Sign of the times

[Mumbleypeg]

My wife and I journeyed into the city yesterday, and stopped at a recently opened chain sandwich shop for lunch. Upon entering the place immediately on the right were 3 touchpad "kiosks" from which customers can enter orders and pay, and select a vacant table to have their order delivered to when it is ready. There were three twenty-somethings, one at each tablet, placing their orders.

Directly ahead upon entering is a conventional counter with three staff employees with cash registers, and a huge menu board behind them. You can read the board and talk to a real live human being there! No customers were there until my wife and I walked up, ordered and paid.

It has gotten to the point that you can order and receive your meal without ever having to interface with another human, and that is apparently the preferred choice of the present generation.

Ken

[Railsplitter]

Our local McDonald's restaurants have those kiosks but so far I haven't noticed them anywhere else yet. I still go up to the counter and order like I always have.

My wife is 12 years younger than me and she uses her debit or credit card for almost all purchases. She probably loves those kiosks but I only go inside McDonald's when I'm on my lunch break and she's not with me. If we both eat there we hit the drive thru.

I pay cash for my lunches and I'll be danged if I'm going to shove dollar bills into a machine when there's a cashier 10 feet away who can take my order.

[jerryd6818]

I haven't seen the kiosks yet.

Rick, I carry very little cash. Enough for the tip most of the time, and even though I may have enough cash for my purchase, I use my debit card for almost all purchases. Works for me and helps me keep track of my expenditures. What I bought, where I bought it and how much I paid.

[OLDE CUTLER]

My wife and I journeyed into the city yesterday, and stopped at a recently opened chain sandwich shop for lunch. Upon entering the place immediately on the right were 3 touchpad "kiosks" from which customers can enter orders and pay, and select a vacant table to have their order delivered to when it is ready. There were three twenty-somethings, one at each tablet, placing their orders.

Directly ahead upon entering is a conventional counter with three staff employees with cash registers, and a huge menu board behind them. You can read the board and talk to a real live human being there! No customers were there until my wife and I walked up, ordered and paid.

It has gotten to the point that you can order and receive your meal without ever having to interface with another human, and that is apparently the preferred choice of the present generation.

Ken

I guess that the present generation prefers the impersonal ordering from a kiosk, much like the anonymous ordering that takes place from behind your computer keyboard. I have seen these also, but have not used them yet.

[Railsplitter]

I haven't seen the kiosks yet.

Rick, I carry very little cash. Enough for the tip most of the time, and even though I may have enough cash for my purchase, I use my debit card for almost all purchases. Works for me and helps me keep track of my expenditures. What I bought, where I bought it and how much I paid.

I do the same thing for my wife and although it does indeed keep the checking account accurate, it's a huge PITA for me. She gives me all of her receipts at the end of each day and I record them on a spreadsheet. Then every couple of days I'll compare my records to her bank's checking account balance.

Whenever they don't match it's almost always because she forgot to give me a receipt. And it's often some tiny purchase like $3.49 from Walgreens or somewhere that she could have used cash instead.

For myself I hit the ATM every two weeks for an amount of cash that I'll need for those two weeks. I have one transaction to record in a two week time period. For my wife it's more like 50 transactions in that same time frame.

It works but it's a big headache for me.

[cody6268]

My small-town (about 5000) McDonald's installed those. Never, ever saw them used. nd more. But at least we are getting quite a few Dollar Generals around here. But honestly, I take small businesses and regional chains over Walmart. Walmart is pretty much the only store in existence zoning laws are written in some areas to prevent existing. I'm not a "Luddite"; but I am highly critical about technology's role, and society's obsession with having connected everything. I do own a smartphone, but only because I do things that need internet access, and don't want to lug my laptop around. Largely, looking at service manuals while working on equipment. A lot better than having to take my boots off; and go in the house with greasy clothes; just to see how something comes off or goes back together.

