[HN Gopher] iFixit Petitions Government for Right to Hack McDona...
___________________________________________________________________
iFixit Petitions Government for Right to Hack McDonald's Ice Cream
Machine
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 196 points
Date : 2023-08-29 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.404media.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.404media.co)
| JohnDeHope wrote:
| I bet they have already hacked the machine. They just need legal
| cover to release their smooth findings. Once the judge okays it,
| the details will be published in 3 days. I hope.
| hgsgm wrote:
| As the article explains, the machines were hacked years ago.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| In case it's not discussed the ice cream machines are broken
| software wise. there was a big Todo about a third party who
| hacked it and sold a product that just made the firmware better
| or human friendly. McD stole it.
|
| these are so awful there is a website tracking when they are down
| at mcbroken
| yorwba wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _A company called Kytch built a small, third-party device that
| could be attached to the soft service ice cream machines that
| read and interpreted Taylor's error codes. Kytch has been
| engaged in a lawsuit in California state court with Taylor and
| McDonald's for more than two years._
| _fat_santa wrote:
| A absolutely despise what companies like Taylor do. Rather than
| innovating their product, they realized its cheaper if they have
| their lawyers engineer a way to lock in their customers to their
| product over their competitors'.
|
| And you seem to see this more and more. It seems that these days
| the product quality itself doesn't matter, it's all about the
| contracts that your legal team setup in the background. I have to
| ask the engineers that work at these companies: does it bother
| you that the only reason people use your product is that they
| would get sued if they tried using another product? How does it
| make you feel that your product is so bad the only thing keeping
| your customers in the door is the contracts your legal team drew
| up.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Taylor knows how to build proper ice cream machines. They only
| sell the constantly breaking down model to McDonalds.
| [deleted]
| Alupis wrote:
| What happens if the replacement parts aren't actually as good,
| safe or reliable as the originals? McDonald's gets bad PR, or a
| lawsuit depending on the severity.
|
| Look, I'm all for better repair options and Right to Repair,
| but McDonald's is selling consistency and their reputation is
| on the line (not the franchisee) when something goes wrong or
| people get sick.
|
| For those reasons alone, it's not unreasonable to force
| franchisees to use a specific brand of machines, contract a
| specific company for repairs, and use specific OEM parts. CYA
| big time in so many ways.
|
| What people are forgetting here is McDonald's has an interest
| in these machines working as well as possible (revenue +
| reputation), and the franchisee also has an interest in these
| machines working as well as possible (revenue). The franchisee
| however, does not necessarily care about the McDonald's brand
| and reputation, and given the option might choose degraded
| parts/safety to save money - causing a problem for McDonalds.
|
| So... McDonald's says you have to use these approved machines
| and get service/parts from this approved vendor. Case closed...
|
| The only people who seem to really care about this issue are
| customers. That won't be enough to force a private company to
| open the door to any yahoo repair company with Wish.com
| replacement parts.
| krisoft wrote:
| > What people are forgetting here is McDonald's has an
| interest in these machines working as well as possible
| (revenue + reputation)
|
| But clearly they are dropping the ball all the way to the
| third basement. If a piece of equipment is so bad that it's
| lack of reliability becomes a meme then you have issues.
|
| What I really don't understand is that it seems that the
| franchisees are paying for the equipment manufacturer per
| service call. It would make much more sense to pay a fixed
| fee per ice cream machine per unit of time subject to some
| SLA. If you properly set up the incentive structure that
| makes the equipment manufacturer incentivised to seek ways to
| provide reliable, easy to maintain machines.
|
| It is not like this is impossible. The same manufacturer
| sells reliable machines to all the other chains! So they can
| do it.
|
| > The only people who seem to really care about this issue
| are customers.
|
| And the franchisees? Who are losing money every time they are
| turning away costumers. (Not talking about the lost business
| because they are not seen as a reliable purveyor of ice
| cream, and people who crave ice cream go to some other
| place.) And losing money every time they call service for a
| piece of trash equipment.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| > What happens if the replacement parts aren't actually as
| good, safe or reliable as the originals?
|
| I don't see how that line of thinking is any different to the
| argument manufacturers are making regarding right to repair.
| The response is simple, all parts must be G.A. and
| manufacturers can't force the company they are sourcing their
| parts from to not sell to third parties.
|
| McDonalds can very well sue the franchise for not following
| the guidelines and ordering bad parts.
| Alupis wrote:
| Even if Taylor allowed anyone to repair their machines -
| McDonald's is unlikely to allow franchisees that privilege
| anyway, for all of the reasons listed above.
|
| McDonald's is also large enough of a customer that we can
| assume the specifics of this machine were tailored or
| custom-made in part just for McDonald's. The automated
| cleaning and self-diagnosis system is exactly what someone
| like corporate McDonald's wants - take those liabilities
| out of the hands of individual franchisees and fallible
| employees. Make is as dead simple as it can be... machine
| says no-go, then it's a no-go.
|
| McDonald's will not allow a system where a franchisee or
| random-employee decides the machine is "clean enough" and
| proceeds to use it anyway, potentially getting people sick.
|
| So what will be accomplished here in this specific
| situation? Probably nothing...
| MostlyStable wrote:
| All of this sounds great until you realize that
| McDonald's ice cream machine reliability is by far the
| worst in the nation. There is no other chain that comes
| close. The meme is a meme for a reason. Somehow, these
| other chains manage to solve these issues without causing
| massive reliability problems. I wish I could find the
| videos now, but there was a decently convincing (although
| with the usual "documentary grain of salt" caveats)
| argument that McDonalds took a payout to allow Taylor to
| predatorily extract value while providing shit service to
| their Franchisees. McDonalds, the brand, is already
| suffering reputational damage from their craptastic ice
| cream but they apparently don't care.
|
| This makes the arguments about repuatational risk from
| shoddy repair parts fall flat.
| Alupis wrote:
| Perhaps, flipping it on it's head, the issue is so
| visible because McDonald's ice cream is by far the most
| popular fast food ice cream?
|
| From Cones to McFlurries to Milkshakes, I'm pretty sure
| they all use the same machine. McDonald's sells a
| tremendous amount of ice cream products.
