and decoupling order taking with service makes for "funny" times. since mcdonalds installed the tablets i regularly wait 10 minutes while looking at confused / avoidant employees not knowing what to do, even if there's nobody else waiting.
i can almost feel the meeting where someone managed to sell this idea to shareholders... "decouple everything, more efficient !"
it's pretty obvious, there's no more tension in the job, the cooks still have a list of things to do, but people serving customers have no idea who ordered what beside a number. they have no real relationship with any of us waiting and quite often I see them roaming around aimlessly, not sure if I've been called or not
This is a result of Taylorist management brain rot drive to reduce drive thru wait time metrics at the expense of anybody not in the drive through. Watch the shot clock near the drive through window (they're highly visible at Taco Bell) and observe that drive thru customers almost never wait more than 60-80 seconds.
That seems more indicative of just bad management. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in (specially) a McDonalds, but I used to frequent them easier in my life. The ones I went to were well run and efficient. But still as seemed as decoupled as kiosk ordering. The cashier would take the order and put it into the computer. The food preparers would prepare the food and put it on the trays where the packagers would subsequently take it and put it on your tray or in your bag. There was 0 communication between the three groups in 99% of the cases. Often I would make small talk with the cashiers or packagers if there was nobody behind me.
I don’t see how kiosk/tablet ordering would change that significantly.