Comment by SoftTalker
3 days ago
McDonalds has fallen so far in the past few decades. I used to eat there or at least grab a soda several times a week. I never go there anymore. The kiosks suck; I refuse to use them, but they don't staff the counter half the time so there's no other way to order. The drive-thru expects you've already ordered on the app. Fuck that. It's all way too complicated. I want a Big Mac meal with a coke. That used to take me 3 seconds to order and I had it on a tray in about another minute. Now I have to dick around on the kiosk for a couple of minutes, pay, and then wait 5-10 minutes for the food. It's absurd.
This is a bizarre take to me. If food is on my tray in 60 seconds, I'm concerned what corners they are cutting to serve food this fast. It sounds terribly stressful for the employees. How can 5-10 minutes be considered slow?
I think in any case, this is an entirely different qualm than the other issues, like taking orders only via kiosk, or constantly up-selling you during the order.
Personally, I hate the McDonald's app. All the vouchers seem quite plainly optimized to encourage you to come back. I hate this kind of psychological micro-optimization of human behaviours. I would take a ten minute order every time if they stopped trying to manipulate me.
This is a classic McDonalds counter: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/D3A1A6/dpa-customers-of-the-us-fas...
behind the counter-guy, in that wide silver opening, is a black plastic slope with with burgers queuing up. The cooks are constantly cooking, even when nobody has ordered anything, and that means they can get the efficiency boost of making 5 Big Macs at the same time - laying out 5 boxes, 5 buns, 5 patties cooking, etc. - and with no customer waiting on them, there need be no immediate rush[1]. The cashier only picks one up and puts it on your tray, much less than 60 seconds and no stress[1]. Contrast with Subway where the cashier has to assemble one custom sandwich at a time while the customer and queue of waiting people all watch (stressor); they can not get custom sandwiches into muscle memory, or the efficiency of doing several at once (slow), and the cashier delaying for a moment doesn't relieve pressure by letting the buffer fill, it just adds more pressure.
If McDonalds is now taking 5-10 minutes for a typical order, what has gone wrong with their fast-food-factory-production-line design?
[1] Maybe it isn't actually low stress or no-rush in McDonalds, but that design of food service could be.
They changed their model a while ago to trying to optimise the assembly time of each item, and produce them as they are ordered. The hot parts are pre-cooked and put into warmers, but not assembled (put into buns with toppings etc.) until you order.
Allows for easier customisation and less food wastage (and you don't have to keep track of when something was made), at the cost of time for 'easy' orders.