|
| > I wish I could find the videos now, but there was a
| decently convincing (although with the usual "documentary
| grain of salt" caveats) argument that McDonalds took a
| payout to allow Taylor to predatorily extract value while
| providing shit service to their Franchisees.
|
| I find that very hard to believe. You're right, it's a
| meme for a reason after all, but sabotaging themselves
| makes no sense even if Taylor paid McDonald's for that
| racket. McDonald's has nothing to gain in that situation,
| only loss of reputation and revenue.
|
| > This makes the arguments about repuatational risk from
| shoddy repair parts fall flat.
|
| It doesn't though, and cannot just be hand-waved away.
| Imagine what the memes would be like if the machines were
| further degraded by bad parts or worse, got people sick
| at random locations.
|
| McDonald's has a right to force consistency. It's their
| brand, and ultimately their wallet that bears the
| consequences.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| They literally don't use the same machine. The McDonalds
| franchise contract requires them to use a specific, made-
| for-mcdonalds, model (mostly similar to the models sold
| to other chains, but not identical). And I'm pretty sure
| that people have done (informal) reliability studies by
| things like calling random franchises, and Mcdonalds
| isn't just more popular, it's actually less reliable.
| Alupis wrote:
| You misunderstood. The ice cream products from _McDonald
| 's_ all come from the same machine. I was not asserting
| they are the same machines at other fast food brands.
|
| The fact that these machines are likely custom made, or
| partially customized just for McDonald's is even more
| reason why it's reasonable for McDonald's to force
| franchisees to use specific vendors for repair/parts.
|
| Even with right to repair, McDonald's can force
| franchisees to use specific equipment and parts and
| vendors. That is their right as the brand owner.
|
| Which means... there is no reality where joe-random
| repair company is going to be allowed to repair joe-
| random franchisee's machines using parts sourced from who
| knows where. It's just not going to ever happen, there's
| too much liability.
|
| McDonald's wants a machine that's so brain-dead simple to
| use safely and keep sanitarily that even a new-hire with
| 5 minutes of training can operate it effectively. They
| get that by forcing standardization on one unit and one
| vendor, and software safety mechanisms that provide a
| firm no-go when something isn't right.
|
| > And I'm pretty sure that people have done (informal)
| reliability studies by things like calling random
| franchises, and Mcdonalds isn't just more popular, it's
| actually less reliable.
|
| You'll need some sort of source for this. Most fast food
| chains only sell one ice cream product, usually shakes or
| cones, maybe both. McDonald's sells McFlurries which are
| very popular, in addition to seasonal products and then
| the regular products. Given McDonald's is also the
| largest fast food chain in the world, it stands to reason
| they sell more ice cream products than anyone else.
|
| Which would, yes, mean the surface area is larger and
| more exposed. People go there specifically for a McFlurry
| and come away dissapointed. How many people go to Taco
| Bell specifically for a milkshake and nothing else?
| jancsika wrote:
| > McDonald's wants a machine that's so brain-dead simple
| to use safely and keep sanitarily that even a new-hire
| with 5 minutes of training can operate it effectively.
| They get that by forcing standardization on one unit and
| one vendor, and software safety mechanisms that provide a
| firm no-go when something isn't right.
|
| That doesn't really jibe with the article:
|
| "The machine overheats if it's used too much within a
| certain time period. This results in mushy goop coming
| out _or_ the machine shutting down and refusing to work
| until it resets and cools down, " Shahram Mokhtari,
| iFixit's lead teardown tech, said in iFixit's teardown.
|
| Gonna go out on limb and rankly speculate that for health
| critical systems it's not advisable to assume that
| OUTPUT_GOOP || FAILSAFE is functionally equivalent to
| FAILSAFE.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Of course McDonalds the brand can do that. They literally
| _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd party
| troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of problems
| without needing to call a Taylor tech, and McDonalds
| corporate disallowed it.
|
| The point is not "can they do this" the point is "is it
| necessary for them to do it for brand reputational
| reasons".
|
| The steelman argument I've seen for this state of affairs
| is that (apparently) the McDonald's machine is much more
| complicated to allow it to self sanitize/clean every
| night and only need full disassembly every 2 weeks. The
| machines used at other chains apparently don't' have this
| automatic process and must be disassembled and manually
| cleaned more frequently. That would all be well and
| good...if it worked. The frequent state of disrepair of
| McDonalds machines pretty clearly indicates it does not.
|
| They are mandating the use of a low-reliability machine,
| presumably in the name of lower labor costs (which you'd
| think you wouldn't have to _mandate_ since the
| franchiesees probably care more about labor costs than
| anyone), also mandating an expensive service contract for
| those machines. I'm just really really skeptical that 3rd
| party parts would make this situation worse. People
| already have the impression that McDonals ice creams
| machines are usually broken. I don't think this opinion
| is based on a quantitative assesment of uptime, where, if
| it got 10% worse, their opinion would decrease by 10%.
|
| To try and summarise: I thin your argument that 3rd party
| parts would create enough of a reliability problem to
| meaningfully change their reputation, which is _already_
| one of lack of reliability (deserved or not), is
| completely implausable to me.
| Alupis wrote:
| We're talking past each other it seems.
|
| > They literally _are_ doing that. Someone made a 3rd
| party troublehsooting tool that solved the majority of
| problems without needing to call a Taylor tech, and
| McDonalds corporate disallowed it.
|
| And so what? It's non-standard and non-approved.
| McDonald's has no idea what that firmware/tool actually
| does. You (and the makers) claim it was better, but how
| do you actually know? Maybe it just bypasses safety and
| sanitary standards McDonald's has set for these
| machines... giving the appearance in the short-term of
| being more reliable.
|
| In the end, it's McDonald's who will be sued if someone
| gets sick from a milkshake. Therefore, they can and will
| enforce standards, including machines and vendors. Heck,
| they probably have approved vendors and parts for
| _everything_ inside a McDonald 's, not just the ice cream
| machines. The toilet paper dispenser even most likely...
| but surely the stoves, fryers, etc.
|
| Right to Repair has nothing to do with this specific
| situation. It's about corporate standards set for
| franchisees.
|
| Additionally, the franchisees aren't even complaining
| about this. It's customers, like you and me, who are mad
| we can't get a McFlurry or something.
|
| That's not going to compel any change other than make
| McDonald's realize they might need more machines per
| location.
