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A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

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Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#281

Post by mulmen »

shantly wrote: post #262
mulmen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always done the work of expressing my desired food item. Without a kiosk that desire gets repeated by another person to a computer. With a kiosk that repetition does not happen, the order is directly expressed to the machine. It appears to me there is 50% less labor with a kiosk.

The McDonald’s kiosks require more work than telling a cashier your order, IME. They’re crap.

The question is if it requires more effort than using the cash register.

I agree the kiosks are a bit harder for a customer to use, I accidentally ordered something like 80 chicken nuggets the first time I used one, simply because I tried to add extra sauce.

I still prefer them because it's easy to have a bunch of kiosks which means there are shorter lines.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#282

Post by leeoniya »

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #256
sebringj wrote: post #32

Before I had a programmer job when i was younger, i completely 100% empathize with her in having those types of thankless jobs and constantly being tired. I can't imagine being trapped in that going forward. I bootstrapped my situation but I had a nice parents, a middle-class upbringing and a decent school to start everything, and a knack for programming... but I know/met so many who do not have this leg up in whatev…

100% agree that something needs to happen. The way we treat less-fortunate people is shameful and undignified. My biggest concern with UBI specifically is that it will be absorbed by landlords and other societal rent-seekers. My personal opinion is that we should democratize workplaces, through unions in the short-term and co-ops in the long term. McDonalds cashiers should have a say in their working conditions beyon…

> The way we treat less-fortunate people is shameful and undignified.

i think the crux has always been separating the unfortunate from the lazy. i don't think anyone would have serious a problem with supporting the former if the latter could be sieved.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#283

Post by jumbopapa »

sokoloff wrote: post #278
jumbopapa wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dollar for dollar match on up to 7% of pay. Let's say she makes $100. She puts in $7 and her employer also puts in $7. That's $14, and upon early withdraw she would pay $1.40 (penalty) + income tax (likely $0). She would come out with an additional $5.60.

Additional note: Only plan participants 59.5 or older are eligible to make in-service withdrawals (as are terminated employees, of course). Probably not a viable income augmentation plan for most. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/63908/00011931251820...

Then I will concede that this option won't work in her case. Doesn't change that education is one of the best choices that she has.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#284

Post by Scoundreller »

tehwebguy wrote: post #222
dls2016 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> effectively making _less_ than she would have in, say, 2005 or 2010 I started working in 1998 at 16-years-old. I could make $9.50/hr washing dishes or more as a bus boy on a busy night. Shit's whack. Of course as a suburban kid I had reliable transportation. The constantly rotating cast of dishwashers virtually never had this access.

How? I made $6.25 bagging groceries in 2002

Probably a high Cost or Living area where cheap labour is hard to get.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#285

Post by eyepea2007 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #231
stickfigure wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, you can walk into a Krispy Kreme and watch the machine work. There's no reason that machine couldn't make french fries with a few changes. Maybe everything won't be automated all at once, but if the economic incentive is there, it will happen. Pizza making robots are already a thing. There's no reason the shake machine can't measure its output to the cup instead of pulling a lever; drink machines i…

McDonalds already has those. French fry hoppers automatically filling baskets from a frozen mini-closet. Out comes fresh fries. Same for the cups that they can use in drive-throughs. I think it’s up to the franchises to buy/install them. Depends on volume/space whether its worthwhile/possible. Or they just push it to the customer to do it.

About those automated drinks at McDonalds...when I order mine with 'no ice,' the machine is apparently incapable of filling the cup with the additional amount of coke that would normally be displaced by ice. It will simply fill the cup just 2/3 of the way. They seem to have realized this though, but instead of increasing the volume of coke dispensed, the machine drops ANOTHER cup which the employee is supposed to use to fill the actual cup to the top. The employees only do this half the time, however, which makes the entire process even more maddening. Somehow neither man, nor machine, can get a no-ice drink right at McDonalds.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#286

Post by city41 »

reaperducer wrote: post #35
x2f10 wrote: post #18

Her job is already going away; McDonald's around me have already replaced cashiers with kiosks. Unionizing and requiring $15/hr + full benefits is only going to accelerate McDonald's automation plans. Is the answer to fight for $15/hr or is the answer to go back to school, apply to more jobs, and/or go into a trade? Honest question.

McDonald's around me have already replaced cashiers with kiosks Here, too. But usually half of them are broken in one way or another, like the touch screen doesn't respond or the receipt printer is out of paper, or something I saw in a TV commercial isn't in the menu structure, or the pricing isn't the same as in an ad, etc... These are things a cashier is still needed for. As an aside, I find it curious that my loca…

> These are things a cashier is still needed for.

Is a cashier needed, or just an on call tech who oversees a dozen restaurants? I would imagine working on the kinks in the kiosks and improving their reliability to be doable.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#287

Post by pergadad »

itqwertz wrote: post #257
justinsaccount wrote: post #28

> It’s 8 p.m. and my scheduled shift is over, but they asked me to stay later > The bus stops running at 10 p.m. on Sunday, but McDonald's asked me to stay until close at 1 a.m. They asked me to stay because they need my help. Thats not a job, that's an abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm for a lot of low-level jobs in the United States. You end up giving in because the job market for such jobs is saturated and others will take it for lower wages/off-the-books. When I was 18 (many years ago), I remember having a job that did the same "we need you to stay later" BS. The buses stopped running at 8PM in the suburbs and I had to regularly walk 5-6 miles back home.…

> Using a bicycle was more dangerous than walking; some people would throw things out their window at you or swerve/yell to scare you.

The USA really is a strange place.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#288

Post by city41 »

shantly wrote: post #262
mulmen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always done the work of expressing my desired food item. Without a kiosk that desire gets repeated by another person to a computer. With a kiosk that repetition does not happen, the order is directly expressed to the machine. It appears to me there is 50% less labor with a kiosk.

The McDonald’s kiosks require more work than telling a cashier your order, IME. They’re crap.

They can be improved, a really nice to use kiosk is definitely achievable.

I prefer the kiosks, much in the same way I prefer self checkout at grocery stores.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#289

Post by michaelmrose »

paggle wrote: post #53
tombert wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please correct me if I misunderstood this, but are you seriously suggesting that the way we solve problems of poverty is to just get rid of the poor people?

That doesn’t seem to be what he’s suggesting at all. It seems like he’s suggesting they relocate to a place where they can make a better living, like my parents did by moving to the US in 1971.

Please describe where you think people ought to go live that will accept poor low skill workers?

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#290

Post by soapboxrocket »

jackhack wrote: post #207
derg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I often work with people who have never worked such jobs. They're upset that they're 'overworked' and spend their time in the fancy break room with all the perks. Many I suspect have no clue. Not that it's a realistic idea but damn if everyone had experiencing working in the demanding, underpaid, crappy jobs in the service industry, we might be more empathetic and better off as a whole.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. Everybody needs a &^%$ job once in a while to reset their empathy scale. Walmart does something interesting for their software development process. Say a developer is working on a warehouse automation system -- that dev. is then trained and works in the warehouse for a month. Same goes for checkout/cashier, or customer service, or whatever. You WORK that job for a month and you'll un…

I did it in my first engineering job (mechanical) I would take training on all the manufacturing methods riveting, soldering, wire tracing. I was lucky that my group didn't want to train but we had a group average to hit, so I got to do all of it.
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