Meet McDonald’s Newest Employees

Today was the first time I used one of these kiosks to place an order at McDonald's. At this time, there is still what appears to be a full staff of people at the registers, but I'm guessing the end game is to eliminate those people on the front line. This kind of stuff upsets some people. When Albertson's installed their self checkout (which has since been removed) a lot of people voiced concerns of disappearing jobs. I hate to say it, but it's a fact we'll all have to accept: If you're job is primarily pushing buttons in response to a customer's instructions, it's just a matter of time before they let the customer push the buttons for you.

These must be newly installed because there was a biological employee who was insistent on walking me through the process of ordering my sausage biscuit. After placing my order I was instructed to grab a number to display at my table so they could bring out my food when the humans in the back had finished preparing it. I'm not sure how long it will take before the food is prepared by robots, but we're pretty close to that. I know it's upsetting to some, but if you were an employer which would you pick: The thing with emotions that may or may not show up, wants hourly compensation and health benefits or the thing that you just pay for once, never misses a day, never complains about how it's treated, never goofs off, etc. Yep, me too.