| greedo wrote:
| McDonalds exerts controls to protect its reputation, and does
| this through its franchise agreements with franchisees. This
| makes a lot of sense for both parties and customers. I
| remember when Jack In The box had outbreaks of E.coli in
| their burgers. McDonalds had new testing methodologies and
| equipment at franchises (and company owned stores) in a
| heartbeat.
|
| The last thing McDonalds wants are customers getting sick
| from listeria and having blood on their hands[1].
|
| 1. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/us/tacoma-milkshake-
| listeria-...
| bozhark wrote:
| Ah shit, people here just died in the area from a uncleaned
| milkshake mixer. Due to listeria.
| Alupis wrote:
| Anyone who's worked in a restaurant with a soft-serve
| machine (used to make milkshakes and more) knows how much
| of a PITA they are to clean...
|
| Which means they don't get deep cleaned often enough,
| even at reputable places.
|
| Do people get sick and die every day from these machines?
| No, of course not. But we cannot trivialize the liability
| and risk here.
|
| If every restaurant had a self-cleaning smart self-
| diagnosing machine like McDonald's has, all the better.
|
| You should think carefully before ordering a soft-serve
| anything from most places...
| neilv wrote:
| Careful with your stones in glass houses, on HN, of all places.
| We're the community in which virtually every Web site we deploy
| sells out privacy of its users to third parties. And that's
| before we get into the commonplace UX behavior against users'
| interests, numerous startups which are essentially investment
| scams, some of our most celebrated startup successes only
| existing because an app is a smokescreen that lets them violate
| regulations long enough, and general background underhandedness
| and entitlement so pervasive that we now consider it normal.
| havblue wrote:
| Tu quoque fallacy. Calling someone a hypocrite doesn't
| address their argument. Also, obviously, you have no idea if
| the original poster a) is a web developer or b) is guilty of
| the behavior you mentioned.
| HaZeust wrote:
| I genuinely think Tu Quoque is misplaced by being called a
| fallacy, and I firmly believe that calling out someone's
| hypocrisy to their argument already shows - at the very
| least - a fragility to their stance, and can help to
| illustrate what about their argument is going amiss by
| using the individual's own experience and behavior to prove
| it.
|
| Someone not doing X indeed _doesn 't_ say whether you
| should be doing X, but it stands ground that X has a flaw
| for adoption - and talking to someone that doesn't do it is
| a great way to examine why, and possibility use it to your
| argument.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> I genuinely think Tu Quoque is misplaced by being
| called a fallacy, and I firmly believe that calling out
| someone 's hypocrisy to their argument already shows - at
| the very least - a fragility to their stance, and can
| help to illustrate what about their argument is going
| amiss_
|
| "they" have no "stance" or "argument", they're just the
| ones who happened to point out the problem. They
| themselves are irrelevant. They could strangle puppies
| for fun, and they could still point out the problem as
| well as if they donated both kidneys to child orphan
| strangers. They're just the person there at the time,
| pointing out the problem. It could have been anybody
| pointing out the problem, the problem is still a problem.
|
| that's why tu quoque is a fallacy: attacking the person
| who pointed out the problem, doesn't resolve the problem,
| and doesn't seek to, either. It seeks to silence the
| person who pointed out the problem. Shooting the
| messenger is a related problem-solving anti-pattern, for
| similar reasons.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| We don't all work in hell.
| r00fus wrote:
| Not every one of us work in ad-tech. And screw those business
| models also, btw.
| dingnuts wrote:
| I've been actively avoiding ad-tech and have chosen to work
| for companies that are doing things to lessen their
| influence and reach! And yet, somehow, I'm still having a
| successful career in software engineering!
| [deleted]
| nwsm wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I would never leak or sell user data. I
| just develop B2B software that provides no value
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| All B2B software has value.
|
| It's just that often the value is "I bought this and even
| though it provides no value, it's pretty enough that it
| impressed my boss and I got a raise and promotion"
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _We 're the community in which virtually every Web site we
| deploy sells out privacy of its users to third parties._
|
| Simply don't do that, then. It's not hard. (And... why even
| increase your liability and reduce your hiring pool by being
| relentlessly unethical? The trade-off isn't worth it, even if
| you're a stereotypical heartless executive.)
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Speak for yourself. If I only cared about the paycheck, I'd
| be in SF helping Google build its IoT botnet of Nests and
| Chromecasts.
|
| Any new technology can be looked at through the lens of evil.
| I used to write code for stick-on wireless biosensors that
| massively improved living conditions for neonates and the
| chronically ill. Some health insurance company could use the
| exact same tech to institute a system like what the car
| insurance companies have with those "safe driver" tracker
| dongles.
| fragmede wrote:
| What does that have to do with Taylor litigating instead of
| innovating?
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Parent: That company does unethical things.
|
| Reply: A lot of people reading this comment do unethical
| things, so we probably shouldn't be on our high horse in
| this thread.
|
| I don't necessarily endorse that line of thinking as I
| believe it falls under the purview of "classic
| whataboutism".
| neilv wrote:
| My reply was intended more like: You're addressing a bank
| robber convention, to morally condemn a convenience store
| robber.
|
| (That parent should have the guts to broaden their scope
| of condemnation. Unless throwing the first stone in a
| glass house was a clever Socratic prompt intended to lead
| to this discussion.)
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| that is indeed classic whataboutism, and also the analogy
| sounds contrived and self-serving
| neilv wrote:
| My intent was not to dispute their argument, but I didn't
| have the stomach to see techbros piling onto that, as
| tends to happen. If the OP didn't point out that tech
| overall has become a cesspool industry doing comparable
| things, then someone had to.
| mulmen wrote:
| Reading a comment in no way implies support for the views
| expressed.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > I have to ask the engineers that work at these companies
| [...]
|
| Yeah, global warming is also entirely my fault because I just
| don't recycle hard enough.
| rightbyte wrote:
| When deals are bad enough, a always suspect bribery.
|
| Unless it is public procurements, then I blame too strict
| lowest bidder rules.
| pessimizer wrote:
| No, in public procurement it's still bribery. You just
| carefully tailor the tender to the company that the fix is
| already in for.
