[HN Gopher] McDonald's ice cream machine hackers say they found ...
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McDonald's ice cream machine hackers say they found 'smoking gun'
Author : atlasunshrugged
Score : 158 points
Date : 2023-12-15 18:47 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Archive link: https://archive.ph/fouWj
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I still don't understand why McDonald's is accepting a 10-20%
| "broken" status as remotely acceptable. Especially when its clear
| its solvable.
| meepmorp wrote:
| It's not really McDonalds the corporation's problem - they get
| paid all the same, probably with some definitely-not-kickbacks
| from the manufacturer.
| krger wrote:
| > they get paid all the same
|
| I haven't looked at a McDonalds franchise contract, but every
| QSR franchise contract I've seen requires the franchisee to
| pay the brand a percentage of each location's gross sales.
|
| Broken ice cream machine = less gross sales. Less gross sales
| = less money going to the brand.
|
| It's also not great for customer satisfaction.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yes, I looked into franchising many years ago and that was
| my recollection as well -- often groups also sell you the
| inputs/ingredients and force you to purchase through them
| to "maintain quality/consistency" which would seem to be
| another reason why McD would want more volume/sales.
| krger wrote:
| > often groups also sell you the inputs/ingredients and
| force you to purchase through them to "maintain
| quality/consistency"
|
| QSR franchisees are famous for cutting every corner they
| can get away with (as well as cutting even more corners
| until they get caught by the brand or local health/labor
| inspectors), so maintaining quality and consistency is a
| very real concern for these brands.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yes, that's fair, but it's also a great way to guarantee
| recurring revenue for a franchisor whose franchisees are
| obligated to purchase from them
| dylan604 wrote:
| I thought we were talking about an ice cream machine and
| not an ink jet printer.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| All the same to the MBAs at these companies looking to
| squeeze the last penny out of everything
| kube-system wrote:
| Inkjet printers merely have DRM. Franchises have way more
| power; they have legally binding contracts.
| mike_d wrote:
| I believe when this first came out it was highlighted that
| a lot of employees moved back and forth between McD and
| Taylor. The implication that residual stock or friends
| across town could influence the situation.
| krger wrote:
| >The implication that residual stock or friends across
| town could influence the situation.
|
| Yes, that could explain why McDonalds execs would try to
| discourage franchisees from using Kytch.
|
| It doesn't, however, explain why McDonalds execs seem not
| to have a problem with 20% of their locations not being
| able to sell a product that people apparently like enough
| to complain when they can't get it, which is what the
| top-level comment was talking about.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Aren't most of their ice cream products like <$5? I recall
| the cones are only like $1. My guess would be that, if
| there is some kind of arrangement between McD's and Taylor,
| it's probably way more profitable than the losses they'd
| see from 10-13% of their ice cream machines being down per
| month.
| almostnormal wrote:
| Isn't the cost of the ingredients some $0.2 (I have no
| idea, just estimating by the taste), so that machine is
| printing money when working?
|
| It's surprising they cannot build a machine that does not
| break that easily.
| kube-system wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure. Milk, cream, and sugar are
| relatively expensive ingredients, and labor is very
| expensive.
| bluGill wrote:
| Milk/cream is not cheap. It takes a lot of energy to
| freeze that mixture as well. Most people don't try to
| measure this, but the ice in your soda probably costs
| more than the rest of the sugar water (in bulk/wholesale
| as restaurants buy soda, if you pay retails prices things
| are different)
| 0xy wrote:
| Would McDonalds Corp rather sell let's say 1,000 ice creams
| for $1,000 total at a 2% cut ($20) or an ice cream machine
| repair (maybe $1,000)?
|
| They're fleecing the franchisees via repairs.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Apparently if the ice cream machine is broken, the
| franchise can move _more product_ in other higher-margin
| categories.
|
| So no, it doesn't mean less gross sales.
| hoten wrote:
| Johnny Harris (journalist) covered this story:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
| xvector wrote:
| This might be one of the worst videos I've ever seen. 30
| minutes of video for about two paragraphs worth of content.
| Mind-bogglingly poor information density, it's like the video
| was deliberately stretched to 30 minutes for no reason other
| than the fact that he could. Terrible journalism.
|
| ChatGPT summary:
|
| > The video investigates why McDonald's ice cream machines
| are frequently broken. It reveals that the machines undergo a
| complex, four-hour cleaning cycle, often misinterpreted as a
| breakdown. Franchise owners are contractually obliged to use
| a specific machine model (C602) made by Taylor, which has a
| high failure rate. The malfunctioning machines, with cryptic
| error messages and user-unfriendly interfaces, necessitate
| expensive repairs by Taylor-authorized technicians. An
| entrepreneur developed an alternative device providing better
| feedback and reducing breakdowns, but McDonald's allegedly
| discouraged its use, favoring a less effective solution from
| a company related to Taylor.
