McDonalds Had To Close?
Well not all of them but the one I went to this morning did. This morning I realized that our dependence on technology may be out of control.
On my way into the office, I decided to make a stop at my local McD's and grab a sausage biscuit, minus egg of course due to my allergy to eggs (but that's a different story). Anyway, I sat in the drive through waiting for someone to speak to me from the little brown post but
no one ever came. I waited, what I considered a significant amount of time (about a minute) and decided to drive up to the window to see what the highly trained McStaff was engaged in. They were all huddled together behind the counter looking at the register with a "what do we do" look on their faces.Just then, they all raised their heads in relief and noticed that I was parked outside the magic food window staring in at them. One of the employees came and opened the window. I said "no one would talk to me at the post." She replied, "yes I know, we have been closed for the last couple of hours. Our computers went down."
Me (in astonishment) - "Your computers went down so you had to cease business operation until you could restart them?
Her (indignant) - "Yup"
Fortunately I was able to place my order as the system had just been returned to normal
working condition. But Seriously, how did people order a burger, fries and a Coke before computers. It must not have been possible right? This was the message I gleaned from the McKids today.Instead of serving customers and WRITING down the order and either giving the paper to the cooks OR just hollering at the meat jockeys, cafe style, they chose to shut the entire place down. Maybe there is some kind of McPolicy that I don't know about or some protocol that dictates that they shut down. God forbid you have to add the total of the check with out the use of a calculator or a cash register. There are plenty of restaurants that still use the paper, handwritten checks out there. Granted, not many, but they do exist.
I am not to sure what to make of all this. Today I witnessed 2 things. Dependence on technology and the younger generation's inability to adapt to anything other outside the strict confines of their current skill set.
Where are we headed in the future? Are we doomed? Your thoughts?
Labels: computers, jobs, technology
posted by Big Pappa @ 9:05 AM
11 Comments
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11 Comments:
Do you think that it was due to their youth or maybe due to the fact that their "special" skill sets landed them a career at McDonald's? (no offense to McDonald's employees)
I think that it may have been a combination of everything. So to that I answer a resounding YES.
All I know is that I witnessed something significant. I don't know what to do with that information yet but I am sure that it will be useful to some study someday.
My wife teaches family and consumer science classes at the local high school and she occasionally picks up job applications from various potential employers and uses them in her classes. She recently picked up job applications from Subway which included problems for potential employees regarding giving customers the right change. If the answers she received on this exercise are any indication of the future, we are all doomed.
It gets even worse, I don't know where this went, but a couple years ago McDonalds had a pilot program in several states to outsource order taking to call centers in india. No joke, you would actually get a foreign call center employee when you hit the drive through to place your order.
Imagine how much that would suck, I can't understand people without accents through the blown out speaker on the drive through.
Oh NO. How is that possible. That would be a tragedy. I can't stand it that Dell and everyone else does it. That drives my UP THE WALL when the CSR can't speak engrish.
"Elo wewcome MeekDonows. MayI tek your orda pleez."
maybe because they are trained to be so robotic in their actions, that they can't or too afraid to use their own judgment. The special skill & qualification needed for this type of job might have a hand too... (but then, most of McD's employeed in my country are those waiting for exam results or university students doing part-time)
How sad is that!
Hey, maybe that was the real deal behind the Burger King "We don't sell Whoppers anymore" prank. Some kid behind the register couldn't get the button to work.
(cashier)"The button with the Whopper picture isn't working- I can't ring up a Whopper!"
(manager)"Just tell them we don't sell Whoppers anymore & I'll call the BurgerLine for tech help."
Before technology, businesses didn't have inventory systems and bookkeeping systems that were dependent upon computers. Cash registers opened even when the computers weren't working.
There definitely has been a decline in things like people being able to do math in their heads to give back change and such; I'm definitely not disputing that. But the problem you describe may as likely have been a function of the fact that the business is set up specifically TO depend on technology as to have been the result of lack of ability on the part of the employees.
Yep, you're probably right Rock!
hey don't you know, local Micky Ds need to phone home with precious data about every sausage biscuit sold, how long the customer waited, what temperature the fries were served at, and the nationality of the server.
This data is then organized and analyzed so that the folks at McDonalds can bring you RedBox, the dvd-renting-vending machine at your local Stop n Shop.
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