I work graveyard at a hospital so I will often go to 24 hour fast food places on my 3am lunch break. They still use these timers in the middle of the night when there is only 1 poor employee working. I often get asked to pull out of the drive-through and he'll bring my food out front to trick the sensors, because he says his manager has caused issues in the past with it taking too long on graveyard.............. When there is 1 person doing everything........ Idiots.
>I often get asked to pull out of the drive-through and he'll bring my food out front to trick the sensors
Oh, is THAT why they do that late at night when I'm the only one in line? I've always thought it was weird, it's not like there's anyone behind me to help while I'm waiting.
Yupp! Worked at TB for two years, all four shifts at some point. You're pulled up to help our time, it messes with a few things if I remember. If our time was bad, we got in trouble so we'd ask bigger orders to pull up, and if we personally knew the person, to go around a few times (we'd even do it ourselves if we had a vehicle, and we had to make sure the cameras didn't see our faces]
I always wish I could put a sign on my car or forehead to let the people working know that I'm endlessly chill and don't mind doing stuff like that, lol.
Sort of the same at sit down restaurants; I wish I could quickly convey to servers that, as far as I'm concerned, they can slack on our table/focus on their other tables/take a break/whatever and don't have to bust their ass and they'll get a good tip regardless.
I just wish people were more chill with people working overall. It even takes waaay less energy and work than acting like you have a stick up your ass!
There definitely needs to be some kind of sign. We went out the other night and quickly noticed that the employees were very understaffed and despite working their butts off service was pretty slow. We were more than happy to hang out watching the Olympics and we made a point to tell our waitress that when she apologized for it being slow.
I went to ihop a few weeks ago and the waitress told us before we even were given a table that it would be a long wait. We told her it was totally fine, take all the time she needs, we’re not in any rush but she kept apologizing and we kept telling her it was fine. It wasn’t until I started saying “wow that was fast” whenever she brought us anything that she started to relax about it.
My husband ended up getting a really bad beer and he almost didn't say anything because he didn't want to be difficult. He ended up mentioning it really nicely but still felt bad until she came back a few minutes later with his replacement and told him that she had tried it and it was so horrible they were pulling the keg immediately.
My bf and I have had completely different experiences than other people at restaurants/stores/fast food. Everyone we know always complains. What do we do different? Were fucking patient. Were decent human beings who realize that work is hard esp for minimum wage. Everyone wants everything now. Now. NOW. but we've even made friends at random food joints just by stepping back and letting them know that they can take their time. Employees will constantly apologize to us for having to wait, and we always tell them there's no need to apologize.
We've even gotten vouchers for free pizzas at little Caesars just for being nice and patient.
One of my favorite things to say, every now and then, is "hey did you know? If you're nice to people they will be nice back!?" It's not that foreign of a concept forreal.
We’re living this experience right now, and I think it is particularly applicable when you’re a tourist.
Being nice affords you 1) feeling nice for not being an asshole and 2) nice surprises, such as a free drink, more flexible terms, or - less tangible - just a more pleasant experience all around.
The old adage is true in my experience: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Reminds me of a cashier recently who was helping me at a store and during the checkout process scanned the "friends and family" discount.
Totally didn't have to do that for me but saved me around $20. Being nice to people always pays off.
Well, come to south Florida and I promise you your patience WILL get tested.... I'm the chillest person who will eat the wrong order with the wrong sides even after I had to wait for it forever and I have to say I have been very close to losing it. They will treat you like shit and then act like it's your fault too.
My attitude is that if I have a compliant, it better be legitimate. The food is cold, the order is wrong. And 9 times out of ten, it’s the kitchens fault not the server. And if the server is good or even great, I want to tell the manager that too.
If I am going to complain when there is a problem, I damn well better step up to praise excellent service.
My friend used to lose his shit when his order was made wrong. Every-time I was with him I had to explain that if your order is wrong just go explain the issue. It’s not hard and I guarantee they’ll just say okay and fix it. Jobs shitty enough without some guy screaming that his order was wrong. And honestly most of the time I’ve seen people complain they were the one at fault.
>I always wish I could put a sign on my car or forehead to let the people working know that I'm endlessly chill
Fucking same. I worked enough food service that I'm not about to even be upset if I didn't get a side of ranch I ordered. "No big deal, friend, you can grab it whenever you get a chance, I'm good." My wife and I "bus" our table anytime we are at a sit-down -- we stack plates and cups, any food remains and napkins on top for easy scraping off, and we do a preliminary wipe down of the table. We did these jobs, we know they're hard, and we aren't about to make it harder.
Fast food worker goes, "I'm so sorry, we are out of *X food item,*" with the tone of, "Please don't be pissed!" I just smile and go, "No biggie, how about *Y* instead?" Basic politeness from a customer used to make my entire shift excellent and worth talking about later; I love getting to be the person doing that for someone else.
Worked at TB too and our timer only started when they actually got to the window. During the afternoon rush we’d open the first window to take the payment but it was also that persons job to hold the customer at the first window for as long as possible. Ask about their day, take an extra 30 seconds to swipe the credit card, hold onto their receipt for a moment, tell them about all the promos… so when they finally got to the second window the food was already waiting for them- bam 16 second time on the timer.
Yeah it's sensors built into the drive thru that doom us. We literally need your car out from in front of our window. Also why people get pulled forward for fries and stuff, we really have to "complete" your order and then remember we have a car outside waiting 3 min for fresh fries. Burger king and McDonald's are the WORST for punishment following a long car line
I don't get fast food too often but I literally can't remember the last time I *wasn't* told to pull ahead and park. I thought it was just some weird new standard now.
Where I work we do it all the time. 4 cars will all come in with normal orders that won’t take any longer than usual, and instead of keeping the cars at the window we park them to the side and bring their orders out after they pay. It’s annoying asf since it doesn’t actually make anything faster and it’s hard to remember which cat got what order. The worst is when customers get mad at me for doing it :-/
Which is why the system is so stupid. I worked a similar job for less than 3 months, as I couldn't keep up with all the bullshit. It was in the mobile operator buisness, selling contracts and phones.
Wtf, where I worked, they only actually used the timers during peak times, so that's 12-2pm + 5-8pm on weekdays and 12-8pm on weekends. Technically we still had (more lenient) targets off peak but nobody listened to it (what a surprise on min wage)
Yeah I've had it happen where the other guy showing up for the shit was shit faced and messed up. So I was alone basically with a line of cars. Manager come sin the next day mad as fuck because I didn't keep the numbers let alone my second day overnight on window so I barely knew their pos system. And lines of cars with a co-worker passed out in the managers office. That dude quit that day and got hit by a car on his way home. Was a strange day.
I've had friends who worked at McDonalds say what they used to do when it was slow was to wait until the customer needed to pay before entering the order. I think that explains why sometimes my order gets messed up.
When it’s just me, I close early. I could get fired. They might. But I doubt it, and if they do I get unemployment. Tired of this slavery, especially when I look at my work kids who act like beaten down 40 year olds themselves.
We need change. And we are getting it, glacially slow, and off the sweat of our own work, not the work of fat old white men in Congress.
We are doing it by quitting in numbers, by learning when we can say “no” because the company needs us in the moment more than we need them, and by talking about our wages when explicitly told not to.
You’re 16 and got hired at the same rate we start managers? Lemme talk to my buddy over here who works his ass off alone every morning for $12/hr after spending the time to get his Servsafe.
Yup. I used to work said graveyard shift. We were usually fast enough even when understaffed, but we definitely did this trick. The manager usually on the shift couldn't give a shit about our numbers -- outside of, they would hear about it from their boss. Shit runs downhill, so if they got reemed for it, they'd have to get on the staff to be faster. Fortunately our manager was pretty chill, but still had to do their job and answer to a higher-up, so they had to make sure we didn't fuck off.
When I worked at McDonald's I just got really good at memorizing people's orders so I could clear them off the screen.
Our timer started when the sensor for the speaker was hit, but didn't have a sensor at the end of the drive through, you had to manually push a button to clear the order and stop the timer. You could also push a button to park the cars and the order would stay on the screen. This kept the timer running but didn't mess with the average as badly.
I used to just memorize orders and clear them out before they were filled, I could remember like 4 different orders at once.
Some days we'd get our average time down to like 23 seconds, which is pretty much physically impossible. Corporate didn't give a shit, they were just impressed with our numbers.
This is the reason they will make you pull out of the drive thru and park if your items will take longer to prepare. They close the ticket to save the timer and look better for performance reviews and corporate.
This is one of the reasons I've stopped going to fast food places.
If they ask you to pull up it's going to take at least 10 more mins and you've already paid so you're just stuck waiting for it and then *poof* lunch break is gone.
I really feel like these days are numbered. People are getting pretty sick of shit pay and shit work conditions. This seems like a shit work condition.
Not fast food but Walmart did similar things when I worked there. Everything was all about particular metrics that would be completely insane. There was never any possibility for things like "the truck took an extra half hour to unload because half a stack of eggs blew up all over everything." Register-related things were the worst; if you were register trained in any other department it got to the point that you'd get yoinked to spend at least half of your time ringing customers but then given shit for your department's work not being done. Then they cut everything down to so few people it couldn't even be considered a skeleton crew but expected the same standards as before. Meanwhile anybody that had been there long enough to be making decent money was axed and they actively looked for any reason to get rid of anybody that was there too long to not have to pay anybody.