|
| Every day GPT-4 becomes more useful for wading through the
| swath of bullshit.
| Lich wrote:
| Yeah, not a fan of Harris' videos at all. He defines
| journalism...differently.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dum0bqWfiGw
| hef19898 wrote:
| He was good with "Borders", after that no so much. His
| "documentation" on the Soccer World Cup worker was, well,
| a repetition of what other journalista already reported
| on, with less detail and depth but sold in way to make it
| look like he was the oloy one uncovering it and risking
| his life doing so.
|
| So no, not a fan neither.
| kube-system wrote:
| I feel like the content in this video is surprising only to
| people who have no clue how these businesses work.
|
| * A complicated machine that will hurt people if configured
| improperly can't have the operating parameters changed by the
| end user? Yeah, I'd do that too, the end users are literally
| children and unskilled workers, and the business is liable if
| they mess it up. What exactly does the author think that a
| food service worker is going to do in the service menu of
| these machines?
|
| * Franchisees can't modify the equipment as they choose?
| Yeah, that's the way it works, it's not their decision to
| make.
|
| * Business partners having to choose a product or service as
| a result of a contractual obligation? Welcome to B2B product
| sales. This happens everywhere.
| smegger001 wrote:
| because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the
| manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the McDonalds
| franchisees. The franchisees aren't given a choice of what
| machine and servicers they use as corporate dictates what model
| of machine they are allowed to use and who is allowed to
| perform service upon it. So Mcdonalds corporate doesn't care
| because they aren't the ones loosing money on sales or service
| fees as they don't run many of the restaurants fore them its a
| profit center.
| gruez wrote:
| >because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the
| manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the
| McDonalds franchisees
|
| Is there more on this? If they can dig up CEO's emails surely
| they can dig up the financial arrangements between them and
| mcdonalds?
| pphysch wrote:
| Given all of the parties' (hacked) accounting books, how do
| you prove that "Foobar service/fee" is actually "illegal
| kickback"?
| gruez wrote:
| 1. If we're to take the plaintiffs at face value (ie. the
| email in question is really the "smoking gun", didn't
| bother hiding it, and just handed it over in discovery),
| then surely the defendants are too incompetent to hide
| the kickbacks?
|
| 2. That attitude is dangerously close to "unfalsifiable
| claim" territory. There's no evidence for your
| conspiracy? Well duh, it's all-powerful conspirators that
| we're dealing with. Of course there's going to be no
| evidence because they hid it all!
| pphysch wrote:
| I'm just saying it's very easy to hide this sort of
| thing. A brief chat at the country club, totally off the
| record, is all they need to finalize a backroom deal.
|
| The prosecution even argued that the defendents were
| using Mafia-like language, according to TFA.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > they aren't the ones loosing money
|
| From what I'm seeing, besides the monthly rent (in most cases
| paid to McDonalds), and the required supply purchases,
| franchisees also have to kick 4% of sales up to corporate.
|
| So corporate is indeed losing money when the machine isn't
| working (also, they're probably not going to be buying
| supplies for a broken machine, either).
| burningChrome wrote:
| You also have to factor in the cost to profit ratio.
|
| What's more profitable? Kicking out a dozen Big Macs in the
| same time it takes to make one McFlurry? As an owner, I'm
| going to focus on where my profits are so that I can
| maximize those areas that are generating the most profit.
| Anything with ice cream is a net loss for my profit column
| so anything I can do to discourage people from increasing
| those sales which will then cut into my overall profits is
| just fine with me.
|
| Their McFlurry ice cream items were created to compete with
| Dairy Queens Blizzard items. I'm not sure why they decided
| they could compete with DQ, but they thought they would
| siphon some of that market share from them - which I don't
| think they ever did, but it didn't lose enough money for
| them to take the item off of their menus.
| uoaei wrote:
| Because it's never a moral question, it's always a financial
| one. And the finances shake out quasi-optimally for McDonald's
| the corporation.
| detourdog wrote:
| My guess is that they weren't measuring ice cream machine
| uptime. They were using some other metric. The franchisee is
| really the one loses sales to a down machine. Corporate McDs is
| satisfied with the revenue share and doesn't realize more ice
| cream could be sold.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Because they don't give a shit, just like every incumbent.
|
| It's why institutions so quickly fall - no one gives a shit.
| Five Guys and Shake Shack do, and they're eating McDonald's
| lunch
| huytersd wrote:
| What a joke. McDonald's may not have the healthiest food but
| as a corporation they have things locked down. I've never
| seen a place run better at scale than McDonald's inspite of
| the bottom of the barrel staff that's available to them.
