Doesn't matter; the price of McDonald's has gotten to the point where it costs about the same as the local diner whose food is exponentially tastier and they'll give me a free soda as I wait for my food to be made.
So of course they delete the orders as soon as humanly possible, relying on the printouts stuck randomly around the kitchen to try to keep track, and now anyone in the management chain who does care about actual service time is completely blinded to how well or poorly they're doing. Even a manager who is out there helping, and can plainly see how slow they are, still knows the metrics are meaningless so it's hard to track progress towards improvement.
I've noticed this at other restaurants too and have debated emailing corporate when it happens (since I'm guessing the manager of the restaurant also is on board).
It's not that I don't get _why_ they do it, but it just compounds the problem. Corporate will see the stats and go 'oh X employees is enough at Y hour' despite 10 people waiting for their order since it said complete.
The naive take is to think any one of these actions happen in a vacuum. Plus if this is happening at any scale at a restaurant then the manager probably told them to do it.
I can’t imagine that kind of race to the bottom is too fun for the low level employers laboring under it. It sounds like gaming the system involves a lot of operational stress. And a manager who’s willing to cheat to screw the people above or beside them tends to be willing to screw the people beneath them too—whether the manager got that way on their own or whether the system forced them into it.
I could especially see it working to the low-level employees’ disadvantage if “the metrics” “prove” they don’t need as much help in order to “hit their numbers.”
But as long as everyone else is doing it, they realistically have no choice but to join in the chaos or be culled. That’s a letter the low-level employees can’t write themselves without jeopardizing themselves, but that an outside party could.
Either way, the conversation would be better without your involvement.
But, like you said, I realized what they were doing, and how they quite possible NEED to do it just to keep dumb management happy.
So of course I didn't say anything.
> The impulse to rat on low level employees for gaming the system
While waiting their <$20 fast, cheap food.
It's been so obvious for a long long time now, but people still keep believing that smart things make you faster or give you a better life or whatever, but that just doesn't add up. It's just frustrating, often takes longer and the only reason it is there is to grab your data. There is no other reason.
Edit: Found it. You did get a coke for free. Damn, 2004. https://www.burgerschachteln.de/2004/Sonstiges/index.htm
The only counterexample I can think of is In-N-Out, which is always packed with customers and always has a large and very busy kitchen staff.
I worked at McDonald's at that time. We would make a tray of 12 cheeseburgers and microwave them then leave them in the warmer until they're sold or got disgusting enough for customers to complain.
I’ve used the app once - it was slower than ordering at the kiosk, I was bombarded by ads and promos, and they didn’t pre cook my food.
It can? I used it once a few years ago and they wouldn't start making the food until I was in the parking lot.
Or in the slim chance that there is a line it's good. But I've rarely seen a number of kiosks insufficient to prevent lines.