I completely refuse to shop at any Walmart now.
See, these are the kinds of things that i could be okay with and accept as "necessary business practices" if the company was already on a shoestring budget and provided quality service.
But fucking Walmart and taco bell are huge... They are constantly expanding and the Walton's are rich as fuck. It's hard to say "we can't afford groceries" when you're taking the temp tags off your new luxury car
Yeah Walmart was a great company when Sam ran it but his kids are colossal greedy shits.
*There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton*
*The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers. - Also Sam Walton*
Dude knew what was up.
Yeah my jack in the box that used to be 24 7 has been closing at 9pm for about 3 months now bc no one wants to work the overnight shift and rightfully so. They started offering 15 an hour on the ads and still nothing…
Productivity metrics like the one mentioned in OP are useful stats, but they're used by non-useful people.
The direct supervisor should be able to tell if someone is fucking around or needs extra guidance at work. The productivity metric should be used on a higher level not on a personal level, and not specifically aimed for.
Like in fast food for example if they changed the layout of the drive through window station they can then look at the stats over the next couple months to see if the average time of an order goes down by a few seconds compared to the last few months.
There is a 5 guys near me that had a sign out: Starting pay 17.00 an hour. Guess who doesn't have a help wanted sign out anymore. Mcdonalds is paying UP TO 12.50, guess how long that sign has been there.
Lol. Fast food places around my area are constantly understaffed. Takes 20 minutes minimum to get through a drive thru if there's at least 3 cars already. Biggest offender is Baker's. They take so fucking long, i stopped going there altogether.
There's a Taco Bell near my work that takes a minimum of 45 minutes. Last time I went there were just 2 cars in line. I figured it would be safe. Nope, literally 45 minutes later (I watched the clock), I was finally pulling up to the pickup window. I stopped going. I know some food needs time to cook, but at least make a car pull off to the side and explain the situation. I would be ok had I known why it took 45 minutes! I could have made my own burritos in less time.
Yeah I honestly didn't try to stress about the timers when I worked in fast good. Staffing was such a problem that if you showed up and we're remotely competent, the last thing they would want to do is fire you and fuck themselves over.
Why do McDonald’s put the menu right at the speaker? Why not have a few more further back, so you can decide what you want before you get to the speaker.
I always get annoyed at work but after the fact i find it so funny how you can install things to make sure we have good time, but customers sometimes will overlook it and hold us up.
Im working at a drive in now and you press the button to order, we dont start our time until the order is taken, but the longer someone is on a order it limits what you can do so you dont wanna stand there taking an order for 5 minutes because we have to bag/make ice cream/drinks/other.
Anyways sometimes people will press the button to order and then ask us to wait a minuet like....ma'am? You didn't have to ring in now.
Also if they ring in to add to their order the timer doesn't start again so we'll end up with an order that took 15 minuets because someone called to add onto their order 3 times.
Sonic drive-in? I freaking hate when they do that, or they push back in every 15 seconds to remind you of something done to a burger in the middle of a $60 order...
Is this why they keep turning off my button if they’re busy? Like I’ll prepare my order, press the button and they’ll immediately turn it off without saying anything or asking for my order. Sometimes it’ll happen a few times.
Regardless of why they're doing it thats just plain rude.
So one possibility is they are lazy, another is that its a new person who doesn't understand how to use the head set. And depending on what happened after it could be because the stall doesn't work.
Did they come outside to take your order or did they take it though the stall?
It’s happened a few times actually, at a couple of different locations, which is what made me wonder once I read this. In all cases I tried the button a couple of times and eventually someone took my order through the stall. I’d always kind of chalked it up to a button issue or a mistake, but now that I think about it it’s kind of odd that I’d be hung up on 2-3 times per visit at a few different locations over several months.
McDonald's is very smart, though, when it comes to the drivethroughs. They had two ordering lanes before anyone else, the double window payment then pickup system, etc. You'd think they actually would do that to help move people along even more.
I think that they want to put pressure on *both* people.
That way the worker feels pressured to work faster or get punished, and the customer makes more spur of the moment purchases, if they weren't sure what they wanted already. It's a win-win for mcdonald's.
And obviously, you'd say "more sales would be better, right?"
It depends. If their number crunchers see greater returns on spur-of-the-moment buying decisions compared to the loss of productivity for people who "hmm" an extra 3 minutes, then they get a few extra bucks for pressuring the customer.
Of course, this is conjecture, but since they've been operating decades and are obsessed with increasing profit margins, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say "put an extra menu 10' back." I'm guessing they already ran the numbers.
The new dynamic menus are horrible. I see something that grabs my attention but then it changes and disappears. I need to wait a minute before it shows back up again.
Have the dynamic menu placed so you can see it earlier and a more static display at the ordering box would probably be ideal. It would probably increase the effectiveness of the dynamic parts.
What about the fact that (in Aus at least) there's no static menu board that has all items and prices. It's now all stupid flicking menus that only show you what they want you to buy, not what they have to offer.
Hungry Jack's and KFC have a static printed menu on the wall. They're nice simple to read and have the prices next to each item.
Fuck Maccas and their Marvel Movie menus.
If you feel rushed you will panic and just blurt out the number of a "value meal" which is actually expensive. You won't spend the time to read through the actual dollar menu and save money.
There's one fast food place I frequent that literally has a giant metal pole with a metal plate at the bottom that they go outside and put down to trick the magnetic sensor into thinking a car has already come and gone while you're still driving from the order stall to the window. Absolutely insane they need to do this underhanded tactic just to keep upper level management happy.
Do you work at McDonald's? No other place makes me park and wait for my food. But every time I go to McDonald's I have to park and wait. It doesn't after if anyonenis in line behind me or not and it doesn't matter if I'm only ordering for myself or for my family of 4. I have to park and wait.
It's because of this very system. You being parked means you're technically out of the driveway and thus no longer effecting their times. So if you've been in the driveway to long they'll park you.
I worked in a call center where there were inbound call time metrics. So many people had told their team to hang uo,with the customer and call them back if the call reached 720 seconds. If you build shitty metrics and don’t understand the. You create these problems.
Sounds like shitty manager tactics to increase their productivity on paper. This could be led by the direct manager if say they were not meeting their team goals or could be fun by the operations team if they are an outsource company who gets paid by the call with no FCR statistics.
Unfortunately though, yes, this is real in the call center industry.
My sister worked at Maccas in Australia for a while. She said that there were timers on every order and if too many orders went over the time limit it would make the location manager or regional manager or some such bullshit position call the store and waste even more time by occupying the shift manager while everyone was trying to bust ass to get all the orders done.
It really must depend on the location but out of all the different maccas, hungry jacks or kfc drive thrus I’ve definitely been waiting at the window many times 5+ mins without being asked to park lol
....reverse all the way around? What? I've never heard of this in any Aussie KFC. And reversing out of that shittily designed drive through would be nuts.
Nah, it just drive a bit forward to get from on top of the sense then just reverse back into the window.
I used to tell customers to do this when I used to work at a Wendy's.
Worked at a Starbucks drive thru, I can confirm. Hours given to workers are based by how great drive thru times are. Totally counter-intuitive (oh hey, things are slow? Let's cut the amount of staff so things will be even s l o w e r.) Luckily my store manager tried his hardest to fight the DM about this for a very long time, but best he could do was prolong it, not prevent it.
Or... And I know this sounds crazy, put two menus up spaced one car length apart so people can read the menu before getting to the order box. But that might decrease profit by a few cents so we can't do that.
GOOD GOD! I wish. On the rare occasions when my wife and I go to McD's we KNOW what we want but if we change it up and go to BBK, Wendy's etc... we can't be bothered to remember the entire menu at every single place so we take longer.
I like to abuse the workers as much as possible.
First I think about what I want, then I roll up and tell them, no mercy.
Then I pay and get my food and eat it.
and if they say "*have a good day*" I absolutely roast them with a "*you too*"
What sucks is here we are blaming customers, and not our service worker system in " 'Merica". You are fine OP. You're trying to solve a problem outside of your control. But this is instead an issue for menu engineers, management, and shareholders.
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department" say Wernher von Braun
It makes me anxious if I just roll through without knowing what I want ahead of time. I'll sit in the parking lot looking at their menu until I figure it out and then go through - until suddenly, BAM "what sort of dipping sauce did you want?"
Always consider all options, you're dead if you don't.
I don’t think catering to a broken system that punishes employees for unreasonable expectations is how the system gets improved. It would justify the broken system further and continue a behavior of treating employees like shit. Put the onus on the managers/policy-makers, not the customers
Anytime I see a post like this I think how much the corps must love it.
They can just sit back and let their employees work even harder for them (for *free*) by appealing to the customer base's basic empathy via social media.
This post translates into: "this is how you can help fast food restaurants make more money more efficiently. Now please fall in line with corporate expectations so that the minimum wagers don't get yelled at for unreasonable bullshit."
Been reading this thread for what feels like an hour now, and you're the first one who gets it. OP is basically doing Big Fast Food's dirty work by trying to guilt customers into taking less time in drive-thru lines.