| gruez wrote:
| >"Not sure if there is anything we can do to slow up the
| franchise community on the other solution," FitzGerald wrote on
| October 17, 2020. "Not sure what communication from either McD or
| Midd can or will go out."
|
| That's the extent of the "smoking gun" that's in the article.
| Needless to say, I'm far from convinced it's a "smoking gun"
| given how short and probably cherry picked it is. Is there a full
| copy of the email somewhere? All the cases on courtlistener don't
| show any relevant documents.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| You have to admit, there is a very "will no one rid me of this
| meddlesome priest?" ring to it.
| mike_d wrote:
| That is a really big deal coming from an executive. Leadership
| 101 is you never mention a business change or action in the
| same communication as a situation with a competitor. This guy
| clearly didn't do his yearly antitrust training.
| gruez wrote:
| >Leadership 101 is you never mention a business change or
| action in the same communication as a situation with a
| competitor
|
| Source?
| armada651 wrote:
| That's because he uses "not sure" as weasel words, remove the
| weasel words and you end up with:
|
| "Is there anything we can do to slow up the franchise community
| on the other solution? What communication from either McD or
| Midd can or will go out?"
|
| That already sounds a lot more damning. And this is an
| executive, so if he's asking questions in an e-mail he's
| telling you to do something. So anyone working for him will
| interpret that as:
|
| "We need to do something to slow up the franchise community on
| the other solution. Send out a communication from McD or Midd."
| axus wrote:
| "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,
| which is one more than we have"
|
| "There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've
| recalculated."
| gruez wrote:
| Except in the Trump-Raffensperger phone call, we actually
| have the full recording, whereas in the case of the
| mcdonalds ice cream machine we only have a short quote
| selected by the plaintiff. If you read my original comment
| carefully, you'd see that I'm not dismissing the "smoking
| gun" outright, just that I'm reserving my judgement until
| the full document came out. If in the case of the Trump-
| Raffensperger phone call, the only source I had to go off
| of was a self-interested source (eg. Biden campaign or
| partisan media outlet) claiming that Trump said "I want you
| to find 11,780 votes", I'd be reserving judgement as well.
| chx wrote:
| A few years ago the company I was working for was going
| through some rapid growth and communication was not great. So
| when I needed access to a service after months of back and
| forth nothing happened so kicked the football up the chain
| and the director responsible wrote this to the relevant team:
|
| > my understanding is that he needs a higher level of access
| in Marketo to be able to accomplish this task. Do you know
| anything about this?
|
| and presto! less than a day later I got access.
|
| It's just how leaders talk.
| TheCleric wrote:
| And a thing I've learned with a few executives doing stuff
| like this: what they say in person, call, etc. that's not
| being recorded is a lot more direct than what they say in an
| email that may get pulled in discovery for a lawsuit.
| jconley wrote:
| It seems to me that this is the risk you take when you create an
| unofficial add-on to any product.
|
| I've helped reverse engineer vehicle ECU's to reprogram the fuel
| injection, turbo pressure, and spark timing systems. But, we
| wouldn't have expected the manufacturer to do anything except
| officially discourage the use of the aftermarket tools. That is
| the name of the game with unofficial add-ons with access to
| sensitive control systems.
|
| Disclaimer: I did work for a Middleby subsidiary at the time but
| I don't know anything that isn't public about this situation. We
| were all very separate companies.
| toxik wrote:
| I somehow feel it is a very different thing with ice cream
| machines versus automotive applications.
| gruez wrote:
| Yes, you can probably harm an order of magnitude more people
| with a contaminated ice cream machine than with a defective
| vehicle.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| It doesn't sound like the Kytch device was claimed to cause
| any kind of contamination, it just exposed diagnostic data?
| To me hacked ECUs seem much more likely to pose a danger to
| human health - but that's because bad drivers kill and
| injure a lot of people (maybe people who have done Level 3
| tunes are all excellent and responsible drivers...
| maybe...)
| kube-system wrote:
| The issue isn't a problem with the product, it's a
| problem with undermining the chain of responsibility and
| liability.
| gruez wrote:
| >It doesn't sound like the Kytch device was claimed to
| cause any kind of contamination, it just exposed
| diagnostic data?
|
| That's what the article says, but I vaguely remember that
| there were mentions of overriding the machine's safety
| interlocks. I searched around and sure enough, I found
| this:
|
| >The Kytch, based on a Raspberry Pi, offered McDonald's
| franchisees insight into both their machines' operation
| and failures. _It could also override locks that prevent
| the machines from working due to non-critical errors._
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/mcdonalds-ice-
| cream-...
|
| (emphasis mine)
|
| As for what the device does today, I'm not so sure. Maybe
| they realized that overriding locks presents a safety
| hazard and removed that feature. Maybe they kept it in
| but decided not to loudly advertise it because it'd make
| them look bad. Who knows.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Again, so safety issue. Let's quit struggling so hard to
| slander what was essentially a monitoring device.