|
| When I worked in state government, every vendor of products
| was simply a middleman who marked a bunch of stuff up that
| you could easily buy from standard wholesale sources. Their
| catalogs would be three-hole binders of photocopies from
| other people's catalogs and printouts from ecommerce webpages
| with the prices whited out, and a pricelist typed up in word
| at the back. Every vendor of services was connected to an
| insider who tipped them off that purchases were about to be
| made.
|
| The lowest bidder was selected from the people who could jump
| through the hoops required to submit bids, and who also fit
| the carefully written RFP.
| sircastor wrote:
| I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's referencing DMCA and the like
| as "felony contempt of business model".
|
| I'm sure it's been this way a lot longer than I imagine, but it
| feels to me like in the 80s or so companies became a lot more
| interested in making their shareholders happy than they were in
| making their customers happy.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I think there's some truth to the idea that the "MBA-ization"
| of business management has been quite destructive.
| neilv wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to right-to-repair, in general, but this argument
| bothers me:
|
| > _"The current barriers to these works include service passwords
| and digital locks," the petition reads. "Commercial ice cream
| machines, such as the Taylor manufactured ice cream machines used
| by McDonald's, frequently fall into disrepair when its daily
| pasteurization cycle fails. Circumventing the digital lock on the
| software would enable owners and repair professionals to diagnose
| and perform the necessary repairs to get these devices back up
| and running."_
|
| They're talking about a safety-sensitive process failing and
| consequently locking out use... mere syllables before asking for
| the ability to circumvent locks.
|
| Which prompts the concern that some fast food employees, their
| managers or small business owners, sketchier repairpeople, and
| Aliexpress gadgets are going to effectively use that lock
| circumvention ability to circumvent a safety feature, eventually
| killing children whose parents treated them to ice cream cones.
| pinot wrote:
| All modern industrial machinery has safety features that often
| include shutting down the machine. Most machine owners are
| allowed to send mainteance in to evaluate the reason of the
| shutdown, resolve the issue and restart the machine, without
| calling the OEM.
|
| Imagine if a walk-in cooler had a high-temp alarm, and the
| machine shut itself down, and locked the cooler as a result,
| then told the owner to call the cooler OEM. Thankfully it
| doesn't work that way, it might alarm then you diagnose
| (radiator fan not running, fan coils covered in leaves,
| whatever) resolve and restart.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Won't somebody _please_ think of the children?
| Benanov wrote:
| You're conflating "I can't get the diagnostic repair codes that
| Taylor can" with "Kids are going to get hurt because the
| machine is malfunctioning"
|
| Please stop doing that.
| gruez wrote:
| > You're conflating "I can't get the diagnostic repair codes
| that Taylor can" with "Kids are going to get hurt because the
| machine is malfunctioning"
|
| But the article and the linked vice.com article suggests that
| the device isn't just decoding error codes, it's also
| providing a hardware bypass for safety features like
| lockouts.
| spiderxxxx wrote:
| no, the article says "groups seek permission from the
| government to break arbitrary software locks and passwords
| that keep consumers and repair professionals from
| diagnosing and repairing equipment they own or are
| authorized by the owner to work on." It doesn't mention
| "lockouts", or bypassing safety features. It's about access
| to the machine, and the diagnostics that a repair person
| has access to, but the owner does not.
| Clent wrote:
| But are they authorized? These are McDonalds franchises.
| There is a contract.
|
| We're going to start limiting what McDonalds can do to
| control quality of product because the tech community
| thinks it knows better?
|
| Dairy is not a product to play loose with the rules on.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| (Semi-)Serious question: does McDonald's soft serve "ice
| cream" contain dairy?
| mcpackieh wrote:
| It does contain dairy, but they can't legally call it ice
| cream. (Or at least they can't call their shakes
| "milkshakes": https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-
| us/faq/desserts-and-shakes.h... )
|
| _Q: Why don 't you call your 'shakes,' 'milkshakes'?_
|
| _A: Great question. Our shakes contain milk from our
| reduced-fat soft serve, which makes them thick and
| creamy. Dairy regulations actually vary from state to
| state on what can officially be called a 'milkshake.' We
| like to keep it simple and refer to them strictly as
| 'shakes.'_
|
| (Note they say "reduced-fat soft serve" and not "ice
| cream")
| bandyaboot wrote:
| In order to call it simply "ice cream", it would need to
| have at least 10% fat content. They could choose to call
| it "reduced fat ice cream", but I'm guessing they've
| decided that that doesn't sound as appetizing to
| consumers as "soft serve" since to most people, "soft
| serve" is just a type of ice cream. Marketing finds a
| way. _said in the voice of Ian Malcolm_
| Clent wrote:
| I really don't want keep defending a corporation here but
| it's quite clear form that messaging that it may be
| consider ice cream in some states.
|
| If we're going to dunk on corporations can we do it for
| legitimate reasons?
| mcpackieh wrote:
| They can't call it ice-cream because legally it isn't in
| at least some states. They likely aren't using enough
| cream, or they're adulterating it with other ingredients
| that some states don't permit. What exactly are you
| refuting?
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| "Vanilla Reduced Fat Ice Cream Ingredients: Milk, Sugar,
| Cream, Corn Syrup, Natural Flavor, Mono And Diglycerides,
| Cellulose Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Vitamin A
| Palmitate."
|
| -- https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/vanilla-
| cone.html...
| repiret wrote:
| The franchise owner is the machine owner, and therefore
| can cause a repair person to become "authorized by the
| owner".
|
| The franchise owner may have a contract with McD or
| Taylor in which they agreed not to make certain repairs,
| but I'm pretty sure they do not, because otherwise Taylor
| wouldn't need to lean on the DMCA to argue that certain
| repair tools are illegal.
| neilv wrote:
| See, you can casually whip out a more persuasive (or less
| self-defeating) argument than they did, in their presumably
| carefully crafted petition.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| responsibility for restaurant sanitation falls on the
| restaurant
|
| if you're going to mcdonalds, with your children, with the view
| that they _will_ serve you and your children spoiled,
| contaminated food, and _kill_ you and them, unless a little
| computer gadget _physically prevents_ them,
|
| you might either have poor judgement,
|
| or you might be a contrived plot device in an implausible
| hypothetic scenario dreamed up by a HNer
| spiderxxxx wrote:
| A lot of the time, the reason why it fails is simply because
| the feed bucket is filled too much to heat it up to a high
| enough temperature in the 4 hours, but the error codes give no
| indication of this unless you go into a service menu which the
| code is not available to the owners of the machines. If you
| could get into the service menu, you could find out what the
| problem is, fix it, and have it successfully complete a cycle,
| if you had access to the settings, you might be able to set it
| to try for a 5 hour cleaning cycle to give it more time to heat
| itself up to clean itself. It's not about trying to bypass a
| safety lockout, it's about being able to troubleshoot the issue
| and fix it.