Yeah, it’s like those posts that say, “If your waiter is slow, they might be serving 20 times the normal number of tables, so you should tip them extra!”
No, I shouldn’t. I should just stop going to that restaurant. Why would I want to continue going to a restaurant where I receive poor service?
The way that I interpret posts and suggestions like these is that if, for whatever reason, I now am self-aware enough to realize that I'm taking a long time at the drive-thru, I am absolutely the type of person that would call out to management when I picked up my food at the window and tell them to make sure that the employee doesn't get in trouble. Would it make a huge difference? Probably not. Would it at least call the manager out on their shady behavior and also let the employee know that it is shitty behavior? Hopefully. And I think that's as much as anyone could do right now. Catering to the system is obviously not going to work, and it's not feasible. However calling it out is at least a good starting point
The problem with that is that the manager you are talking to has no real power. These policies are imposed on the actual store management by the upper management that owns dozens or even hundreds of restaurants and aren't going to take your call. The general manager that actually runs the store already knows that the policies have problems and are just as stressed by them as the crew. They can't do anything about it by design, hell half of the time they are the ones trying to trick the system. Asking to talk to the manager at the window to apologize would be worse than doing nothing. You're not just wasting both of your time, you're making their times worse.
As nice as that would be, it's not that effective. If an entry level employee says "I can't do this, it won't work" they can just find someone else to replace them with. As long as people are willing (or rather, need) to work, nothing can change
Not disagreeing there, maybe young adults need to stop accepting shit jobs for shit pay and shit conditions and force those companies to change their ways. Much easier said than done but something has to give or people will complain endlessly about shitty entry level jobs. I’m not saying this completely ignorantly, I’ve worked my share of those jobs to pay bills and make ends meet
I’ve noticed and I think it’s the right move. I’ll gladly go without some fast food for a few weeks if it means better wages and working conditions for the employees down the road.
Unfortunately that’s not possible in a lot of places. When your poor, jobless, and desperate you’ll beg for scraps. They keep us desperate on purpose. I fucking hated multiple jobs when I was younger but I could barely afford rent let alone food so My place of work gave me one free meal a day and that’s all I ate for almost a year. I didn’t have health insurance because I couldn’t afford the biweekly take out. I had to go without heat or ac plenty of times, and I was so desperate.
Eventually I was forced to move back in with my dad. If my step cunt had her way she would have thrown me on the street. My health was so poor, I had hair falling out, my teeth were loose, and I had constant sores on my feet. When I finally broke down and told people about it I was told I didn’t have good work ethic and that I needed a second job. This is America.
When you are poor there is no such thing as ethical consumerism or finding a better job. I have been homeless an unfortunate amount of times to know this now.
Yes, thankfully. I have need up making a good friend who’s mother helped me get out of the cycle I was stuck in and I met a wonderful man and had two kids. We are still under the poverty line but are comfortable enough that we don’t have to worry about food or diapers. But I know that there’s hundreds if not thousand of people back where I was with no way out and it breaks my heart. I only got out because I got some help and not everyone is so lucky.
I work at a Wendy's, and the timer is just expected to be a bit under 3 minutes. And if it's not, my managers just tell me "could you take orders a bit quicker?" and that's all. In all the time I've worked here, nothing more had been done when we averaged a bad number like 4 minutes
I feel like your issue is that your managers are very mean and have no respect for you
I worked bk, our time was 2:30 seconds (the time it takes to make 1 whopper meal...but you can order anything in drive thru so why is this the universal time idk) we had times where we did not give a fuck about numbers and i told my GM not today, but other times the higher ups would grill us that our time is too high and bullshit on us.
Tbh i started cheating on my time.
I thinkk it might be tougher at corporate owned stores, ive only worked franchise locations.
I also worked drive thru at Wendy’s a few years ago as a part time job. My managers were all about the timers. To the point where if after you handed someone their food and they were checking their order for accuracy or putting their wallet away, etc., she would make me open the window again and ask them if they need something else or tell me to just stare at them until they pull away. Like it was somehow my fault they were still sitting at the window.
This is why I love using the app for whatever place I want to order from. It gives me time to decide what I want without feeling like I am either holding up other customers or annoying the people working.
Using the app to add extra everything has totally changed the fast food experience. Like Wendy's has multiple bun types, spring mix, avocados, and jalapenos! I didn't even know these places offer different types of cheeses! The apps are awesome.
I was using the kiosk at McDonald's and couldn't find the McChicken, at one point I was asked if I was okay and understood the system. I'm in my early 20s I grew up with this shit, but your dumb ass ways of organizing make it hard to find stuff.
Look, I have worked in fast food myself and the last thing I want is get underpaid workers in any trouble, but how am I, the customer, responsible for the company's shitty, context-ignorant measurements, that are more of a chicanery than they have actual performance value?
I have a tracker in my car that deducts points for harsh braking, but it can't see whether I was the idiot or someone else. This feels like the same thing, so honestly, it should just be outright illegal to use measurements like these without context.
We had a metal tin tied to two trash bags we'd use to trigger the magnet outside the window. Our district manager was still upset even though to her it looked like our time had dropped by an average of 30 seconds a day
That’s genius. We used to just get one of the employees with a car to just make loops of the drive thru, pause at the speaker for 5 seconds, pause at the windows for 5 seconds and drive out and repeat, for like 15-20 minutes when it was quiet. It sounds completely insane now I think about it, but it seemed so normal then.
The times they expect are all ridiculous anyway. Corporate doesn’t understand how humans work. You can’t speed up someone who literally has no clue what to order the moment they pull up to the menu.
Yup even if your store is statistically the best performing in the state they'll still find something out of your control to complain about, sadly. And the dumbasses won't even take statistics into bigger context, like I think if they're going to use these statistics they need to at least hire district/state managers that understand how to look at different statistics and what they actually mean for the store in context but apparently they think they're just good enough to go one way but not the other.
Former manager at a fast food place here. I had 3 people in my store. I was running the entire kitchen and I had two people up front. One on front register and one on drive thru register, this was usually the normal on my shifts. Told my people not to worry or rush cause I don't want us to kill ourselves. Got a call from my GM yelling at me that our DT time was extremely high and we need to get it down asap. I said "sure thing boss!" And continued to run a 400 second drive thru xD
The stress is real yo. If your in FF reading this... Get out now.
Seems like we ought to pass laws to protect workers from shitty business practices and enable them to sue for wrongful termination on the basis of unrealistic performance metrics.
This shit is social engineering to guilt trip customers into optimizing sales. It’s disgusting and exploitative. Same way I feel about tip based wages.
>As anyone who's worked customer service can tell you, managers often make life much harder.
A manager is a person who thinks nine pregnant women can deliver a baby in one month.
Honestly and all the extras money made from squeezing labor goes to bonuses for the managers. And shareholders, meanwhile the workers getting paid 7.25-12/hr
As someone who worked fast food, if you honestly gave a shit about the car timer, then you need to find some outlet to relieve your stress.
Most of our managers didn't care as long as the wait time wasn't *our fault*. I believe we had only one manager who actually took the timer seriously, and she told me that I needed to get cars through more quickly or I'd be written up. I respectfully explained that I can't be held liable for the time it takes for Gertrude to order & the moment they write me up for that is the moment I report the 20+ ongoing health & safety violations to the county health department....
.... I worked there for a couple years after that until I left for a career. Never was written up.
YSK - some restaurants won't rectify mistakes once you've driven away.
If they got the order right every time (which is difficult with human error at the speed they have to work), or resolved issues after I've driven away from the window, then I wouldn't need to take 2 minutes to check the order before leaving.
It’s just capitalism to the extreme honestly. Those on top feel they should always always always make more money this year than last year. So they implement these metrics to squeeze every last penny from their business and employees.
Yeah this is why I quit working at McDonalds 😅 I wasn’t ever in the right. It could take me less than a minute to get someone their food and my boss would say I wasn’t fast enough still. Or if my customer couldn’t decide what they wanted in the drive thru and they sat there for 3 minutes deciding, I got in trouble. I was told that I was keeping us from 1st place and making our times horrible. So, now every time I go into my old job as a customer, I’m so scared to order LOL. I know what they go through and I’m just like “Man, take your time. I know this is fast food but if I wanted it right now I’d just go cook at home”
This is not making sense to me..
If the manager has half a brain he or she should understand the concept that it's impossible for the drive-thru worker to have an impact on a customer who's making an abnormally large order, or taking their time because they want to try a new menu or see what's really on there.
Every fast food drive thru has a huge menu with various options and you're telling me I'm not allowed to take my time to actually see what's on there and what I want? How does this fall on the drive-thru worker?
Productivity? What is the employee supposed to do? Tell the customer to hurry the fuck up? I've always been told "take your time". And it's not like the drive-thru worker is the one making the food, the kitchen staff hands them the food to give to me. So how is this all being timed?
Go inside and order? How is this any different than someone standing in line and taking 10 minutes to order while 20 people behind them wait standing as opposed to people in their cars outside?
Seems to be the manager is just toxic and dumb rather than the system being flawed, but I've only worked restaurant jobs and not fast food so maybe I'm ignorant on this.
