3 ms·

He's saying that when you order coffee you order you can order: "black coffee" -> This is coffee without any thing added ( that's what the 'black' part means

He's saying that when you order coffee you order you can order: "black coffee" -> This is coffee without any thing added ( that's what the 'black' part means ) but "black coffee, no cream, no sugar" -> is confusing because it is redundant. Sleepy baristas and dinner waiters/waitresses will hear that and think: "coffee with cream and sugar" because, why would you order "black coffee, no cream, no sugar" it makes no sense.

electromagnetic 17y ago
This is exactly what I'm saying, why so many people here on HN seem to be so willing to accept redundancy in a business that is streamlined to provide fast service is beyond me. Tim Hortons here in Canada holds ~70% of the market share (IIRC), compared to Starbucks' 7% in second place. You can literally order and have a coffee in the time it takes you to pay (one person is on the cash, the other is making your order by overhearing). Today the store close to me made over 300 breakfast sandwiches (bagel/tea biscuit, bacon/sausage/egg or any combination) in 4 hours. Including redundancies in your order causes complications and the ability to induce error. Why this isn't simple to understand for so many people here, I don't know. Coffee here in Canada is always served black. Stating 'no cream' or 'no sugar' sounds like 'one cream' or 'one sugar' to the person making the drink (note: NOT the person you ordered from). The person making drinks can have to deal with upwards of 100 coffees during a 10-minute rush, this means less than 6 seconds per coffee. When they get a pre-work rush at 6am, and the staff serving you have been working since 10PM, there's no chance in hell they'll spend 6 seconds listening to you order your coffee when it takes them that long to make it. That 10-minute rush will be backlogged to taking 20 minutes. I'm not even discussing the people that order like that through a crackly 10-year-old drive-thru intercom and expect their order to be interpreted properly. Perhaps it's an American thing that orders take needlessly long to be served and are needlessly complicated. I can't order a drink at Starbucks without being forced through an impossible discussion, or listing off a grocery list. Similar happens at McDonalds here in Canada, a simple 2-item order can take a solid 10 minutes to be dealt with. I've seen orders at Tim Hortons of >20 items be processed and served within 2 minutes.
- pavlov 17y ago
  Interesting. I had no idea that the Canadian lifestyle is so marked by streamlined efficiency that it puts American fast-food chains to shame. I live in Finland. The cliché about Finns is that they are stolid and quiet... But the upside of the "default silence" is that people generally pay attention when someone is talking. It feels very foreign that I would accidentally get both milk and sugar in my coffee because the person behind the counter wasn't actually listening to me, but instead just detecting keywords in my speech.
- sokoloff 17y ago
  The customer didn't choose, install, nor maintain the drive-thru intercom. If it's insufficient for the business purpose, fix it, but don't blame the customer. They have a reasonable expectation that the intercom works as well as the average speakerphone.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I get the point you're making, but have you seen it happen?

electromagnetic 17y ago

This is exactly what I'm saying, why so many people here on HN seem to be so willing to accept redundancy in a business that is streamlined to provide fast service is beyond me. Tim Hortons here in Canada holds ~70% of the market share (IIRC), compared to Starbucks' 7% in second place. You can literally order and have a coffee in the time it takes you to pay (one person is on the cash, the other is making your order by overhearing). Today the store close to me made over 300 breakfast sandwiches (bagel/tea biscuit, bacon/sausage/egg or any combination) in 4 hours. Including redundancies in your order causes complications and the ability to induce error. Why this isn't simple to understand for so many people here, I don't know. Coffee here in Canada is always served black. Stating 'no cream' or 'no sugar' sounds like 'one cream' or 'one sugar' to the person making the drink (note: NOT the person you ordered from). The person making drinks can have to deal with upwards of 100 coffees during a 10-minute rush, this means less than 6 seconds per coffee. When they get a pre-work rush at 6am, and the staff serving you have been working since 10PM, there's no chance in hell they'll spend 6 seconds listening to you order your coffee when it takes them that long to make it. That 10-minute rush will be backlogged to taking 20 minutes. I'm not even discussing the people that order like that through a crackly 10-year-old drive-thru intercom and expect their order to be interpreted properly. Perhaps it's an American thing that orders take needlessly long to be served and are needlessly complicated. I can't order a drink at Starbucks without being forced through an impossible discussion, or listing off a grocery list. Similar happens at McDonalds here in Canada, a simple 2-item order can take a solid 10 minutes to be dealt with. I've seen orders at Tim Hortons of >20 items be processed and served within 2 minutes.

pavlov 17y ago
Interesting. I had no idea that the Canadian lifestyle is so marked by streamlined efficiency that it puts American fast-food chains to shame. I live in Finland. The cliché about Finns is that they are stolid and quiet... But the upside of the "default silence" is that people generally pay attention when someone is talking. It feels very foreign that I would accidentally get both milk and sugar in my coffee because the person behind the counter wasn't actually listening to me, but instead just detecting keywords in my speech.
sokoloff 17y ago
The customer didn't choose, install, nor maintain the drive-thru intercom. If it's insufficient for the business purpose, fix it, but don't blame the customer. They have a reasonable expectation that the intercom works as well as the average speakerphone.
scott_s 17y ago
I get the point you're making, but have you seen it happen?