| banannaise wrote:
| The lock doesn't prevent using the machine - it prevents
| _restarting the cleaning process_. The fact that the cleaning
| process hasn 't been completed is what prevents using the
| machine.
|
| There is no danger in unlocking the cleaning process so the
| cleaning process can be restarted.
| mig39 wrote:
| Capitalism always trends towards lock-in and monopoly rather than
| the free market.
|
| Once upon a time, governments would step in and ensure a free
| market.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| There are so many of these situations in medical devices. It's
| just the tip of the iceberg.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| So.. one of the smokescreens Taylor uses is that their
| proprietary control software is necessary to ensure the
| sterilization procedures happen correctly, so they can trot out
| the argument "if you tamper with our machine you could kill
| somebody".
|
| But it's a damn ice cream machine.
|
| The stakes get a bit riskier when it comes to medical devices
| because it's much easier to imagine the scenario where you
| tamper with a pacemaker, you're going to kill somebody. You
| tamper with a dialysis machine, you're going to kill somebody.
|
| Same problem, different stakes.
| rrauenza wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195207118/listeria-
| frugals-m...
|
| > Poorly cleaned ice cream machines at a Washington-based
| burger joint were linked to a listeria outbreak earlier this
| year that landed six people in the hospital, three of whom
| died. Two of those who were hospitalized told investigators
| they had milkshakes from the same restaurant before getting
| sick.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| You have it wrong.
|
| The stakes are actually higher for the ice cream machine.
| Inproper use of the ice cream machine could kill dozens. A
| pacemaker malfunction would just kill one at best.
|
| It's why airliners need to have triple redundant systems,
| doubke fault tolerant. Medical devices only need to be double
| redundant, single fault tolerant.
|
| I (dont) love it when people whonhave not ever designed a
| real medical device that's actually on the market make claims
| about what it's like to design a real medical device that's
| actually on the market.
| gruez wrote:
| >so they can trot out the argument "if you tamper with our
| machine you could kill somebody".
|
| >But it's a damn ice cream machine.
|
| It's a machine holding fluids that are highly conducive to
| bacterial growth, and is a pain to clean because it has tons
| nooks and crannies. Someone dying (if there's a preexisting
| condition) or getting seriously sick due to subpar cleaning
| is very plausible. People get sick from improperly maintained
| ice machines[1], and those are arguably simpler and are
| holding less hazardous liquids (plain water rather than
| milk).
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29382408/
| hgsgm wrote:
| And yet restaurant operators are allowed to open close
| their refrigerators and freezers at will, not subject to
| third party refrigerator maintenance company monopoly.
| gruez wrote:
| ...because they're not part of a franchise. Part of being
| a franchisee is that you're accepting the
| standards/regulations of the franchisor in exchange for
| use of their brand. I think it's very reasonable if
| mcdonalds had some sort of regulation like "all soda
| fountains must be disassembled and cleaned every 24
| hours", and enforced that through hardware interlocks.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Exactly, it's what they're selling (consistency and
| management).
|
| What I don't agree with is the proprietary lock out.
| Franchise owners should be able to replace the pump
| header with generic options.
| [deleted]
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Who guarantees the generic replacement is up to par?
| McDonald's or the franchisee? Who suffers a greater cost
| if it turns out not to be?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| For medical devoces its the manufacturer, and it's
| notified body.
|
| It's no different than for the origami manufacturer.
|
| It's all covered in ISO 13485 (and another similar
| standard for the software portion if your product
| contains software). It's called the risk based approach.
| You define what's called essential performance or your
| device, things it must do or the patient or caregiver is
| harmed. You then do a FMEA to determine what failure
| modes exist, and what the result of each failure is. You
| then make sure you have mitigation in place for each of
| those situations. You then document that all, get it
| signed off internally, by the FDA, by your notified body,
| and by the test house (for 14485, FCC testing, etc). All
| that makes up the stack of documents that allows you to
| sell a medical product.
|
| It's no different if it's a generic product or a new
| novel one, same process same standards.
|
| For food machinery it's also thr FDA for things like
| design and materials, and it's the local health
| department for those items. It's a similar but different
| ISO standard you need to meet depending on the specific
| machinery.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Should they also be allowed to swap out their cola
| products with generic brands? RC Cola instead of Coca
| Cola won't hurt anybody (much safer than tampering with a
| dairy machine!), but franchisees are made to buy Coca
| Cola specifically. Agreeing to this sort of thing is part
| of the deal of being a franchise.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, as long as they label it such to the public.
| ska wrote:
| Not saying it doesn't happen, but the situation in medical
| devices is more complicated.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's not really more complicated, just different. It's funny,
| the F in FDA stands for food, so you still need to deal with
| the FDA and its regulations, just different ones.
|
| Its really more of a paperwork/comiance thing than anything.
| I.e. genaric drugs. Source- I've designed medical devices and
| food processing equipment for 20 years.
| ska wrote:
| I shouldn't have been so terse. I didn't mean to suggest
| that the regulatory side didn't exist in commercial food
| equipment, obviously it does.
|
| OP seemed to suggest that medical devices was rife with
| situations parallel to McDonalds/Taylor, and that just
| doesn't seem to be the case; partially because the
| landscape is more complex in terms of who pays, how
| liability is distributed, and how the maintenance work is
| done, etc.
|
| Which isn't to say device industry doesn't have lots of its
| own problems, they just look different.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I am OP, and the parent commenter to this comment both.
|
| I was making exactly the opposit point you are.
|
| I have actually worked directly with the manufacturer of
| the pumps in those machines (Watson marlow), and also
| designed and saw through to clinical release many similar
| complex medical devices with the same exact pumps.
|
| The situation is nearly identical between these two
| examples, it's just the names of the forms you need to
| fill out are different, and the division of the company
| that supplies your components is different, but it's all
| the same thing just a different name.