Walmart got a lot of publicity over raising wages, but what the media lied about was that to offset that, they replaced the majority of checkout lines with self-checkouts and laid a bunch of people off; a few dozen in my town's store alone. And closed a lot of stores. I already hated Walmart, but after the whole gun debacle, I swore them off entirely.

[RalphAlsip]

My preference is to order from a person. As a hard core germophobe, I hate public touch screens. I really like the Apple Pay technology via my phone or my watch. It is electronic and nobody sees my credit card information so there is very little worry of it getting stolen. Another plus is I don't have to touch anything (ink pen, my card after someone has taken it from me).

With regard to financial record keeping, there are some good software options that integrate with banks and credit card companies that can download your transactions automatically.

Debit cards offer the least protection and most hassle in the event that someone is able to purchase something with your account (i.e., steal from you). The crook is stealing your money not the credit card company's money.

[Doc B]

Last time I went to McDonalds...they had three "kiosk touchscreens". They had 3 cash registers; but, only one manned. There were 3-4 people waiting on the manned cash register..no one was using the screens. That's when the manager stepped out and told people..."these touchscreens are open". Ever since, I try to avoid McD.

[TripleF]

My wife and I journeyed into the city yesterday, and stopped at a recently opened chain sandwich shop for lunch. Upon entering the place immediately on the right were 3 touchpad "kiosks" from which customers can enter orders and pay, and select a vacant table to have their order delivered to when it is ready. There were three twenty-somethings, one at each tablet, placing their orders.

Directly ahead upon entering is a conventional counter with three staff employees with cash registers, and a huge menu board behind them. You can read the board and talk to a real live human being there! No customers were there until my wife and I walked up, ordered and paid.

It has gotten to the point that you can order and receive your meal without ever having to interface with another human, and that is apparently the preferred choice of the present generation.

Ken

I know Ken,it's crazy and yes the young generation will barely communicate with anything beside their smart phone.

[Mumbleypeg]

The example I cited wasn't McDonald's. That would be waaaay down on my list of places for lunch but I do like their breakfast and their coffee.

The place we went to was Panera Bakery. My wife likes their soups and sandwiches and you can buy pastries and loaves of fresh-baked bread there too. But until recently there hasn't been one anywhere near us (living where we do it's several miles to anywhere commercial anyway).

Besides having very good and fresh food Panera donates all their unsold bread to charity at the end of the business day, every day. When our oldest son was a struggling seminary student with a family, a local Panera's gave the seminary families their leftover bread one day a week, which was really appreciated.

My post was intended only as a comment about the mysteries of people's behavior, and not a complaint about any company. If I was in charge and that's what my customers wanted, I'd do it too.
Makes it all the more remarkable that the unemployment rate is at an all-time record low.

Ken

[Sharpnshinyknives]

The real reason for this move to person-less transactions is more about cutting costs. When you have cities like Seattle mandating 15 dollars an hour minimum wage, this was predicted ahead of time that people would lose jobs to machines. It’s also happening to the banks. Some banks actually charge you for coming in the bank and doing business in person rather than online or through an ATM. It’s all about lowering labor costs. This is the price that is paid for these minimum wage hikes. I think your observation Ken is spot on, the young have adapted to this change faster than us old folks.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Taco Bell recently went all-in on kiosk ordering. My problem with them is that I often want "non-standard" items, for example, hold the onions or add red sauce. The dang kiosks make that much more difficult, and sometimes you can't do what you want because the kiosk doesn't have all the same "special order" capability that the regular human-operated registers have. The last time I was in Taco Bell, there was someone trying to figure out the kiosk, and no customers at the registers. I walked to the register, ordered, paid and walked away before the person at the kiosk (who was working on it before I walked in the place) finished entering their order.

Now, as far a payment goes, I use a a credit card as much as possible. I also pay-off the full balance on the credit card every month and I've been doing that for my entire life. If I haven't got the cash in the bank to buy something, then I don't use the card. That way, the credit card is simply a convenience, not a necessity. I realize not everyone can do this - and I have to really thank my parents who drilled into me to never keep a balance on a credit card.