| gruez wrote:
| >was essentially a monitoring device.
|
| "monitoring devices" don't "override locks".
| jrockway wrote:
| This class of locks sounds a lot like the intro to a
| video game that says "press start to continue". Imagine
| your TV is broken so only displays the top half of the
| image. Are you overriding a lock when you press start,
| even though you can't see the message? Can I sell you a
| device that detects the top of the video game and flashes
| on its own screen "press start to continue"? Absolutely.
| That is all that's going on here and should be 100%
| legal.
|
| Reading the lawsuit, though, I'm getting the impression
| that the safety interlocks on the machine are software-
| based, not hardware-based. That is, the lock says "door
| closed" or "door open", and the microcontroller refuses
| to do anything in the "door open" state. This is in
| contrast to a hardware lock, where the door closing
| closes a switch that AC power comes in through. Door
| open, no power, and completely failsafe.
|
| In the case of software locks, I am sure that monitoring
| apparatus can break the software interlocks accidentally.
| I used to work for an ISP and wrote a program that SSH'd
| to each of our OLTs, and downloaded a ton of data about
| each customer and sync'd it into our database. (No API
| except SSH-ing in and typing commands, of course.) This
| totally broke them after a period of time. One Saturday
| morning I got a frantic Slack from the CEO "shut it off!
| all of our OLTs are dead!". (As an aside, I had a slack
| command to kill the monitoring jobs for exactly this
| reason... we all thought it was pretty hacky.) After
| debugging this with the vendor, it essentially turns out
| that reading data takes a lock, and the watchdog also
| tries to take that lock, and reboots if it can't within
| some ridiculous timeframe. (It was actually a little more
| complex than this, involving two redundant CPUs inside
| the device going out of sync after not being able to read
| the other's state for too long, but in the end, it's the
| watchdog that gets you. Their locks were also implemented
| wrong; "try to acquire it now, go to sleep for a long
| time if it fails", rather than being woken up when the
| lock is unlocked. That's what killed us, we did a LOT of
| reads, and were probably reading at the exact instant
| that this thing wanted to do its read to keep the system
| from rebooting.)
|
| So anyway, in the case of the ice cream machine, this
| sort of bug is possible. The diagnostic tool is reading
| the internal state, the "transition to next phase" code
| runs, fails to get the lock on the door interlock state
| variable, incorrectly assumes "it's probably locked", and
| turns on the spinning ice cream mixer of death while
| someone's hand is elbow-deep in melted ice cream. At the
| end of the day, software interlocks are evil and have
| literally killed people before (see Therac-25), and the
| manufacturer of this machine probably doesn't want
| liability for bad code they've written. The monitoring
| device increases the chance of liability, so they want it
| dead.
|
| I see their perspective, of course, but I still think
| that "that's too bad" is a fine response to their legal
| team.
| gumby wrote:
| Sometimes the after market changes increase the incentive to
| buy the base product. I mean that basically is the computing
| industry from the 360 on.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Funny that this is the opinion for this product, but mere
| mention of this concept for Beeper accessing Apple as an add-on
| product is thought of in a different manner. Because it's a
| physical product? Because it's not Apple?
| krisoft wrote:
| Because people commenting on HN are not a hivemind. Some
| people think this some people think that and there is no
| guarantee or requirement that these independent thoughts from
| independent people are consistent.
| mrpippy wrote:
| I guess the difference here is that there's 3 separate parties:
| McDonalds corporate, Taylor (makes the ice cream machines), and
| the franchisee. McDonalds requires the franchisee to buy a
| specific machine from Taylor (or a dramatically more $$ one
| from an Italian company IIRC), and places other requirements on
| the franchisee, but is it legal to interfere in the
| relationship between the franchisee and Taylor?
| bumby wrote:
| > _legal to interfere in the relationship between the
| franchisee and Taylor?_
|
| I think the term is "tortious interference" but it is
| notoriously very difficult to have upheld in court. You can
| obviously compete but you can't deliberately undermine a
| contract with a competitor. IANAL, but from my reading of the
| article, that would rely on how substantive the safety claims
| that McD made are in disincentivizing the use of the 3rd
| party equipment. (not to mention they party wasn't explicitly
| named in those safety communications)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
| jamestanderson wrote:
| > But, we wouldn't have expected the manufacturer to do
| anything except officially discourage the use of the
| aftermarket tools.
|
| I think the issue here is that McDonalds was discouraging the
| use of the tool, not Taylor (the manufacturer).