| ska wrote:
| Ok, I confused myself somehow about who I was replying
| to, my apologies. The OP is jmsflknr though, no?
|
| However, my point was not meant to be about the pump
| design nor the regulatory bodies involved, so I think we
| are just miscommunicating. My fault for quick replies.
|
| I was responding to "There are so many of these
| situations in medical devices." by which I took you to
| mean that there are many parallel situations the the
| McDonalds/Taylor issue in the linked article and the
| franchises inability to keep them in service, or accept
| 3rd party help in doing it; I read this as the core point
| of the article.
|
| When I said "things are more complicated" I meant the
| relationship between the various entities and how systems
| get deployed, managed, maintained, etc. doesn't look the
| same.
|
| So is that what you meant?
|
| It's possible you just mean there are similar technical
| issues in the pumps, something I'm happy to accept you
| have direct experience in; in that case I just misread
| you. If you had said there are similar (identical) pumps
| in some medical devices I would have understood it that
| way.
|
| It read to me like you were making a far broader claim.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| For anyone interested in a good video about this, there is YT
| video that details how the Ice Cream Machine's being broken is
| essentially a scheme that McDonald's corporate runs on their
| franchisees.
|
| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
| nyokodo wrote:
| Can you summarize that video? I got about 7 minutes in and it
| still hadn't answered the question but did get an ad, so I gave
| up. Too much filler and noise!
| SirMaster wrote:
| If I recall some video I watched awhile ago:
|
| 1. McD HQ mandates franchises buy a special model Taylor-Made
| machine (not the same that like Chick-fil-a and others use).
| This is why McD machines stop working but other companies
| don't.
|
| 2. Every night there is a very specific maintenance routine
| that needs to be ran to clean and prep the machine for the
| next day. If it's not followed perfectly, the process will
| likely fail and the next morning workers will be greeted to a
| cryptic error code. Sometimes re-running the process will
| clear it, sometimes it wont. But this can take hours.
|
| 3. If re-running it doesn't fix it, then the franchise owner
| is stuck with the dilemma of bleeding money not having a
| working ice cream machine for customers, or calling an
| expensive hourly certified Taylor-Made repair person.
|
| 4. So they usually end up calling the repair person.
|
| The idea is that McD HQ is working with Taylor-Made to make
| this problem happen so that franchise owners have to pay for
| expensive repair people.
|
| Apparently the error codes have been reverse-engineered with
| a USB device that a third party created. But Taylor-Made is
| said to deny warranty and service etc if you try to use one.
| listenallyall wrote:
| > This is why McD machines stop working but other companies
| don't.
|
| Is it possible that what goes into those machines at
| McDonald's is thicker than Chick-fil-A's mix, rather than
| the machine being to blame? Just like some kinds of motor
| oil are harder on an engine than others.
| chongli wrote:
| A small nitpick:
|
| TaylorMade is a manufacturer of golf equipment. They are
| not related to Taylor Company, the maker of these ice cream
| machines.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Whoops, yeah I got the company name wrong.
| skyyler wrote:
| I took it as they were trying to say tailor-made, in
| reference to a bespoke-for-McDonald's product.
| SirMaster wrote:
| That works haha, but I did get the company name wrong, my
| bad.
| ixwt wrote:
| I believe that there is a lawsuit involving the third party
| devices as well. Pretty interesting saga.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| From https://www.fastcompany.com/90923565/congress-mcdonalds-
| ice-...:
|
| _The incentives here are all aligned against quick repair:
| Taylor makes more money when machines are broken. McDonald's
| corporate has a lucrative service contract with Taylor. As a
| result, poor franchisees, who have no choice about what
| equipment to buy or how to service it, are forced to deal
| with broken machines and annoyed customers._
| googlryas wrote:
| Why wouldn't McDonalds just _not_ do that, and charge more
| to franchisees, and pocket 100% of the amount instead of
| whatever cut they have to give to Taylor?
|
| Surely, franchisees and potential franchisees talk to each
| other, and if any appreciable amount of money was going out
| the door to fix the ice cream machine repeatedly, it would
| be a known cost of doing business.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| One possible reasons is that repair fees might not show
| up in planning the way a guaranteed franchise fee bump
| would. You can get your franchisees to pay more money if
| they don't know they are going to be paying it ahead of
| time, potentially.
|
| If the full extent of the repairs necessitated by the
| behavior were clear, obvious, and known ahead of time,
| then yeah, this would strictly be worse. But a slightly
| lower, but secret, fee might be preferable to a higher
| but obvious fee.
|
| That's just me speculating though. Could also just be
| incompetence or maliciousness, or maybe just once upon a
| time a particular person in McDonalds corporate took a
| bribe to make it happen. Who knows.
| qudat wrote:
| 30 min video condensed to 3 sentences. Thank you for saving
| our time!
| jmorenoamor wrote:
| I make and repair machines, you have tons of restaurants.
|
| You mandate that franchises have to buy my machines, and only
| me can service them.
|
| We both benefit economically from this agreement.
|
| Also, machines enter in service mode without needing it just
| to give me more business.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| On the other hand, we have the fact that listeria just killed a
| couple people due to ice cream machines not getting cleaned
| properly.
| https://www.cdc.gov/listeria/outbreaks/monocytogenes-06-22/i...
|
| Franchise owners use 'hacks' to disable the lengthy cleaning
| process on their machines to make more money at the expense of
| our health.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| that seems like a unrelated issue, the machines here aren't
| being disabled due to non-cleaning
|
| also that was last year
|
| also there's nothing in your link about it being due to
| someone hacking their machine
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's also obvious that technical measures would be useless
| at preventing this. Checking whether a local restaurant is
| following safety standards is for the local Health
| Inspector, not the machine vendor -- who would have the
| incentive to help them cheat as the one paying for their
| machines, if they weren't running a scam that makes the
| machine return false positives on purpose to generate
| profitable service calls.
|
| A prohibition on "hacking" only protects the scam.
| adolph wrote:
| Below is a milkshake listeria incident from this month.
| There is a balance to be sought between "right to repair"
| and safe operation of equipment. The discussion here [1]
| about dangers of ill informed self-service ebike batteries
| is an example. I'd like to see the standards for chilled
| dairy equipment maintenance before I would believe any
| claims about capabilities for self-repair.
|
| _OLYMPIA - Listeria bacteria found in all milkshake
| flavors sold at Frugals restaurant at 10727 Pacific Ave.
| S., Tacoma, WA are associated with a foodborne listeriosis
| outbreak linked to six hospitalizations and three deaths.
| Investigators found Listeria in the ice cream machines,
| which were not cleaned correctly. No other Frugals
| restaurants are believed to be affected. The restaurant
| stopped using its ice cream machines Aug. 8, but Listeria
| can sicken people up to 70 days later._ [0]
|
| 0. https://doh.wa.gov/newsroom/listeria-bacteria-found-
| milkshak...