Railsplitter - why do you use a spreadsheet? Why not just use Quicken? You can have it synch with your bank account and many credit cards so you don't have to enter all your transactions. You can also pay all your bills electronically so you never have to write a check. Many banks also have online systems that do pretty much the same thing. I use Wells Fargo's online system and it works great.

[Unk]

It has gotten to the point that you can order and receive your meal without ever having to interface with another human, and that is apparently the preferred choice of the present generation.

Ken

Ken, here is a video showing some more of that newfangled technology....

[Railsplitter]

Railsplitter - why do you use a spreadsheet? Why not just use Quicken? You can have it synch with your bank account and many credit cards so you don't have to enter all your transactions. You can also pay all your bills electronically so you never have to write a check. Many banks also have online systems that do pretty much the same thing. I use Wells Fargo's online system and it works great.

It's a long story but my wife will overdraft her checking account if she doesn't ALWAYS know how much money she has in it. To avoid that, I keep a printed spreadsheet on the dining room table. I update that spreadsheet by hand each day and put it back on the table. It's itemized for things like Gas, Groceries, Haircut, Spending Money, etc. If she started out with $100 for gas then came home with a gas receipt for $50 I'll change the spreadsheet from $100 to $50.

Each time she leaves the house she looks at that spreadsheet on her way out and makes a mental note of how much money she has for anything she might buy that day.

When we first got together she managed her own checking account and she never knew how much money she had overall. Not to mention how much for each item. This is the only way that I know of to keep her informed and to keep her from over drafting her account. I suppose I could use Quicken or one of those applications but it seems like it would be just as much of a hassle.

I do the same thing with my credit card that you do. I have no annual fee and I pay in full each month. I also get Cash Rewards. Since I pay no interest and get cash rewards, they pay me to use their card instead of the other way around. I also pay all of our bills online. I haven't written a check since May when I had a contractor clean my gutters for me.

[tallguy606]

I went to McD's for breakfast with two other guys from my church. We walked in, there was an order screen. Girl offered to help us old guys. We had very simple orders but I swear, it took her 3 minutes of tapping on the screen to enter our order. This is progress?

[cody6268]

Anyone else hate the touch-screen Coke machines? In my area, both Burger King (the first to have installed them; 4-5 years ago) and Wendy's use them.While they do offer more flavors, they're a pain to use. Gotta go through a menu just to get a basic Coke. Even a friend of mine who is a former Coca Cola engineer hates the things.

[philco]

Anyone else hate the touch-screen Coke machines? In my area, both Burger King (the first to have installed them; 4-5 years ago) and Wendy's use them.While they do offer more flavors, they're a pain to use. Gotta go through a menu just to get a basic Coke. Even a friend of mine who is a former Coca Cola engineer hates the things.

I don't care for them either.

[glennbad]

Newer generations prefer to avoid personal interactions. They would rather text, snap-chat, or instagram. Our son is 24 years old, and only one of his friends will actually call him on the phone. Our son also had to "learn" to interact on the phone...(make appointments, call the vet, you know, adult stuff).

You don't even need to leave your house now, all your food can be brought right to your door. We're becoming a world of non-social hermits.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Anyone remember the humans in the movie Wall-E?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-kdRdzxdZQ

[edge213]

I also hate the touch screen Coke machines.
I never use auto checkouts. I'm 56 have never used a money machine and I 've never had a debit card.

[Waukonda]

I hate touchscreen ordering, check ins, check outs etc. I don't use a debit card and use a credit card rarely. I NEVER use a cc for a purchase at an independent mom n pop store. Credit cards are convenient only for the purchaser and are very detrimental to the small businesses out there. Annual credit card processing fees paid out amount to thousands of dollars for these stores , the Wal Mart, Target, Lowes, etc stores can easily absorb these costs but it can mean the difference to a struggling small business. They can't make up the diff by raising prices, competing with big box stores is already a losing proposition. I could go on but you get my point and I understand diff viewpoints.....it's just another sign of the times.