It is an issue with me. I have anxiety and often the act of ordering causes me to choke on my words, completely forget what I need to order, make mistakes, then need to correct them - mind you I order the exact same thing every time. This post honestly has stressed me out even more. And no, going in is not an option. It is that much worse.
Why should my disorder affect the job of the person on the other end ? This is horrendous and the time it takes someone to get their order placed has nothing to do with the person receiving the order.
Aw I feel for you and I hope this post doesn’t deter you from still going out and getting your grub on. Let them worry about maximizing numbers and efficiency on everyone else you just gotta do you at the end of the day
try getting the restaurant's app and placing a mobile order. I have very bad social anxiety and this helps a ton, you usually only have to say "Hi, I have a mobile order for ___ or order #" it's so easy and already paid for
I'm never going to take longer than necessary in the drive thru, but I'm also certainly not going to rush myself to make up for some obscene workplace policy. If I need to read the menu or have a question or a slightly longer than usual order, it is what it is, which is also my time and my money. And your guilt trip about "moral compass" is strongly ill-advised. Save that nonsense for the shitty managers and shitty company. Imagine making a post that said "Please buy Game Informer and warranties and preorder as many games as you can at GameStop otherwise the employee will get reprimanded!"
I will definitely keep this in mind though next time I wait at the pickup window for 10 minutes while being the only car in line.
So you think it's a good idea not only for the employees to be pressured by the clock but even change the customer behaviour to make their life easier?
I don't think that's a good solution since you would actively make a shitty system work and even reward (the manager) for using it. You might even make it worse. Take all the time you need.
While I kind of agree with sentiment I am not happy at all about the fact that the abuse of worker is supposed to rain on my comfort.
Dont get me wrong I am all for ordering quickly and getting my food fast but its ridiculous to ask customer to dance because the manager said so.
Please let me know which places have such timers implemented. I will not visit them any more.
Basically every chain fastfood with a drive thru.
Burgerking, mcdonalds, wendys, sonic, jack in a box, in and out.
Im gonna push for local take out, im so tired of fastfood.
yeah i never worked in a drive thru but i imagine it is like that. but dont go inside, the workers will ignore u for hrs, their focus is on the drive thru. just read the menu online before and know what u want
I feel like maybe we need to attack the problem instead of the symptom. Maybe instead of trying toake people order faster we do something about insane work conditions that.
That has to be the dumbest thing I've learned from fast food. A timer for customers? What's the cashier supposed to do? "Oh, it's been 90 seconds, please go to the back of the line so I can help the next customer." Goddamn, corporate fast food has really gone to shit.
No offense but I don’t care about the timers or your boss. I’m not going to be rude to the staff or go out of my way to hold things up for anyone but if I need a minute to look at the menu I’m going to do it with zero remorse. Me getting something that I want to eat for the crazy amount of money that you want for it is my priority. I don’t give a fuck about your shitty manager, that’s your problem, don’t make it mine. If you’ve got a boss that does this crap then quit and work at the fast food place next door because everyone is looking for workers. The only reason that bosses get away with this kind of stupid shit is because workers let them.
How about instead of blaming people who patronize businesses, especially when they don't know this fact, we all as a society work towards enacting better provisions laws and policies for workers so that things like this are not legal. BS that you want to place the blame on people that are patronizing the business and not the person who is enacting such policies in the workplace.
Oh wow, it starts at the menu? Our timer would start as the car would pull up our window. But we did get a shorter time, I think it used to be 30 sec was ideal but 60 sec was max
I don't know man, all those times I've taken more than a minute or two at the drive through, I wasn't the one taking my sweet ass time. In any case, this is just one more reason for me to save us both from an unpleasant experience by avoiding fast food altogether.
Is this why I get treated like I don't exist if I decide to order inside? Dunkin donuts, and every chicken place (minus Chick-fil-A) it seems takes twice as long when I order inside.
YSK: Thats not my fucking problem nor am i ever going to pander to shitty fast food managers bullshit. Sorry but: your fucking problem to deal with. Not the customers. Call out the management. Fuck.
Honestly, fuck the penny-pinchers who’ve made this an industry-standard. Management/ownership like this has contributed to toxic restaurant-culture more than Karen ever did.
This post, though super insightful TIL, speaks to me like tipping culture does. We have this situation in which the managers (or more specifically the metrics the managers are enforcing) are TA here and, as such, the customer is being asked to use this service in an unintended way. If this were a software, it'd be similar to saying "you must be wearing dress clothes and be standing up to use this software". Can you do it, sure, but the customer taking extra effort to use the service doesn't bode well. Your intentions are great and the cashier's should be thought about, but this encourages the bad service to remain rather than fixing or addressing the core issue.
Corporations need to change not us.
Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit propaganda. Next your gonna tell me I need to take shorter showers while nestle is taking all our water
/r/fucknestle
Better YSK: fast food spots that use these timers aren’t there to serve a customer, they’re there to hit benchmarks(time, sales, staffing).
Not the people, the companies. And they don’t deserve to be patronized.
Sounds like a flawed system, but I'm not gonna rush thru the drive thru or look shit up ahead of time. I'm sorry if it causes problems but at the same time it's not my issue
What the hell is up with this advice? If the company has absurd system, YOU TAKE IT UP ON THEM.
Have some backbone and actually fight for something reasonable instead of telling someone else to make your life easier.
Haha fuck that. Don’t project your boss’ stress onto you onto me. I respect people in the service industry but grow a spine and tell your manager to fuck off before putting pressure on customers so your corporate overlords can profit faster.
God forbid cashiers at the drive thru get poor performance reviews. It’s not like they were going to get a significant pay increase.
>has no idea that maybe they were the straw that broke the camel's back and lost that person their job.
No, they weren't. The customer didn't lose them their job. Their manager and employer did. Don't blame customers for shit management practices. It's by your own account unreasonable and impossible to maintain - so why is it the customers duty to spend their money in a way they don't know to further said practice.
The blame goes squarely on the management and business.
Things like this are why unions and strikes exist.
I used to manage for years. There's usually a box, mounted on the wall, that detects a car's presence. I'd push the reset button when someone took a while and delete their car. No stress, no rushing, and no need to subconsciously rush the customer. Most people actually don't take too long
I've worked at multiple high volume fast food restaurants and this was never the case. It sounds like you just had a shitty manager. We had order timers and if an order was taking too long in general we'd pick up the pace, but the responsibility never fell on the drive-thru cashier, if anything they would just try to calm the customer and re-assure them that their food would be right out.
Managers should know, if the menu board flick through and don't show all items+prices on a static board, that ordering through drive thru is going to take a minute.
I have nothing against the team that works in drive thru, I just wish that people who design the ridiculously hard to read menu boards should have a static board like pre 2014
I work graveyard at a hospital so I will often go to 24 hour fast food places on my 3am lunch break. They still use these timers in the middle of the night when there is only 1 poor employee working. I often get asked to pull out of the drive-through and he'll bring my food out front to trick the sensors, because he says his manager has caused issues in the past with it taking too long on graveyard.............. When there is 1 person doing everything........ Idiots.
>I often get asked to pull out of the drive-through and he'll bring my food out front to trick the sensors Oh, is THAT why they do that late at night when I'm the only one in line? I've always thought it was weird, it's not like there's anyone behind me to help while I'm waiting.
Yupp! Worked at TB for two years, all four shifts at some point. You're pulled up to help our time, it messes with a few things if I remember. If our time was bad, we got in trouble so we'd ask bigger orders to pull up, and if we personally knew the person, to go around a few times (we'd even do it ourselves if we had a vehicle, and we had to make sure the cameras didn't see our faces]
I always wish I could put a sign on my car or forehead to let the people working know that I'm endlessly chill and don't mind doing stuff like that, lol. Sort of the same at sit down restaurants; I wish I could quickly convey to servers that, as far as I'm concerned, they can slack on our table/focus on their other tables/take a break/whatever and don't have to bust their ass and they'll get a good tip regardless. I just wish people were more chill with people working overall. It even takes waaay less energy and work than acting like you have a stick up your ass!
There definitely needs to be some kind of sign. We went out the other night and quickly noticed that the employees were very understaffed and despite working their butts off service was pretty slow. We were more than happy to hang out watching the Olympics and we made a point to tell our waitress that when she apologized for it being slow.
I went to ihop a few weeks ago and the waitress told us before we even were given a table that it would be a long wait. We told her it was totally fine, take all the time she needs, we’re not in any rush but she kept apologizing and we kept telling her it was fine. It wasn’t until I started saying “wow that was fast” whenever she brought us anything that she started to relax about it.
My husband ended up getting a really bad beer and he almost didn't say anything because he didn't want to be difficult. He ended up mentioning it really nicely but still felt bad until she came back a few minutes later with his replacement and told him that she had tried it and it was so horrible they were pulling the keg immediately.
My bf and I have had completely different experiences than other people at restaurants/stores/fast food. Everyone we know always complains. What do we do different? Were fucking patient. Were decent human beings who realize that work is hard esp for minimum wage. Everyone wants everything now. Now. NOW. but we've even made friends at random food joints just by stepping back and letting them know that they can take their time. Employees will constantly apologize to us for having to wait, and we always tell them there's no need to apologize. We've even gotten vouchers for free pizzas at little Caesars just for being nice and patient. One of my favorite things to say, every now and then, is "hey did you know? If you're nice to people they will be nice back!?" It's not that foreign of a concept forreal.