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37293557
| jherico wrote:
| I've seen this video and while it's informative overall, it's
| also about 10 minutes or less of information stretched out to
| 30 minutes. super repetitive throughout and trying to
| constantly tickle you with the idea that resolution to
| questions are coming any second now.
| qudat wrote:
| Totally agree. I couldn't make it through 10 mins before
| being completely annoyed. It's well constructed but
| frustrating to watch. It was constantly teasing their results
| throughout the video and I left knowing less than I did prior
| to watching.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| As someone who used to take apart and clean those machines I
| expected to hate this video but found it pretty spot on.
|
| McDonalds was my first job and as someone who was pretty
| technologically inclined I started taking apart and fixing a
| lot of the old broken machines. I wouldn't say the ice cream
| machine was completely impossible to fix, but it was absolutely
| a pain. We also had an older model so it may also have been
| simpler to fix.
|
| One thing I would add is that it also highlights the importance
| of having a good maintenance person even in McDonalds. The
| reason why I knew a lot of the tricks with the ice cream
| machine is we had a guy there, who had been working overnight
| maintenance for >10 years there. The video mentions that you
| can't expect minimum wage employees who have only been there
| for 2 weeks to know how to do these things. But there's so much
| involved with running a restaurant that you can't expect a 15
| year old with no experience to do. But so often these positions
| are treated like any other low wage/low skill job. He probably
| saved the franchisee millions of dollars in maintenance costs
| over the years yet only was paid ~$20 an hour (if that).
| specialist wrote:
| Great share, thanks.
|
| To your last point: That's the mentality of treating labor as
| an expense rather than an investment.
| voisin wrote:
| I am surprised the franchisees haven't launched a class action.
| No other fast food chain has these issues.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| [dead]
| kevinventullo wrote:
| FWIW, I imagine the "invisible hand" is already in effect.
| That is, at the margins there are probably some potential
| franchisees who were dissuaded by McDonalds' actions here.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Surely the franchise agreement would prohibit such an action?
| voisin wrote:
| I am not sure such a clause would be upheld in a scenario
| where the franchisor blatantly acts in bad faith outside of
| industry norms to fleece the franchisee. There is a
| reasonable expectation of good faith.
| krisoft wrote:
| It's probably not even that. As a franchise you are under
| the thumb of the big corporation. They have a lot more
| money, and a lot more leverage to break you if you start
| suing them. They can probably inspect your premises, find
| 200 violations normally overlooked and then suspend your
| right to use their branding or suppliers. Sure you might
| win eventually, maybe in court. And then maybe you can sue
| them that the inspection happened in retaliation, but do
| you really want to risk that?
| zwieback wrote:
| I'm all for right-to-repair but if they hate their machines so
| much why isn't McD addressing the problem?
| blamazon wrote:
| Like many corporations nowadays, McDonald's is basically a real
| estate holding company. The actual franchised businesses that
| operate on their land are tenants, and as their landlord,
| McDonald's is, IMO, only incentivized to help them succeed
| financially insomuch as they desire to collect as much rent
| from them as possible.
|
| This ice cream machine thing is, IMO, an obfuscated method of
| transferring more value from the ground level businesses to
| McD's corporate, via the Taylor machine vendor middleman. In
| other words, paying more rent.
| kyleee wrote:
| I think more money is going to Taylor in recurring service
| revenue. But there were probably kickbacks to McDs when the
| use of this machine was mandated
| blamazon wrote:
| Kick-back doesn't have to be a one time thing - my guess
| (unsubstantiated) is the contracts involved routinely time
| out, requiring more 'golf-course negotiations.'
| ghostpepper wrote:
| That would mean there should be even more evidence laying
| around, no?
| blamazon wrote:
| In theory yes, but in practice, I feel that the
| transferred value could be ambiguous and obfuscated, even
| intangible. I would be surprised if McDonald's doesn't
| have a world class general counsel and legal team that
| can get very creative. I readily acknowledge this is a
| cynically conspiratorial take with no evidential basis.
| gruez wrote:
| >>This ice cream machine thing is, IMO, an obfuscated
| method of transferring more value from the ground level
| businesses to McD's corporate, via the Taylor machine
| vendor middleman. In other words, paying more rent.
|
| >But there were probably kickbacks to McDs when the use of
| this machine was mandated
|
| I see this being insinuated since day 1, but after 2 years
| of lawsuits no document has surfaced during discovery to
| support this claim. I realize absence of proof isn't proof
| of absence, but given how much this piece of evidence will
| help Kytch's case, if not in court of law then in the court
| of public opinion, I'm inclined to tentatively conclude no
| such malfeasance has occurred.
| [deleted]
| greedo wrote:
| This is an inaccurate meme that needs to die.
|
| Yes, McDonalds is a large owner of real estate. Does this
| mean that's where they get their profits? Not so much.
|
| Most franchisees pay roughly 10% of gross sales to McDonalds
| as "rent" (this is in addition to the 4% they pay as a
| monthly service fee for other aspects of the relationship).
|
| Since this "rent" is based on gross sales, the primary
| incentive on McDonalds part to increase the franchisee's
| sales.
|
| Your argument also ignores that roughly 30% of McDonalds
| profits comes from stores it operates itself.
| jandrese wrote:
| The franchisees hate the machines, but some people at the
| corporate level are I'm sure very happy with the big stacks of
| cash Taylor provides to insure the exclusivity. Reputational
| brand damage from having always broken Ice Cream machines is
| apparently less of a concern than losing those sweet
| greenbacks.
| phonon wrote:
| There is no exclusivity. Franchisees can buy Carpigiani
| machines instead...but...
|
| "(McDonald's agreement with franchisees also allows them to
| use an actual Italian machine, sold by Bologna-based
| Carpigiani, that McD Truth describes as much better designed.
| But given that its replacement parts can take a week to
| arrive from Italy, far fewer restaurants buy it.)" [1]
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-
| cream-...
| netsharc wrote:
| Seem like there's a market to be a buyer of a few thousand
| of the Italian machines state-side, in complete (for
| selling) and in parts (for repairs).
| phonon wrote:
| Seems like they are pretty good!
|
| "Then there is the Carpigiani K3. Take all the issues
| with the Taylor C602 and fix them and then you have a K3.
| It's by far the better machine with tech support that
| anyone can call into. The only complaint is that most of
| the parameters are initialized before being translated
| from German to English."