[Mumbleypeg]

Mike, believe it or not I've actually purchased food from one of those. In fact they're still in vogue in Japan, or at least they were the last time I was there about 5 years ago.

Rick, sounds like your wife might not go for this but here's what my wife and I do, which pretty much eliminates the problem you explained. We have one credit card account and one debit card. The credit card is used for most purchases and it's paid in full every month so we never pay any interest. (In fact we get cash back but that's another story).

The debit card has one use only which is to obtain cash from the ATM - "walking around" money for incidentals. When we make an ATM withdrawal we split the cash 50/50 between us (then she runs out and "borrows" mine). The checkbook stays home and is rarely used. Neither of us carry a checkbook or any checks.

The bank and the credit card company both provide an "alert" system for which you can enroll and set your own alert limit. Any purchase or withdrawal exceeding the limit you set triggers a text message to my cell phone within minutes of the transaction. I can also send the bank a text 24/7 requesting our account balance and receive a response within seconds. Both the bank and the credit card company have on-line apps through which you can log in 24/7 and see all up-to-the-minute transactions and account balance - makes it really simple and easy to keep track of everything.

Don't need checks for anything except paying a few monthly bills. when either of us want to know the "balance" the answer is available within a few seconds. None of this is difficult to set up and use assuming you have an Apple or Android system on your smart phone.

Ken

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

I used to work at the corporate office of a large, well-known, old restaurant chain that was primarily franchised locations, and most of the franchisees had less than 5 locations, with many just 1 or 2. The franchisees paid the corporate parent 4% of their gross sales. A large number of the smaller franchisees did not use a point-of-sale computer system. This meant there was a very inefficient system of collecting the franchise fees where every week the franchisees had to send their cash register or handwritten receipts to the corporate office as evidence of their gross sales. So, the corporate office decided to make a point-of-sale system that had an internet connection mandatory, and we negotiated a great deal with a major point-of-sale vendor for the franchisees. Once installed, the corporate office would simply pull the daily sales data directly from the point-of-sale systems and eliminate all the manual work.

The result had an interesting side-effect: At nearly all locations where there was a switch from a manual cash register to an online point-of-sale system, the gross sales of the location increased from 2% to 10%. Hmm - why would changing to a computerized system increase gross sales? Well, because both the franchisee and their employees were skimming money from the restaurant by not entering all the cash sales. If someone came in for a cup of coffee and a slice of pie, and paid with cash, it was not punched into the cash register and the cash never made it into daily sales records.

True story!

[1967redrider]

The new Taco Bell Cantina in Old Town Alexandria has kiosks. I had to get the guy behind the counter to walk me through using it, thinking this was the preferred method for placing an order. I've been back a few times but haven't used a kiosk since. Not that I'm not into using technology, but I would probably only use the kiosk again if they were really crowded.

I do like using the MTO screens at Sheetz for ordering sandwiches and sides and I also like the Coke machines at Moe's. The Coke machines mainly because when I get a burrito I can also dial up a Lime Fanta, which works as the perfect tequila mixer for when I get home.

[Colonel26]

I’m not a fan of the automated ordering machines like the ones at McDonalds, terribly inefficient imo.

But I love the automated coke machines! The main reason is I have to drink diet drinks now and I hate Diet Coke! With the automated machines I can get Diet Dr. Pepper which I really like.

Another thing I’m a fan of are the fast food restaurants that have apps you can order and pay from. I get a total of 22 minutes for lunch and on days I don’t bring my lunch, there’s just no time to run out for it, order, wait, pay, get back, eat, and be back on duty. I use the subway app and order my meal, walk in and pick it up, and have time to get back and wolf it down.