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Minimum-Wage Blowback; The De-Humanization Of Fast-Food Has Begun
In January we noted 'Smart Restaurant' - the burger-flipping robot - and just last month we reported on China's robotification of the fast-food business; but, as The Washington Post reports, the greatest enemy to the minimum-wage-demanding fast-food worker has arrived: you can now order your own quarter-pound bacon cheeseburger from a welcoming, non-judging machine. With McDonalds sales the worst in almost a decade, it appears their need to maintain profits has stoked a move towards dehumanization. One wonder how long before this action is also declared 'unpatriotic'.
If you’ve ever felt guilty ordering at McDonald’s, the fast-food mega-chain has just the fix: You can now order your own quarter-pound bacon cheeseburger from a welcoming, non-judging machine.
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McDonald’s move towards dehumanization, launched as a pilot last winter and expanded across San Diego last week, is part of a larger trend of chain eateries turning tablets into your full-time restaurant buddy: equal parts menu, server and paycheck. Applebee’s, Panera Bread and even airport bars have installed tablets to allow diners to order food or booze without a wait.
Chili’s became the U.S. king of human-less ordering this summer when it installed more than 45,000 tabletop tablets nationwide.
While cost control is one factor, the tablet ordering had another silver-lining...
The move toward tablets is a bet from marketers on a quirk of buyer psychology: that customers will order more food if they can do it on a screen. While ordering from a person might lead you to rein in your appetite, a tablet sits silently and harmlessly, covered in colorful ads. Ordering off a tablet can also lead customers to try something new, which might make them happier and more likely to come back.
With tablet ordering, “you can serve more lunches per hour, and the customers, since so many use their smartphone for just about everything, see it as more convenient."
Of course, in a world of de minimus capital costs (courtesy of an apparently job-creating-mandated Fed), why wouldn't the McDonalds of the world adopt such a strategy. The outcome, as we explained before, is all too obvious...
What happens after that should be clear to everyone: more unemployment, lower wages for the remaining employees, worse worker morale, but even higher profits to holders of capital. And so on. Because in a world in which technology makes the unqualified worker utterely irrelevant, this is what is known as "progress."
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So much for $15 minimum-wage demands... One wonders how long before 'tablets' are also declared 'unpatriotic'.
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People will order more food when using a tablet? That's the most retarded thing ever written. A quick look around McDonalds shows that most people really don't give a fuck how others perceive them.
Actually, I thought the same thing, at first.
Then I considered that one might order more because the tablet will understand, whereas the person behind the counter often will not. I've walked out of restaurants and retailers while trying to order or shop when I just grew tired of the Manuel moment I'm sure we've all experienced.
Thou shall not eat Fast Food
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Who said that???
Frozen pink slime burgers coming down the assembly line. Top that off with a pseudo yellow colored fake cheese on a sesame seed cellulose wood fiber bun.
Don't leave out the yoga mat/crock shoe material to keep it springy freshish...
Mmmmmmmmm.... profitable.
Looks like good business to me, innovation is always good.
freeing up all that labour should create more job openings in police riot squads and crowd control.
close a door and open a window :)
So, what do I do when the Carl's Jr. vending machine keeps my money, gives me no food, gases me & takes my children because I'm a no good parent?
While I'm strongly against raising the minimum wage because it will make America less competitive and slow job growth, I concede the debate is destined to continue until it is raised. I hereby state without a doubt, the minimum wage will go up! Polls show a majority of Americans support this idea.
It is my feeling that many people believe the myth this will put more money into the consumers pocket and create economic growth. They fail to recognize it will also spark inflation while reducing opportunity. New twist and wrinkles are being added by the White House and supporters of this increase every week. Expanding the number of workers eligible for overtime pay is another attempt to push this along. Unfortunately much of the impact and pain will directly fall upon small business the real creator of jobs. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-minimum-wage-will-go-up-right...
Work is slavery but money (debt) is a really bad kind of slavery.
We should live in a leisure society. Machines should do everything from house building to burger flipping. However, until money (debt) is removed from the equation, it's all still slavery.
Home.
Work from home. (Save on gas, wear and tear on vehicle, clothes - I'm currently dressed, but not always that way - other expenses like lunch, drinks after work, etc.)
Eat at home. (Of course, this is better if you garden. Grow your own food and you can be pretty sure it's safe and healthy, if you use non-GMO seeds and rudimentary sanitation. Plus, the food tastes much better when you cook it yourself and it's nearly FREE.)
Drink at home. (A friend stopped over the other day and told me he just came from court where he was convicted of a DWI. Has to install breath-alyzer on his car ($$$), pay lawyer, go to classes, probably AA meetings, has now only a conditional license. Effectively, it will cost him $12,000 and it's ruined his life.) Drinking and driving in NY state is not a wise choice.)
Fuck at home. (I invite chicks over for drinks and dinner, they get well-fed and drunk and are more than happy to have multiple orgasms.)
In the end, fuck work, it's for losers. Consider the benefits of just hanging around your house all the time, doing what you like, without all the societal and financial pressures. I live in a suburban home, and grow enough food to feed myself for about 1/2 of the year and that's with just a 20x30 ft. garden and a short growing season. Next up is the greenhouse, plus, some indoor gardening (herbs). I could get some chickens, but haven't yet, still might. I spend most of my food money on meats, but, should I develop enough skills to increase yields, I may be able to trade vegetables for meats, cutting my cost further.
Now, this is not for everybody. I'm 60 and have been semi-retired for 15 years, and I'm not rich, but I am happy. I ask my friends - many of whom have over $500,000 socked away, paid-off mortgages and are still working - what they are waiting for, and, I get the usual, dumb looks and the old, "my accountant says I need to work two, three, four more years. Um, excuse me, but fuck your accountant. Does he know how to plant onions? Morons. when the next financial panic hits in the next year of two, or three, these same dumbfucks will say they now have to work four more years.
Then, they'll die at their desks, anyhow. Stupid. I'll go to their estate sales and pick up a few bargains, I suppose.
Waiting for retirement is like not having sex with a girl you really like. You think you should jump right in, but keep telling yourself to wait because moving too fast will scare her off. Then you find out she's fucking your buddy day and night. Same deal with retirement. You put it off until you can't enjoy it, or miss it altogether because you're dead. Meanwhile, you wonder how your friend (me) with no money and a beater of a van, is so content, healthy and happy.
Answer: Check out as soon as possible from the rat race, because that's all it is. You will never win. Well, some do, but then the government comes and takes most of it away, anyhow, or you have to spend the better part of your day, week, month, years, protecting it. Better to own a little than control a lot.
Call me when the collapse resumes. Because it will. Oh, yeah, on my land line.
See you at HOME.
Wait... if Bender the Robot makes all my burgers, how do I stop him from drinking all my vodka?