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/jd2tbq/mcdonalds
| _ic...
| kyleee wrote:
| Sounds expensive to get started but I wish someone would
| just to compete with the corrupt idiots at Taylor
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The meta point I heard the other day was that property law used
| to givern how we use things, but that computing has changed all
| interactions into contract law. Instead of having broad
| governance by government of how we relate to property, each
| company is free to create it's own set of laws governing use
| (free to ensnare us as it will).
|
| What a wretched abomination! This imposes against the spirit of
| man the toolmaker, man the creator, man the scientist to let each
| company prohibit exploration & understanding & fiddling with the
| things they have released unto the world. Black boxes are against
| the Enlightenment spirit that has given rise to society.
|
| Ah, it was a point in _Web scraping for me but not for thee_ ,
| and cited in this comment, citing a 20 year old Mark Lemley
| observation in _Terms of Use_ ,
| https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-f...
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264970
| lax4ever wrote:
| I am intrigued, delighted, incredibly supportive of this measure,
| and finally, laughing my ass off.
| abeppu wrote:
| > The Superior Court of Alameda County is charging roughly $1 per
| page to get legal filings. To download the entirety of the court
| proceedings to date, the court wants $2,999.
|
| I was surprised by this, b/c I've been able to view court
| documents for SF Superior Court without paying anything. AC even
| charges per search query!
|
| https://eportal.alameda.courts.ca.gov/?q=node/388
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Are these allowed to be posted on RECAP? If so, the cost could
| at least be shared by multiple interested parties.
|
| (You can see some other Kytch legal proceedings there for free.
| https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=kytch%20vs%20gamble&type=r&...
| )
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| >More than 480 documents have been filed with the court in that
| lawsuit, and a trial is scheduled for this fall. Even reading
| documents from this lawsuit is a costly nightmare of an affair.
| The Superior Court of Alameda County is charging roughly $1 per
| page to get legal filings. To download the entirety of the court
| proceedings to date, the court wants $2,999.
|
| That's absurd and should not be legal
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes. Why not $10K per page?
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| For anyone who wants full details on this story, there is an
| 82-page complaint by Kytch against McDonalds for false/misleading
| descriptions under the Lanham Act, including a number of other
| state law claims. A must-read for anyone who finds this dispute
| entertaining.
|
| https://ia902502.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ded.781...
| listenallyall wrote:
| Is everyone 100% sure it's McDonald's machines that are faulty?
| Couldn't it be that McDonald's specific ice cream mix or blend is
| just a little bit thicker, or stickier, or whatever, and that
| would increase the failure rate of any brand or model of soft-
| serve machine?
| rtbathula wrote:
| It's a violation of patent laws. And I can summarize it in one
| expression from the novel Atlas Shrugged "Why Rearden could only
| have Rearden Metal?"
| Clent wrote:
| In which direction?
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| I may be wrong, but I thought this "exemption" wasn't required in
| the first place.
|
| DMCA 1201 applies to copyrighted material, and even then, only to
| measures that control access to the work. The _Chamberlain v.
| Skylink_ case in the court of appeals for the Federal Circuit
| (which is binding in all other federal courts) established that
| the prohibitions can 't apply to software the user is already
| entitled to use. The Court put it this way:
|
| "Consumers who purchase a product containing a copy of embedded
| software have the inherent legal right to use that copy of the
| software."
| mcpackieh wrote:
| McDonalds employees pretty consistently can't even get "no
| pickles" right. Does it really surprise people if McDonalds corp
| wants all dairy machine maintenance done by actual professionals
| instead of overworked/disinterested/whatever/etc teenagers?
|
| If Taylor were scamming McDonalds, or were bribing somebody in
| McDonalds corp to go along with it, McDonalds corp lawyers would
| be crawling all over them. That evidently isn't happening, so it
| seems safe to assume that Taylor is doing exactly what McDonalds
| corp thinks they should be doing. If a burger shop proprietor
| doesn't like this, they're free to open their own burger shop
| without a McDonalds franchise. It shouldn't be hard for them to
| sell a superior product, but they'd lose access to McDonald's
| reputation. And protecting that reputation is probably the entire
| point of this ice-cream machine drama.
| greedo wrote:
| Exactly!
|
| I remember one night closing our store. I was 16, and the dude
| in charge of cleaning the shake machine and the sundae machine
| was a bit of a stoner. Back in the day all the cleaning was
| manual (1982). So the dude would pull out all of the frozen
| shake mix, then run a soapy water mix through it, then a
| sanitizer rinse. Took some time, and closing was always a rush.
|
| So he either forgot or decided to skip the sanitizer rinse.
|
| Now if you put soap in dairy products, you end up giving people
| diarrhea. So a few days later we got a lot of complaints and
| the guy ended up being fired. He was dumb enough to joke about
| it.
|
| It's not like it was his career; he was 18 and headed to
| college somewhere. For $2.10/hour, that's what you got. If the
| manager didn't doublecheck everything, stuff like this
| happened.
|
| McDonalds tech is designed around the following principle;
| "Imagine how stupid the average person is, then realize half of
| all people are stupider than that."
| galleywest200 wrote:
| > Does it really surprise people if McDonalds corp wants all
| dairy machine maintenance done by actual professionals instead
| of overworked/disinterested/whatever/etc teenagers?
|
| Why not a third-party professional technician that does not
| charge $300 for 15 minutes of field repair? Additionally, the
| video points out that the error codes are purposefully obtuse.
| At the very least we could require these be clear so anybody
| could understand what the code meant.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-29 23:01 UTC)