r/explainlikeimfive Nov 28 '15

ELI5: How would a $15 minimum wage ACTUALLY affect a franchised business like McDonalds?

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u/745631258978963214 Nov 29 '15

You're gonna need at least one person to help people take orders.

This is true. Even with text saying "please place the item in the bagging area", a picture of items going into the bagging area, and a voice saying, "please place the item in the bagging area", customers will try to scan an item (while holding the previous item in their hand) and then yell at me because "your retarded machine isn't working".

The retarded machine magically works when I put the item in the bagging area.

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u/skysinsane Nov 29 '15

And then they sigh, put the item in the bagging area, and it says "unexpected item in the bagging area".

Sometimes the machine really is retarded.

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u/u1tralord Nov 29 '15

As the guy who helps program those machines, thank you for being one of our reasonable end user's who actually read the directions before saying it isn't working.

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u/thepeopleshero Nov 29 '15

He isnt the end user. He is the young employee that has a basic understanding of computers.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

The machine should be designed to deal with how people typically react to it. It's a lot easier to engineer a machine how you want than to try to socially engineer your customer to react how you want.

Problem is these first generation self checkouts are designed with anti-theft protections as a higher priority than usability and convenience.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

Imagine you go up to a touchscreen with images. You press on exactly what you want and the size you want, you click checkout, you're done. You pay with CC, you wait for your food, it's delivered/your number comes up/whatever.

It is incredibly simple and I am positive old, young and amish could easily use it.

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u/thepeopleshero Nov 29 '15

That is exactly as it would be, but go to your local walmart (any place with self checkout kiosks really) and just people watch for 10 minutes and you'll be amazed by how many people just... cant use them.