I have been to a Portillos at lunch time and have counted 45 at one time. That is just what was visible at one moment in time. Second, notice how they seem to enjoy their jobs. Workers move with speed and efficiency. I hear Portillos pays more than McDonalds, and this means that they have a larger pool of workers and (Dick) Portillo doesn't put up with no slackasses. He knows that he has a pile of applications inches deep and if you don't want to work, he can replace you tomorrow.

Now, watch this vid and skip to the part at 1:00


The place is packed, has high seat turn-over (both in terms of actual seats and drive through), and the average meal price per person has to be between eight and eleven dollars. It is actually good quality food for about 30% more than you would pay for similar McDonalds junk. It is the market at work. Portillos pays more than minimum wage because it wants GOOD employees. Portillos represents a more premium quality of good and services than does McDonalds, and this cost is passed on to the customer.

My point I guess is that McDonalds tailors its job requirements around the kind of worker they know they can get for a given wage. If your abilities are not being sufficiently utilized then it is your own fault for sticking around for a shitty wage. Even in the realm of fast food, markets for goods and labor work.

Mazduh

Damn I love me some portillos... Gonna go for lunch now... lol

Portillos is great except people talk like their ribs are god... Their terrible. And they sell shitty beer.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

To be fair, this is largely about where you live. Even in the US, there are many areas in which the subset of people whom you probably associate with fast-food employment (eg: those unable to speak clear and un-accented English, process abstract concepts such as "no pickles" without the prompting of an on-screen menu, etc) simply do not exist.

There's no magic, it's just basic demographics. In some areas, the bell curve is wider than in others.

So, if you dine at a McDonald's in an upscale suburban community in the northwest, you will have a very different perception of what an average McDonald's employee is than if you dine at one in a rural area of Alabama / Georgia / Louisiana / Virginia / etc.



I've never had the pleasure of visiting Japan, however I did go into a McDonald's in a small town in northern Germany (just to see what it was like), and my experience was similar. The level of staffing was similar to what you'd see in a US McDonald's, but the employees seemed to actually give a **** about their work- even the one person whose sole job it seemed to be to gather up trays from the tables that customers have just vacated and stack them into a rolling cart to be taken into the back for cleaning.



Also, for those who don't really have much experience with industrial automation, here's what an automated sandwich-making machine looks like:



Bear in mind, this machine is making just one type of sandwich, continuously, at a fixed rate. That sort of thing is easy to do. What's not easy is to build a machine capable of fulfilling a huge variety of different orders with a very short time-to-completion. Could be it done? Of course. But the fact that McDonald's does not presently use them tells me that a number of very highly paid engineers have determined that fast-food sandwich assembly is still a task best suited to meat-robots.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Why do you ******** suck at posting YT videos? like jesus christ stop posting HTML on a vB site.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

they work at mcdonalds bro, bear with them