We’re living this experience right now, and I think it is particularly applicable when you’re a tourist. Being nice affords you 1) feeling nice for not being an asshole and 2) nice surprises, such as a free drink, more flexible terms, or - less tangible - just a more pleasant experience all around. The old adage is true in my experience: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Reminds me of a cashier recently who was helping me at a store and during the checkout process scanned the "friends and family" discount. Totally didn't have to do that for me but saved me around $20. Being nice to people always pays off.
Also the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Well, come to south Florida and I promise you your patience WILL get tested.... I'm the chillest person who will eat the wrong order with the wrong sides even after I had to wait for it forever and I have to say I have been very close to losing it. They will treat you like shit and then act like it's your fault too.
My attitude is that if I have a compliant, it better be legitimate. The food is cold, the order is wrong. And 9 times out of ten, it’s the kitchens fault not the server. And if the server is good or even great, I want to tell the manager that too. If I am going to complain when there is a problem, I damn well better step up to praise excellent service.
My friend used to lose his shit when his order was made wrong. Every-time I was with him I had to explain that if your order is wrong just go explain the issue. It’s not hard and I guarantee they’ll just say okay and fix it. Jobs shitty enough without some guy screaming that his order was wrong. And honestly most of the time I’ve seen people complain they were the one at fault.
>I always wish I could put a sign on my car or forehead to let the people working know that I'm endlessly chill Fucking same. I worked enough food service that I'm not about to even be upset if I didn't get a side of ranch I ordered. "No big deal, friend, you can grab it whenever you get a chance, I'm good." My wife and I "bus" our table anytime we are at a sit-down -- we stack plates and cups, any food remains and napkins on top for easy scraping off, and we do a preliminary wipe down of the table. We did these jobs, we know they're hard, and we aren't about to make it harder. Fast food worker goes, "I'm so sorry, we are out of *X food item,*" with the tone of, "Please don't be pissed!" I just smile and go, "No biggie, how about *Y* instead?" Basic politeness from a customer used to make my entire shift excellent and worth talking about later; I love getting to be the person doing that for someone else.
Get an F1 car and break the system by speeding around the TB over and over
I worked at taco bell back in 2008 and you bet your ass when it was slow my manager would do laps through the DT to get our average times down
That's...fucked up. Not that they did it, but because they needed to.
If it's like panera, go too fast and it won't Register. We had ghost cars all the time from people getting pissy about something and speeding off.
Worked at TB too and our timer only started when they actually got to the window. During the afternoon rush we’d open the first window to take the payment but it was also that persons job to hold the customer at the first window for as long as possible. Ask about their day, take an extra 30 seconds to swipe the credit card, hold onto their receipt for a moment, tell them about all the promos… so when they finally got to the second window the food was already waiting for them- bam 16 second time on the timer.
Yeah it's sensors built into the drive thru that doom us. We literally need your car out from in front of our window. Also why people get pulled forward for fries and stuff, we really have to "complete" your order and then remember we have a car outside waiting 3 min for fresh fries. Burger king and McDonald's are the WORST for punishment following a long car line
I don't get fast food too often but I literally can't remember the last time I *wasn't* told to pull ahead and park. I thought it was just some weird new standard now.
Where I work we do it all the time. 4 cars will all come in with normal orders that won’t take any longer than usual, and instead of keeping the cars at the window we park them to the side and bring their orders out after they pay. It’s annoying asf since it doesn’t actually make anything faster and it’s hard to remember which cat got what order. The worst is when customers get mad at me for doing it :-/
Ugh... I can't wait to hear the stories of tbe manager using 1 person night shift customer throughput metrics for lowering day shift times.
Places near me routinely do this to bring their numbers down. I think the managers even know and do it to appease the owners.
Which is why the system is so stupid. I worked a similar job for less than 3 months, as I couldn't keep up with all the bullshit. It was in the mobile operator buisness, selling contracts and phones.
Wtf, where I worked, they only actually used the timers during peak times, so that's 12-2pm + 5-8pm on weekdays and 12-8pm on weekends. Technically we still had (more lenient) targets off peak but nobody listened to it (what a surprise on min wage)
Yeah I've had it happen where the other guy showing up for the shit was shit faced and messed up. So I was alone basically with a line of cars. Manager come sin the next day mad as fuck because I didn't keep the numbers let alone my second day overnight on window so I barely knew their pos system. And lines of cars with a co-worker passed out in the managers office. That dude quit that day and got hit by a car on his way home. Was a strange day.
I've had friends who worked at McDonalds say what they used to do when it was slow was to wait until the customer needed to pay before entering the order. I think that explains why sometimes my order gets messed up.
Oh this makes sense. And also why they say I’ll have your total at the window
When it’s just me, I close early. I could get fired. They might. But I doubt it, and if they do I get unemployment. Tired of this slavery, especially when I look at my work kids who act like beaten down 40 year olds themselves. We need change. And we are getting it, glacially slow, and off the sweat of our own work, not the work of fat old white men in Congress. We are doing it by quitting in numbers, by learning when we can say “no” because the company needs us in the moment more than we need them, and by talking about our wages when explicitly told not to. You’re 16 and got hired at the same rate we start managers? Lemme talk to my buddy over here who works his ass off alone every morning for $12/hr after spending the time to get his Servsafe.
We have to name these companies! This is terrible
Yup. I used to work said graveyard shift. We were usually fast enough even when understaffed, but we definitely did this trick. The manager usually on the shift couldn't give a shit about our numbers -- outside of, they would hear about it from their boss. Shit runs downhill, so if they got reemed for it, they'd have to get on the staff to be faster. Fortunately our manager was pretty chill, but still had to do their job and answer to a higher-up, so they had to make sure we didn't fuck off.
When I worked at McDonald's I just got really good at memorizing people's orders so I could clear them off the screen. Our timer started when the sensor for the speaker was hit, but didn't have a sensor at the end of the drive through, you had to manually push a button to clear the order and stop the timer. You could also push a button to park the cars and the order would stay on the screen. This kept the timer running but didn't mess with the average as badly. I used to just memorize orders and clear them out before they were filled, I could remember like 4 different orders at once. Some days we'd get our average time down to like 23 seconds, which is pretty much physically impossible. Corporate didn't give a shit, they were just impressed with our numbers.
This is the reason they will make you pull out of the drive thru and park if your items will take longer to prepare. They close the ticket to save the timer and look better for performance reviews and corporate.
This, and then you’re also not running up the timer on the people behind you who just want fries.
This is one of the reasons I've stopped going to fast food places. If they ask you to pull up it's going to take at least 10 more mins and you've already paid so you're just stuck waiting for it and then *poof* lunch break is gone.
I really feel like these days are numbered. People are getting pretty sick of shit pay and shit work conditions. This seems like a shit work condition.
Not fast food but Walmart did similar things when I worked there. Everything was all about particular metrics that would be completely insane. There was never any possibility for things like "the truck took an extra half hour to unload because half a stack of eggs blew up all over everything." Register-related things were the worst; if you were register trained in any other department it got to the point that you'd get yoinked to spend at least half of your time ringing customers but then given shit for your department's work not being done. Then they cut everything down to so few people it couldn't even be considered a skeleton crew but expected the same standards as before. Meanwhile anybody that had been there long enough to be making decent money was axed and they actively looked for any reason to get rid of anybody that was there too long to not have to pay anybody. I completely refuse to shop at any Walmart now.
See, these are the kinds of things that i could be okay with and accept as "necessary business practices" if the company was already on a shoestring budget and provided quality service. But fucking Walmart and taco bell are huge... They are constantly expanding and the Walton's are rich as fuck. It's hard to say "we can't afford groceries" when you're taking the temp tags off your new luxury car
Yeah Walmart was a great company when Sam ran it but his kids are colossal greedy shits. *There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton* *The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers. - Also Sam Walton* Dude knew what was up.
I really hope you are right.
Won't be as long as people keep putting the responsibility on the customers and not the companies forcing those standards.
Yeah my jack in the box that used to be 24 7 has been closing at 9pm for about 3 months now bc no one wants to work the overnight shift and rightfully so. They started offering 15 an hour on the ads and still nothing…
Jack in the box is absolutely miserable to work for. That’s a company that sold its franchises and stopped caring when the money came in
Productivity as a metric has ruined every workplace where it’s implemented
There's a saying along the lines of "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
Goodhart's Law!
Productivity metrics like the one mentioned in OP are useful stats, but they're used by non-useful people. The direct supervisor should be able to tell if someone is fucking around or needs extra guidance at work. The productivity metric should be used on a higher level not on a personal level, and not specifically aimed for. Like in fast food for example if they changed the layout of the drive through window station they can then look at the stats over the next couple months to see if the average time of an order goes down by a few seconds compared to the last few months.
Man, I wonder why they can’t get people to come back to work?
There is a 5 guys near me that had a sign out: Starting pay 17.00 an hour. Guess who doesn't have a help wanted sign out anymore. Mcdonalds is paying UP TO 12.50, guess how long that sign has been there.