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| I worked at McDonalds for 4 years. 2 as a kitchen worker. 2 as a
| shift manager. I've personally cleaned these machines too many
| times to count.
|
| I've never heard one person tell "the truth" about this (at least
| in my personal experience).
|
| Our ice cream machine was often down too but not because it was
| broken. Because we were short staffed and making ice cream is a
| HUGE time sink for employees. The manager would just tell the
| employees "no more ice cream" and they all knew what's up. They'd
| be very happy that they could focus on food and McCafe and thus
| not disappoint customers too much due to slow service.
|
| Folks don't quite understand that McDonald's is consistently
| short staffed and the workers are often doing the work of 2-3
| people just to try to get you fast and hot food.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > the workers are often doing the work of 2-3 people
|
| How is that possible?
| alphameese wrote:
| When I worked there during our lunch rush, we would have a
| person dedicated to every task, fries, coffee, orders,
| bagging. When it came to the dinner rush, we would have half
| the staff or less then our lunch rush. So in a sense it is
| the work of 2 to 3 people. Also during overnight we would
| have only one person in the front, and one in the back. Once
| Uber eats came on the scene our workload increased 3x or
| more, but no extra staff was added! :-)
|
| Edit: that's not even mentioning when we would be short
| staffed, due to people not showing up / calling in, which
| happened every other day it felt like, and the shift wouldn't
| be replaced.
| voisin wrote:
| I suspect this is a franchisee trying to improve
| profitability versus a company wide issue. I suspect it is
| highly variable. Also, sometimes sales are unexpectedly
| higher than normal.
| bee_rider wrote:
| We have comments from people who've worked there, which
| fit the general impression that the places tend to give.
|
| I haven't worked in fast food, but I've worked in retail,
| and it was my experience that the "nice" manager would
| schedule us, like... one extra person beyond the bare
| minimum.
|
| Why do you suspect this, do you have any particular
| insight into these kinds of businesses beyond the rest of
| us?
| bluGill wrote:
| Sales unexpectedly higher than normal happens, but that
| typically only lasts an hour and then you go clean the
| now very messy store, while if sales were normal you
| would have enough staff on hand to keep it clean as you
| go. Stores keep enough clean trays and the like around to
| handle the worst case extra busy, and the trash cans can
| go an hour without being emptied. Customers will pick the
| least dirty table.
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| Yes. Lunch rush is the baby of all McDonalds management.
| You'll rarely see an understaffed store then.
| Coincidentally this is the shift that most store managers
| work.
|
| Night shift is where you'll see the cluster-fucks occur
| most and it's when the ice cream machine will be "down" the
| most in my experience
| WalterBright wrote:
| The customer load on a service business like McDonald's is
| going to vary chaotically from minute to minute. It's a
| difficult problem to have it match the staffing level,
| while staying in business.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Lunch is like one $1200 hour, dinner is $4-600/hour, but
| occurs over many more hours. Lunch is definitely busier and
| better staffed, and the dinner crew usually needs to to
| start thinking about closing, so a few go off at 7 to start
| dish or clean the back room or whatever.
| kube-system wrote:
| What they mean is "the workers have 2-3x more work queued up
| than can be handled for satisfactory operations"
|
| Quality of service will suffer.
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| I'll counter you. How do you find competent, reliable people
| that show up to work consistently and work hard for $9.00 an
| hour?
|
| You're doing the work of your buddies who called in. Your
| buddies called in because they're 17 and they're dad made
| them get this job. They hate it! This happens every damn day.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I think many of these jobs are starting at closer to $15/hr
| now, but perhaps your point still stands
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| Yeah I think you're right. I'm out of touch now.
|
| I started working there ~10 years ago and my starting pay
| was $7.30/hr. I made $10/hr as a manager
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I started at $4.25/hour, but got pushed up to $5 within a
| year. I feel old now.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Back in the early 2000s, I worked on a product that was the
| only profit center in a public company. While there were
| people who worked on overall technical architecture, it was
| only myself and one front end dev dedicated to the product.
| Other products that ran in the red had dozens of employees
| because they were the things that got touted to Wall Street,
| but we were the very boring thing that kept the company
| alive.
|
| Back in high school I worked in fast food as a closer. One
| front end person, one backend person, one manager for dinner
| rush, late rush, clean up from the day both in the kitchen
| and the store, some basic prep for the next day (morning
| shift did main prep), and they kept pushing us to get our
| times down so that we could walk out the door as soon as the
| store closed rather than taking any time after closing for
| our cleanup, etc. Our labor cost per hour was likely around
| $17. The energy to run the ovens, refrigerators, etc was
| fairly consistent, while our labor cost for any extra time
| after closing was a variable cost that ate into their profit
| margin.
|
| Doesn't matter what industry -- ask a doctor about their
| workload -- if management can squeeze labor costs, they will.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > if management can squeeze labor costs, they will.
