4 ms·

I was the kid making $9 CAD at McDonald’s in the early 2010s; it’s certainly interesting to me the same job is paid almost 3x in California. In my experience,

I was the kid making $9 CAD at McDonald’s in the early 2010s; it’s certainly interesting to me the same job is paid almost 3x in California. In my experience, while maybe 60% of the tasks at McDonald’s are well optimized for machines, lots still are not and will be a long time before they are. Drive-thru immediately comes to mind - our store was frequently moving 100+ cars an hour, I can’t imagine machines being able to hit that frequency any time soon.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
100% automation is certainly the Holy Grail but too much attention is focused on it. Most fast-food operations could be improved with more investment in automation, but they'll need to pick and choose which tasks make sense to automate and which ones do not. A system that allows two employees to do the work that now would take six employees? That's a big win for the company and customers but a loss for the four people who won't be able to find a job. Also want to be careful to not get into a McDonald's ice cream machine type situation. Whatever McDonald's reason for getting into that pit, be it squeezing franchisees or having been out maneuvered by the machine manufacturer, adding more machines creates more opportunities for that type of failure.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Yes, the thing that people forget is that Automation Breaks. When a McBurger machine breaks, that could be 50% of the store's revenue lost until a technician shows up to fix it. And that technician won't be cheap. McDonald's is hyperoptimized to the point that I'm positive they've done the math and decided that humans are cheaper.