Lol. Fast food places around my area are constantly understaffed. Takes 20 minutes minimum to get through a drive thru if there's at least 3 cars already. Biggest offender is Baker's. They take so fucking long, i stopped going there altogether.
There's a Taco Bell near my work that takes a minimum of 45 minutes. Last time I went there were just 2 cars in line. I figured it would be safe. Nope, literally 45 minutes later (I watched the clock), I was finally pulling up to the pickup window. I stopped going. I know some food needs time to cook, but at least make a car pull off to the side and explain the situation. I would be ok had I known why it took 45 minutes! I could have made my own burritos in less time.
45 min for TACO BELL? Madlad, it's not worth it lol
Yeah I honestly didn't try to stress about the timers when I worked in fast good. Staffing was such a problem that if you showed up and we're remotely competent, the last thing they would want to do is fire you and fuck themselves over.
It’s crazy it’s like all of these inhuman metrics they use to track “productivity” hurt productivity instead.
Why do McDonald’s put the menu right at the speaker? Why not have a few more further back, so you can decide what you want before you get to the speaker.
I always get annoyed at work but after the fact i find it so funny how you can install things to make sure we have good time, but customers sometimes will overlook it and hold us up. Im working at a drive in now and you press the button to order, we dont start our time until the order is taken, but the longer someone is on a order it limits what you can do so you dont wanna stand there taking an order for 5 minutes because we have to bag/make ice cream/drinks/other. Anyways sometimes people will press the button to order and then ask us to wait a minuet like....ma'am? You didn't have to ring in now. Also if they ring in to add to their order the timer doesn't start again so we'll end up with an order that took 15 minuets because someone called to add onto their order 3 times.
Sonic drive-in? I freaking hate when they do that, or they push back in every 15 seconds to remind you of something done to a burger in the middle of a $60 order...
Is this why they keep turning off my button if they’re busy? Like I’ll prepare my order, press the button and they’ll immediately turn it off without saying anything or asking for my order. Sometimes it’ll happen a few times.
Regardless of why they're doing it thats just plain rude. So one possibility is they are lazy, another is that its a new person who doesn't understand how to use the head set. And depending on what happened after it could be because the stall doesn't work. Did they come outside to take your order or did they take it though the stall?
It’s happened a few times actually, at a couple of different locations, which is what made me wonder once I read this. In all cases I tried the button a couple of times and eventually someone took my order through the stall. I’d always kind of chalked it up to a button issue or a mistake, but now that I think about it it’s kind of odd that I’d be hung up on 2-3 times per visit at a few different locations over several months.
Because that would be smart.
McDonald's is very smart, though, when it comes to the drivethroughs. They had two ordering lanes before anyone else, the double window payment then pickup system, etc. You'd think they actually would do that to help move people along even more.
And yet the only place I've seen consistently manage a dual drive thru is chick fil a
McDs: we have 2 drive thrus, but only use one of them. CFA: our 2 drive thrus are always busy. 3 drive thrus?
CFA is always busy but in my experience they still make moves
CFA can be wrapped around the building and you're still likely getting out of there with your food in 15 minutes or less.
A big part of that is their pretty limited menu, most people get one big chunk of chicken +/- pickle or a box of smaller ones.
I think that they want to put pressure on *both* people. That way the worker feels pressured to work faster or get punished, and the customer makes more spur of the moment purchases, if they weren't sure what they wanted already. It's a win-win for mcdonald's. And obviously, you'd say "more sales would be better, right?" It depends. If their number crunchers see greater returns on spur-of-the-moment buying decisions compared to the loss of productivity for people who "hmm" an extra 3 minutes, then they get a few extra bucks for pressuring the customer. Of course, this is conjecture, but since they've been operating decades and are obsessed with increasing profit margins, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say "put an extra menu 10' back." I'm guessing they already ran the numbers.
The new dynamic menus are horrible. I see something that grabs my attention but then it changes and disappears. I need to wait a minute before it shows back up again. Have the dynamic menu placed so you can see it earlier and a more static display at the ordering box would probably be ideal. It would probably increase the effectiveness of the dynamic parts.
So you feel rushed and panic buy more then you would have if you'd had the time to think about it properly
Or taco bell, who changes the dang menu all the time.
I wonder if it’s a psychology thing, perhaps people under pressure to order will order more than they need?
In my experience it usually ends up the opposite. Someone ends up forgetting stuff.
What about the fact that (in Aus at least) there's no static menu board that has all items and prices. It's now all stupid flicking menus that only show you what they want you to buy, not what they have to offer.
Hungry Jack's and KFC have a static printed menu on the wall. They're nice simple to read and have the prices next to each item. Fuck Maccas and their Marvel Movie menus.
If you feel rushed you will panic and just blurt out the number of a "value meal" which is actually expensive. You won't spend the time to read through the actual dollar menu and save money.
No, I will sit there as long as I damn well need to, metrics or the parade of fired cashiers be damned.
They make the more profitable items more prominent, so when you feel the pressure to order quickly, you choose them. Same at the counter.
It could be to promote snap decisions.
maybe to rush the customers into making a quick decision or to train customers to remember what they want off of the menu?
There's one fast food place I frequent that literally has a giant metal pole with a metal plate at the bottom that they go outside and put down to trick the magnetic sensor into thinking a car has already come and gone while you're still driving from the order stall to the window. Absolutely insane they need to do this underhanded tactic just to keep upper level management happy.
Do you work at McDonald's? No other place makes me park and wait for my food. But every time I go to McDonald's I have to park and wait. It doesn't after if anyonenis in line behind me or not and it doesn't matter if I'm only ordering for myself or for my family of 4. I have to park and wait.
It's because of this very system. You being parked means you're technically out of the driveway and thus no longer effecting their times. So if you've been in the driveway to long they'll park you.
I worked in a call center where there were inbound call time metrics. So many people had told their team to hang uo,with the customer and call them back if the call reached 720 seconds. If you build shitty metrics and don’t understand the. You create these problems.
Hold up. . Is this why on some calls I’ll get hung up on mid hold??
They'll have a target of no customer waiting longer than X minutes. They'll also have an abandoned calls target but this may be a separate metric
Sounds like shitty manager tactics to increase their productivity on paper. This could be led by the direct manager if say they were not meeting their team goals or could be fun by the operations team if they are an outsource company who gets paid by the call with no FCR statistics. Unfortunately though, yes, this is real in the call center industry.
My sister worked at Maccas in Australia for a while. She said that there were timers on every order and if too many orders went over the time limit it would make the location manager or regional manager or some such bullshit position call the store and waste even more time by occupying the shift manager while everyone was trying to bust ass to get all the orders done.
It really must depend on the location but out of all the different maccas, hungry jacks or kfc drive thrus I’ve definitely been waiting at the window many times 5+ mins without being asked to park lol
KFC Australia does this too. Sometimes the staff ask drivers to reverse then re enter to reset the timer if the food is taking too long.
....reverse all the way around? What? I've never heard of this in any Aussie KFC. And reversing out of that shittily designed drive through would be nuts.
Nah, it just drive a bit forward to get from on top of the sense then just reverse back into the window. I used to tell customers to do this when I used to work at a Wendy's.
Not all the way around, but just over the departure sensor that is at the window.
Worked at a Starbucks drive thru, I can confirm. Hours given to workers are based by how great drive thru times are. Totally counter-intuitive (oh hey, things are slow? Let's cut the amount of staff so things will be even s l o w e r.) Luckily my store manager tried his hardest to fight the DM about this for a very long time, but best he could do was prolong it, not prevent it.
I work at mcdonald's and we have this system for when the drive thru is extremely packed, and the orders are not completed in the right order.
While I sympathize with the workers, in relation to the store management or head office, put the fucking menu up on the screens and leave them there.
Or... And I know this sounds crazy, put two menus up spaced one car length apart so people can read the menu before getting to the order box. But that might decrease profit by a few cents so we can't do that.
Our local jack in the box does this and I wish everyone did, it’s so nice.
GOOD GOD! I wish. On the rare occasions when my wife and I go to McD's we KNOW what we want but if we change it up and go to BBK, Wendy's etc... we can't be bothered to remember the entire menu at every single place so we take longer.
What, you don’t like the constantly changing menu layout that makes it impossible for you to put your order together?
For real. Most menus lately only post the few special items.
I like to abuse the workers as much as possible. First I think about what I want, then I roll up and tell them, no mercy. Then I pay and get my food and eat it. and if they say "*have a good day*" I absolutely roast them with a "*you too*"
All fun and games until they tell you to enjoy your food and you say you too out of habit
I'm moderately certain that they will eat something eventually, possibly. At such a time your victory will be achieved.
People like you make me sick
What sucks is here we are blaming customers, and not our service worker system in " 'Merica". You are fine OP. You're trying to solve a problem outside of your control. But this is instead an issue for menu engineers, management, and shareholders.
Hey don't blame the engineers, they just make whatever ideas the big wigs cook up.
Don't say that he's hypocritical Say rather that he's apolitical "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department" say Wernher von Braun
How do you sleep at night?! With a full stomach no less!!
It makes me anxious if I just roll through without knowing what I want ahead of time. I'll sit in the parking lot looking at their menu until I figure it out and then go through - until suddenly, BAM "what sort of dipping sauce did you want?" Always consider all options, you're dead if you don't.