|
| Everybody squeezes costs, including you and I. Don't you
| shop for the lowest prices? I do. Customers of fast food
| are pretty price sensitive.
| zaptrem wrote:
| What made it a time sink? How could it be made faster?
| voisin wrote:
| Yeah I wondered this too. Watching them work, it certainly
| doesn't look like they take more time than most McCafe drinks
| or making burgers.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It likely doesn't, but McCafe Drinks/Burgers are a staple.
| Coffee and Burgers are likely included in most of their
| orders, Ice Cream they get a few each hour.
| dawnerd wrote:
| If it's only a few that's no more of a backup than
| someone getting to order and going "uhhhhhhhhhh" or the
| people arguing with the cashier that something was wrong.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| I've never worked at a McDonald's, but I have had to operate
| and maintain a soft-serve ice cream machine. I don't eat soft
| serve ice cream because I know how long it takes to clean
| these machines properly. I've seen what happens when they
| aren't. I don't trust that places like fast food joints that
| are understaffed, where the employees aren't motivated enough
| to do a thorough job, would take the time necessary to make
| sure those machines are clean.
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| It's a relative time sink and the toughest logistical
| challenge in the whole store for workers due to soft serve
| melting so fast.
|
| You must make the ice cream last. The car has to be at the
| window (or customer at the counter) when you start. This is
| the only item in the store that must be prepared like this so
| you must always have a free person to do this. McDonalds
| does't provide the labor budget to have "free people"
| standing around to get your ice cream when you need it.
| Making ice cream almost always hurt another area of the store
| in a small way.
|
| Also making a soft serve ice cream cone is much harder than
| you think. Took me ~2 months to get it down. Dont even get me
| started on dipped cones.
|
| Fun fact: This is why your mcflurry doesnt have candy at the
| bottom. Workers hate ice cream! They dont blend it with the
| machine, they'll just hand blend it to be quick.
|
| The fix would be to take the burden off the the employees.
| Automate it just like they did drinks. Or increase the labor
| allowance to have the staff to handle ice cream. They'll
| probably never do that though.
| schneems wrote:
| This question makes me think that you believe the problem is
| an efficiency that can be solved rather than an intentional
| choice.
|
| Ive worked at several restaurants as a waiter and food prep
| staff. The businesses have very thin margins and most costs
| are fixed except for...labor.
|
| When it's lunch rush, it feels like every atom of your being
| is pressed to the limit. Then when that's done your manager
| has to come around and start assigning random cleaning and
| other tasks so people aren't just hanging around.
|
| When they schedule, they want to just *barely* handle the
| busiest time or otherwise it's an inefficiency in the system.
|
| Also to mention, restaurant staff aren't the most...stable
| workforce in the world. So even if they do schedule to have
| some buffer, people will quit and call in sick on a dime.
|
| I know what op is talking about when they say they do the
| work of 2-3 people and I believe them. The system is designed
| to squeeze that extra bit out of everyone.
|
| If there was a magic mystery inefficiency they found, that
| would translate to decreasing staffing per shift, not
| increased breathing room for the individual workers. (IMHO)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| We're specifically talking about the efficiency of making
| ice cream versus other foods. One that makes them change
| the menu when they're getting busy.
|
| That specific problem can be solved.
|
| And it would not enable any more decrease in staffing,
| because they're _already_ not making the ice cream.
|
| The question was not about trying to fix the general
| situation of being understaffed.
| a2tech wrote:
| Also staff not keeping the ice cream machine full or ignoring
| the warnings on the screen or...all the other things. As long
| as people followed all the rules the machines they were bullet
| proof.
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| Exactly! Our ice cream machines were well made and always
| worked as they should. They'd be down for a couple hours a
| month to clean but that's it.
|
| The machine would flash and beep when the ice cream mix was
| low so we were always eager to shut it up.
| yterdy wrote:
| Every retail/food service job is understaffed. You ask what
| people displaced by AI will do for a living? That. They'll do
| that. Because, actually, we do need people at PoS, if we're
| selling to other people. Hint hint as to why you should be
| supporting "unskilled" labor unions, high wages for those
| workers, and the destigmatizing of those types of jobs.
| bumby wrote:
| Displaced workers going into unskilled labor doesn't seem
| like an idealized "post-AI" situation. If anything, it might
| be something we should guard against. There's nothing wrong
| with honest work, but some would probably paint that scenario
| as dystopian, if you consider that many people think creative
| and autonomous work are important to human flourishing. If
| anything, I'd want AI to take over those rote jobs so people
| can focus on that type of creative work they tend to find
| more fulfilling.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| AI will enter meat space long after it replaces knowledge
| workers
| chmod775 wrote:
| _Automation_ entered meat space centuries before it
| replaced knowledge work.
| bumby wrote:
| I tend to agree, but there are various degrees of "meat
| space." Rote manual work has been getting automated away
| for decades. Now AI is taking away rote (or adjacent)
| knowledge work. The question is whether a reasonable
| solution for those displace by AI in the knowledge sector
| is to go work in the rote manual labor space. That
| presupposes their labor rate is suppressed below that of
| automation.
| thih9 wrote:
| I'm not sure if I'm capable of performing fulfilling work
| that would also have anything resembling of a demand.
|
| Take creative work. The pre-AI market was already extremely
| competitive. Few artists can chase autonomy, the rest needs
| to sell out to some level - usually significant; not the
| human flourishing we wanted.
|
| AI may disrupt this; still, my guess is that the pool of
| profitable creative workplaces remains unchanged, at best.
| bumby wrote:
| I think that's largely true and most of us are trying to
| find a balance. Most modern jobs have some aspect of
| drudgery, or at least less palatable tasks, and we're
| trying to move the needle towards those tasks that we
| find fulfilling. But I'd argue some jobs are inherently
| less amenable to this, if you subscribe to the previously
| mentioned idea of fullment.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If an artist wants to make a living making art, the art
| has to be something people are willing to pay for.
|
| If that's "selling out", then so be it. Why should
| society support the artist if his art has no value to
| anyone?
| thih9 wrote:
| Note that our initial goal was different - not an artist
| who wants to make a living, but an artist who wants to
| perform fulfilling work.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Draw two circles, 1. fulfilling art 2. art that pays the
| bills. Create the art that is in the intersection.
|
| Otherwise, you'll need another source of income in order
| to create fulfilling art.
|
| There's lots of software I'd like to write. I've spent my
| time writing code that lies in the intersection.
| thih9 wrote:
| Sounds like you're happy in that intersection - and good
| for you.
| freejazz wrote:
| Do you actually know any artists or musicians? Any of
| them that are successful? What you described wouldn't be
| "selling out," it'd be success. Selling out is the food
| service job they do to pay their rent, or the lessons
| they teach, etc. The person you were responding to was
| pointing out that it's not likely that there is a market
| for everyone's art, even if everyone was true to their
| own creative vision.
| gruez wrote:
| >Because, actually, we do need people at PoS, if we're
| selling to other people.
|
| They haven't installed ordering machines[1] at your local
| mcdonalds yet?
|
| [1] https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ihydn_7e
| emN...
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Yeah, I was going to ask. Last time I went to McDonalds,
| the lady at the counter directed me towards the order
| machines!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Reminds me of a short story from 30 years ago that centered
| around fast food workers who were micromanaged by an AI
| directing every daily activity.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)
| extr wrote:
| For anyone wondering:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)
|
| It's got a happy ending actually.
| WJW wrote:
| It has a happy ending for the protagonist, and IIRC only
| because he inherited an Australian passport. Everyone
| else in the USA was completely stuck into being meat
| robots for the overseer AIs.
| JohnFen wrote:
| So, not a happy ending.
| legitster wrote:
| > high wages for those workers
|
| Part of the problem is that for some of these jobs, there is
| only so much money an employee is able to generate. And for
| some industries you can only get away with raising prices so
| much (fast food is relatively easy to raise prices).
|
| I have friends in the grocery industry and they are so hard
| up for workers (even unionized/good-paying ones) and the
| margins are already so razor thin that they are looking at
| starting to close the store on certain days of the week.
|
| So even in unskilled positions, you are going to need huge
| increases in labor productivity. Which means more customers
| per employee. So bigger fast food places, bigger stores,
| bigger farms, bigger hospitals, etc.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Not aimed at you, but the other commenters on your comment.
|
| There is no such thing as unskilled labor. Put a fucking
| normie from the street into any of these 'unskilled' jobs and
| find out just how many skills are needed just to do something
| like customer service.
|
| Looking down on those people is what will lead to another
| internal conflict. They'll be the ones you depend on when
| society goes to shit.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| "Unskilled" just means that those type of jobs don't
| require any prior experience or qualifications. No need to
| interpret every word literally..
| bumby wrote:
| It is not a moral argument. It's a colloquialism that
| differentiates between different types of work. In part,
| those jobs are "unskilled" when they take less training to
| perform. It's not meant to demean the work or the worker.
|
| A plumber or electrician is equally "skilled" work as a
| software developer, largely due to the extensive
| apprenticeship requirements.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The local Starbucks has regular staff turnover. I've
| observed that it takes a new guy about 2 days to get up to
| speed on how to make the treats and run the cash register.
| Over time they'll get better and more efficient at it, but
| not that much.
| rgblambda wrote:
| The difference between unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled
| labour is usually based on how long it takes to learn how
| to do the job. It's not meant to be demeaning.