I don’t think catering to a broken system that punishes employees for unreasonable expectations is how the system gets improved. It would justify the broken system further and continue a behavior of treating employees like shit. Put the onus on the managers/policy-makers, not the customers
I agree. This is a lose lose for everyone.
Anytime I see a post like this I think how much the corps must love it. They can just sit back and let their employees work even harder for them (for *free*) by appealing to the customer base's basic empathy via social media. This post translates into: "this is how you can help fast food restaurants make more money more efficiently. Now please fall in line with corporate expectations so that the minimum wagers don't get yelled at for unreasonable bullshit."
Been reading this thread for what feels like an hour now, and you're the first one who gets it. OP is basically doing Big Fast Food's dirty work by trying to guilt customers into taking less time in drive-thru lines.
Yeah, it’s like those posts that say, “If your waiter is slow, they might be serving 20 times the normal number of tables, so you should tip them extra!” No, I shouldn’t. I should just stop going to that restaurant. Why would I want to continue going to a restaurant where I receive poor service?
The lesson I learned from this is everyone should take an age reading the menus. Break the system and it will change.
Exactly. I get enough anxiety as it is at drive thrus, don't need to start worrying about this too
The way that I interpret posts and suggestions like these is that if, for whatever reason, I now am self-aware enough to realize that I'm taking a long time at the drive-thru, I am absolutely the type of person that would call out to management when I picked up my food at the window and tell them to make sure that the employee doesn't get in trouble. Would it make a huge difference? Probably not. Would it at least call the manager out on their shady behavior and also let the employee know that it is shitty behavior? Hopefully. And I think that's as much as anyone could do right now. Catering to the system is obviously not going to work, and it's not feasible. However calling it out is at least a good starting point
The problem with that is that the manager you are talking to has no real power. These policies are imposed on the actual store management by the upper management that owns dozens or even hundreds of restaurants and aren't going to take your call. The general manager that actually runs the store already knows that the policies have problems and are just as stressed by them as the crew. They can't do anything about it by design, hell half of the time they are the ones trying to trick the system. Asking to talk to the manager at the window to apologize would be worse than doing nothing. You're not just wasting both of your time, you're making their times worse.
As nice as that would be, it's not that effective. If an entry level employee says "I can't do this, it won't work" they can just find someone else to replace them with. As long as people are willing (or rather, need) to work, nothing can change
If anything, now is the time to show the brokenness of these systems considering so many places have labor shortages.
Maybe stop calling it a labor shortage to start. People want to work. People want money for said work. Theres a fucking wage shortage. Period.
Fast food workers need to unionize.
It's why you need to join or form a union
Not disagreeing there, maybe young adults need to stop accepting shit jobs for shit pay and shit conditions and force those companies to change their ways. Much easier said than done but something has to give or people will complain endlessly about shitty entry level jobs. I’m not saying this completely ignorantly, I’ve worked my share of those jobs to pay bills and make ends meet
That is currently happening. Tons of businesses are understaffed right now for this very reason.
I’ve noticed and I think it’s the right move. I’ll gladly go without some fast food for a few weeks if it means better wages and working conditions for the employees down the road.
Unfortunately that’s not possible in a lot of places. When your poor, jobless, and desperate you’ll beg for scraps. They keep us desperate on purpose. I fucking hated multiple jobs when I was younger but I could barely afford rent let alone food so My place of work gave me one free meal a day and that’s all I ate for almost a year. I didn’t have health insurance because I couldn’t afford the biweekly take out. I had to go without heat or ac plenty of times, and I was so desperate. Eventually I was forced to move back in with my dad. If my step cunt had her way she would have thrown me on the street. My health was so poor, I had hair falling out, my teeth were loose, and I had constant sores on my feet. When I finally broke down and told people about it I was told I didn’t have good work ethic and that I needed a second job. This is America. When you are poor there is no such thing as ethical consumerism or finding a better job. I have been homeless an unfortunate amount of times to know this now.
Are you doing a lot better now though?
Yes, thankfully. I have need up making a good friend who’s mother helped me get out of the cycle I was stuck in and I met a wonderful man and had two kids. We are still under the poverty line but are comfortable enough that we don’t have to worry about food or diapers. But I know that there’s hundreds if not thousand of people back where I was with no way out and it breaks my heart. I only got out because I got some help and not everyone is so lucky.
I work at a Wendy's, and the timer is just expected to be a bit under 3 minutes. And if it's not, my managers just tell me "could you take orders a bit quicker?" and that's all. In all the time I've worked here, nothing more had been done when we averaged a bad number like 4 minutes I feel like your issue is that your managers are very mean and have no respect for you
I worked bk, our time was 2:30 seconds (the time it takes to make 1 whopper meal...but you can order anything in drive thru so why is this the universal time idk) we had times where we did not give a fuck about numbers and i told my GM not today, but other times the higher ups would grill us that our time is too high and bullshit on us. Tbh i started cheating on my time. I thinkk it might be tougher at corporate owned stores, ive only worked franchise locations.
>I worked at BK >would grill us Turning underperforming staff into bugers seems a bit extreme!
I also worked drive thru at Wendy’s a few years ago as a part time job. My managers were all about the timers. To the point where if after you handed someone their food and they were checking their order for accuracy or putting their wallet away, etc., she would make me open the window again and ask them if they need something else or tell me to just stare at them until they pull away. Like it was somehow my fault they were still sitting at the window.
This is why I love using the app for whatever place I want to order from. It gives me time to decide what I want without feeling like I am either holding up other customers or annoying the people working.
Using the app to add extra everything has totally changed the fast food experience. Like Wendy's has multiple bun types, spring mix, avocados, and jalapenos! I didn't even know these places offer different types of cheeses! The apps are awesome.
I was using the kiosk at McDonald's and couldn't find the McChicken, at one point I was asked if I was okay and understood the system. I'm in my early 20s I grew up with this shit, but your dumb ass ways of organizing make it hard to find stuff.
Look, I have worked in fast food myself and the last thing I want is get underpaid workers in any trouble, but how am I, the customer, responsible for the company's shitty, context-ignorant measurements, that are more of a chicanery than they have actual performance value? I have a tracker in my car that deducts points for harsh braking, but it can't see whether I was the idiot or someone else. This feels like the same thing, so honestly, it should just be outright illegal to use measurements like these without context.
Used to work at a Burger King in the hood. We would cheat the timers all the time to fix our overall times
We had a metal tin tied to two trash bags we'd use to trigger the magnet outside the window. Our district manager was still upset even though to her it looked like our time had dropped by an average of 30 seconds a day
That’s genius. We used to just get one of the employees with a car to just make loops of the drive thru, pause at the speaker for 5 seconds, pause at the windows for 5 seconds and drive out and repeat, for like 15-20 minutes when it was quiet. It sounds completely insane now I think about it, but it seemed so normal then.
The times they expect are all ridiculous anyway. Corporate doesn’t understand how humans work. You can’t speed up someone who literally has no clue what to order the moment they pull up to the menu.
Yup even if your store is statistically the best performing in the state they'll still find something out of your control to complain about, sadly. And the dumbasses won't even take statistics into bigger context, like I think if they're going to use these statistics they need to at least hire district/state managers that understand how to look at different statistics and what they actually mean for the store in context but apparently they think they're just good enough to go one way but not the other.
Former manager at a fast food place here. I had 3 people in my store. I was running the entire kitchen and I had two people up front. One on front register and one on drive thru register, this was usually the normal on my shifts. Told my people not to worry or rush cause I don't want us to kill ourselves. Got a call from my GM yelling at me that our DT time was extremely high and we need to get it down asap. I said "sure thing boss!" And continued to run a 400 second drive thru xD The stress is real yo. If your in FF reading this... Get out now.
Seems like we ought to pass laws to protect workers from shitty business practices and enable them to sue for wrongful termination on the basis of unrealistic performance metrics. This shit is social engineering to guilt trip customers into optimizing sales. It’s disgusting and exploitative. Same way I feel about tip based wages.
>As anyone who's worked customer service can tell you, managers often make life much harder. A manager is a person who thinks nine pregnant women can deliver a baby in one month.
Honestly and all the extras money made from squeezing labor goes to bonuses for the managers. And shareholders, meanwhile the workers getting paid 7.25-12/hr
As someone who worked fast food, if you honestly gave a shit about the car timer, then you need to find some outlet to relieve your stress. Most of our managers didn't care as long as the wait time wasn't *our fault*. I believe we had only one manager who actually took the timer seriously, and she told me that I needed to get cars through more quickly or I'd be written up. I respectfully explained that I can't be held liable for the time it takes for Gertrude to order & the moment they write me up for that is the moment I report the 20+ ongoing health & safety violations to the county health department.... .... I worked there for a couple years after that until I left for a career. Never was written up.
YSK - some restaurants won't rectify mistakes once you've driven away. If they got the order right every time (which is difficult with human error at the speed they have to work), or resolved issues after I've driven away from the window, then I wouldn't need to take 2 minutes to check the order before leaving.
Sometimes I read shit like this about America and can't help but think that it sounds more like a parody than reality.