| derefr wrote:
| Most jobs ever done by convicts as penal labor would be
| fundamentally unskilled, no? These are jobs with no
| expectation of unique talent or skill; with no lengthy on-
| the-job training; with no ability to fail at the job so
| badly that they would ever "fire" you. Jobs like "here's a
| pickaxe, start hitting rocks" or "sit here and pull down
| the stamper each time a license plate is in front of you"
| literally can't be done _poorly_ -- only done either
| efficiently or lazily.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If McDonald's paid their workers like software engineers,
| they'd have to charge at least $50 a burger, assuming the
| sales volume stays the same. But if burgers were $50, the
| sales volume would drop to zero, and the business would
| collapse.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I actually prefer fast food restaurants with ordering kiosks
| and not manned POSes. Just like self checkout, no need to
| wait in a long line.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > You ask what people displaced by AI will do for a living?
| That. They'll do that.
|
| And then the dystopia will be complete.
| pengaru wrote:
| One problem with your claims is this is pretty well documented
| as a uniquely McDonalds franchise problem at this point.
|
| Competing fast-food franchises serve similar frozen dairy
| products, in a similar staffing environment, without their
| machines constantly being out of service.
|
| This video covered the situation fairly well IIRC:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| You may be right! Just my experience working there for 4
| years at 6 different stores.
|
| This happened all the time at every store I worked at.
|
| BTW Our machine would legit break too. Maybe once a year it
| would be down for a day.
| pengaru wrote:
| The linked video makes a pretty strong case for it being a
| "show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome"
| situation...
| Zenst wrote:
| Had a stint myself and cleaned those Taylor shake machines,
| takes time as have to disassembler the entire chamber - lots of
| sharp blades and not many trusted to do it right. Let alone
| checking all the O-rings, which you often need spares and short
| of the one you need. Then inspections....so often find they
| would at least try to close the machine early to shorten the
| close, and often be down. Sometimes due to lack of milk for the
| machine and no they can't just pop down the local supermarket
| to get some - least not known that ever happen, nor risked as
| be job ending kinda things as cutting into that franchise
| supply grip.
| jldugger wrote:
| It's kinda wild how a franchise built around a milkshake
| machine now cannot bother with milkshakes.
| jjulius wrote:
| The company whose OG sign said "McDonald's Famous Hamburgers"
| the year they introduced "fast food" principles into their
| operations was _actually_ built around shakes?
| bumby wrote:
| Ray Kroc (who is really responsible for the growth of the
| McDonald's franchise) was a milkshake machine salesman. I
| believe he was introduced to the McDonalds brothers when
| selling them a milkshake machine that could mix multiple
| individual milkshakes at once.
|
| Edit: here's the "multimixer":
| http://www.sterlingmulti.com/multimixer_history.html
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| To be fair, Wikipedia says McDonald's is now 80 (!!!) years
| old, I expect many foundational aspects of the business have
| changed since then. But it is wild to see particular aspects
| of the evolution. I wonder how much was anticipated/planned,
| and how much "just happened"
| Racing0461 wrote:
| I don't think people would care if mcd says they are short
| staffed. I think people care due to mcd lying.
| Dem_Boys wrote:
| As a manager you can't tell the customers this. You'd lose
| your job if your store manager or any higher ups find out.
|
| You lie to the customers and the workers cover for you (the
| shift manager) because they hate making ice cream.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It also needs to be cleaned (daily when I was crew), and that
| often means taking it apart early to get ahead of closing, or
| putting it together late because you didn't have enough time to
| get to it before breakfast ended, or maybe just don't put it
| back together at all because the person that usually did it was
| gone that day.
| derefr wrote:
| This makes sense for daytime-rush "broken" ice cream machines;
| but almost all the reports I've seen about "broken" machines
| are about people coming into a dead store during the night-
| shift, when the employees would in theory have nothing better
| to do than make them an ice cream.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| You underestimate the creativity and laziness of night shift
| food workers. Once a daytime manager says "no ice cream", how
| far away is a night shift worker from just repeating that
| mantra?
|
| Source: Was one, did that for other things all the time.
|
| > " Sorry, we don't deliver to your area on Mondays "
| toyg wrote:
| I like antitrust cases like the next man, but this is weak sauce.
| They built a sharecropping add-on that was always going to live
| or die at the whim of Taysol and McDonald's, it was never going
| to last. Whether Taysol put it in writing or not, it doesn't
| really matter.
|
| I guess their lawyers are having fun billing their hours, though.
| projektfu wrote:
| It's funny to me that in the US, McDonald's has ice cream but
| doesn't really try to sell it, but in Brazil it seems to be their
| #1 product, and there are McDonald's stores that do not have
| burgers, just ice cream.
| pjot wrote:
| In the Philippines McDonald's sells spaghetti!
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