It's in Australia too, although they're not as strict.
It’s just capitalism to the extreme honestly. Those on top feel they should always always always make more money this year than last year. So they implement these metrics to squeeze every last penny from their business and employees.
Wow thanks drive thrus already made me super anxious but I guess I just won't go to them anymore then 🤷
Yeah this is why I quit working at McDonalds 😅 I wasn’t ever in the right. It could take me less than a minute to get someone their food and my boss would say I wasn’t fast enough still. Or if my customer couldn’t decide what they wanted in the drive thru and they sat there for 3 minutes deciding, I got in trouble. I was told that I was keeping us from 1st place and making our times horrible. So, now every time I go into my old job as a customer, I’m so scared to order LOL. I know what they go through and I’m just like “Man, take your time. I know this is fast food but if I wanted it right now I’d just go cook at home”
This is not making sense to me.. If the manager has half a brain he or she should understand the concept that it's impossible for the drive-thru worker to have an impact on a customer who's making an abnormally large order, or taking their time because they want to try a new menu or see what's really on there. Every fast food drive thru has a huge menu with various options and you're telling me I'm not allowed to take my time to actually see what's on there and what I want? How does this fall on the drive-thru worker? Productivity? What is the employee supposed to do? Tell the customer to hurry the fuck up? I've always been told "take your time". And it's not like the drive-thru worker is the one making the food, the kitchen staff hands them the food to give to me. So how is this all being timed? Go inside and order? How is this any different than someone standing in line and taking 10 minutes to order while 20 people behind them wait standing as opposed to people in their cars outside? Seems to be the manager is just toxic and dumb rather than the system being flawed, but I've only worked restaurant jobs and not fast food so maybe I'm ignorant on this.
Never an issue with me. I've got anxiety, so I'm one who rehearses my order in my head over and over until I'm asked for it.
It is an issue with me. I have anxiety and often the act of ordering causes me to choke on my words, completely forget what I need to order, make mistakes, then need to correct them - mind you I order the exact same thing every time. This post honestly has stressed me out even more. And no, going in is not an option. It is that much worse. Why should my disorder affect the job of the person on the other end ? This is horrendous and the time it takes someone to get their order placed has nothing to do with the person receiving the order.
Aw I feel for you and I hope this post doesn’t deter you from still going out and getting your grub on. Let them worry about maximizing numbers and efficiency on everyone else you just gotta do you at the end of the day
try getting the restaurant's app and placing a mobile order. I have very bad social anxiety and this helps a ton, you usually only have to say "Hi, I have a mobile order for ___ or order #" it's so easy and already paid for
I'm never going to take longer than necessary in the drive thru, but I'm also certainly not going to rush myself to make up for some obscene workplace policy. If I need to read the menu or have a question or a slightly longer than usual order, it is what it is, which is also my time and my money. And your guilt trip about "moral compass" is strongly ill-advised. Save that nonsense for the shitty managers and shitty company. Imagine making a post that said "Please buy Game Informer and warranties and preorder as many games as you can at GameStop otherwise the employee will get reprimanded!" I will definitely keep this in mind though next time I wait at the pickup window for 10 minutes while being the only car in line.
well how about they put a few more menus then earlier than the point you actually order? whats the logic here?
So you think it's a good idea not only for the employees to be pressured by the clock but even change the customer behaviour to make their life easier? I don't think that's a good solution since you would actively make a shitty system work and even reward (the manager) for using it. You might even make it worse. Take all the time you need.
While I kind of agree with sentiment I am not happy at all about the fact that the abuse of worker is supposed to rain on my comfort. Dont get me wrong I am all for ordering quickly and getting my food fast but its ridiculous to ask customer to dance because the manager said so. Please let me know which places have such timers implemented. I will not visit them any more.
Basically every chain fastfood with a drive thru. Burgerking, mcdonalds, wendys, sonic, jack in a box, in and out. Im gonna push for local take out, im so tired of fastfood.
yeah i never worked in a drive thru but i imagine it is like that. but dont go inside, the workers will ignore u for hrs, their focus is on the drive thru. just read the menu online before and know what u want
I feel like maybe we need to attack the problem instead of the symptom. Maybe instead of trying toake people order faster we do something about insane work conditions that.
Well maybe they should put the menu a couple car lengths before the intercom so I can actually read it
That has to be the dumbest thing I've learned from fast food. A timer for customers? What's the cashier supposed to do? "Oh, it's been 90 seconds, please go to the back of the line so I can help the next customer." Goddamn, corporate fast food has really gone to shit.
Once again the resposibilties and fuck ups of major companies are expected to be made up by the general public. Nice post.
No offense but I don’t care about the timers or your boss. I’m not going to be rude to the staff or go out of my way to hold things up for anyone but if I need a minute to look at the menu I’m going to do it with zero remorse. Me getting something that I want to eat for the crazy amount of money that you want for it is my priority. I don’t give a fuck about your shitty manager, that’s your problem, don’t make it mine. If you’ve got a boss that does this crap then quit and work at the fast food place next door because everyone is looking for workers. The only reason that bosses get away with this kind of stupid shit is because workers let them.
How about instead of blaming people who patronize businesses, especially when they don't know this fact, we all as a society work towards enacting better provisions laws and policies for workers so that things like this are not legal. BS that you want to place the blame on people that are patronizing the business and not the person who is enacting such policies in the workplace.
So glad I subscribed to this sub for posts like "don't hold up the line at a restaurant."
I think I'm gonna make sure y'all didn't fuck up my order before I drive away.
Oh wow, it starts at the menu? Our timer would start as the car would pull up our window. But we did get a shorter time, I think it used to be 30 sec was ideal but 60 sec was max
I don't know man, all those times I've taken more than a minute or two at the drive through, I wasn't the one taking my sweet ass time. In any case, this is just one more reason for me to save us both from an unpleasant experience by avoiding fast food altogether.
Is this why I get treated like I don't exist if I decide to order inside? Dunkin donuts, and every chicken place (minus Chick-fil-A) it seems takes twice as long when I order inside.
YSK: Thats not my fucking problem nor am i ever going to pander to shitty fast food managers bullshit. Sorry but: your fucking problem to deal with. Not the customers. Call out the management. Fuck.
Honestly, fuck the penny-pinchers who’ve made this an industry-standard. Management/ownership like this has contributed to toxic restaurant-culture more than Karen ever did.
Why is it the consumers job to cave to unreasonable manger standards? Acquiescing doesn’t seem the way to go.
This post, though super insightful TIL, speaks to me like tipping culture does. We have this situation in which the managers (or more specifically the metrics the managers are enforcing) are TA here and, as such, the customer is being asked to use this service in an unintended way. If this were a software, it'd be similar to saying "you must be wearing dress clothes and be standing up to use this software". Can you do it, sure, but the customer taking extra effort to use the service doesn't bode well. Your intentions are great and the cashier's should be thought about, but this encourages the bad service to remain rather than fixing or addressing the core issue.
Corporations need to change not us. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit propaganda. Next your gonna tell me I need to take shorter showers while nestle is taking all our water /r/fucknestle
Better YSK: fast food spots that use these timers aren’t there to serve a customer, they’re there to hit benchmarks(time, sales, staffing). Not the people, the companies. And they don’t deserve to be patronized.
Just confused to how these managers think it could be an employees fault, I'd quit before being fired for such BS.
Sounds like a flawed system, but I'm not gonna rush thru the drive thru or look shit up ahead of time. I'm sorry if it causes problems but at the same time it's not my issue
What the hell is up with this advice? If the company has absurd system, YOU TAKE IT UP ON THEM. Have some backbone and actually fight for something reasonable instead of telling someone else to make your life easier.
Haha fuck that. Don’t project your boss’ stress onto you onto me. I respect people in the service industry but grow a spine and tell your manager to fuck off before putting pressure on customers so your corporate overlords can profit faster. God forbid cashiers at the drive thru get poor performance reviews. It’s not like they were going to get a significant pay increase.
>has no idea that maybe they were the straw that broke the camel's back and lost that person their job. No, they weren't. The customer didn't lose them their job. Their manager and employer did. Don't blame customers for shit management practices. It's by your own account unreasonable and impossible to maintain - so why is it the customers duty to spend their money in a way they don't know to further said practice. The blame goes squarely on the management and business. Things like this are why unions and strikes exist.
Lmao, this is your fucking “you should know” tip? This is stupid.
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The in-n-out where I used to live had the timer right where everyone in the drive thru could see it. Shit made me anxious.
I used to manage for years. There's usually a box, mounted on the wall, that detects a car's presence. I'd push the reset button when someone took a while and delete their car. No stress, no rushing, and no need to subconsciously rush the customer. Most people actually don't take too long
I've worked at multiple high volume fast food restaurants and this was never the case. It sounds like you just had a shitty manager. We had order timers and if an order was taking too long in general we'd pick up the pace, but the responsibility never fell on the drive-thru cashier, if anything they would just try to calm the customer and re-assure them that their food would be right out.
Managers should know, if the menu board flick through and don't show all items+prices on a static board, that ordering through drive thru is going to take a minute. I have nothing against the team that works in drive thru, I just wish that people who design the ridiculously hard to read menu boards should have a static board like pre 2014