Minor things that bother you

[jeffandnicole]

Buying fast food without the app or coupon code just isn't worth it at all.

And see, I refuse to use apps belonging to a single company. I deal with enough companies in my life that if I have to install an app for every single one of them, my phone will be full of money-grubber apps and I won't have any space for anything I actually want to use the phone for.

So I judge a company on its cash prices, without any apps or coupons. If their cash price is too high, they lose my business. End of story.

There is certainly a calculated rick here.  Businesses need to determine what will ultimately bring in more revenue & profit:  Do they raise their prices and count on people using apps or coupons?  How much do they raise the prices and how much of a discount do they provide via other options? 

While most of the world focuses on the $15 burger flippers, it's the people in headquarters making 6 figures making these decisions, and running continuous projections on what will draw in customers.

No. I prefer to go to McDonalds, give them a piece of paper the government gave me, and get some pieces of metal the government gave them and a burger in return, without my phone being involved in the transaction at all.

If someone is feeling like they might be conglomerating, they should take medication and lie down until it stops.

This is becoming increasingly rare.  To some people, cash is king, but businesses are fully keen on that credit card and electronic forms of payment result in bigger sales.

That first part is actually true of most fast food places, but I do agree that the box combos are by far the best value at Taco Bell.

Absolutely.  They're a great value, and the only noticeable difference over a value meal is they give you a medium soda instead of a large.  Oh, and you generally have to use the App to order them.

I don't know, maybe? Probably not, because I've seen a friend use the McDonalds app and it didn't really seem like it made the transaction any faster or more convenient. We just waited in a parking spot instead of in the drive thru and it was about the same amount of time. I guess she got a discount or something, I don't know. But it just seemed like a hassle compared to paying cash.

Do restaurants tell people it's faster thru the app?  I'm not sure.  But even if they do, I agree it's certainly not faster than pulling up and saying what you want.  However, the apps are really meant for the restaurants to make money - after all, that's why they offer it.  When you're sitting there, you can look at what you want, and they can push for larger portions, or an extra side, or a higher priced drink.  That's the real incentive behind that app.  Sure, there's coupons, but if that app convinced someone to order food and go to the restaurant, whatever revenue is brought in is 100% higher than no revenue.

Just having the app itself is an advertisement as you scroll thru your phone, and incentivizing the potential customer to order something.

Personally for me, I don't use the parking spots.  I'll rather go thru the drive-thru or go inside.  My experiences with parking and waiting is they may forget something or didn't bring out a condiment I wanted (that, of course, they didn't know about beforehand), and then I'm waiting longer for them to return the missing or omitted item.

Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money and provides no benefit to the customer. When I was at Burger King we always had all sorts of district managers, regional managers, corporate secret shoppers, and who knows what else always buzzing around causing problems. None of them made things any better for the customer. They can be cut. (After all, you can have a burger joint without a regional manager, but you can't have a burger joint without a cook or a drive-thru person.)

No doubt corporate structures are filled with bloating positions, but Burger King brought in $22 Billion in 2019.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say them paying millions to those "always buzzing around causing problems" are responsible for the company earning billions.

A guy I carpool with works with Home Depot part time.  He used to work for Lowes, but was dismissed during a "layoff of 1".  He also tends to speak his mind in what the stores are doing wrong, and his experience there 12 hours a week for 8 months no doubt qualifies him to inform everyone what the international company is doing wrong (end sarcasm).  Similar issue. He makes $13 an hour.  Home Depot made $110 Billion in revenue in 2022.  He sees what's going on in Aisle 17 of the one and only store he's worked at.  Those district managers and secret shoppers see a lot more. 

No company does everything perfect.  Every company tries different things, and they all won't succeed.  But companies don't make billions failing at everything, and not having management staff keeping an eye on things.

Apparently when they get an app order they don't start making it until the person arrives at the restaurant anyway.

I just say "I'm here" when I'm still five minutes away. Food is usually ready when I get there. ...

Starbucks is great for ordering ahead, as they automatically make your order after you place it (unlike most places where you have to trick the app).

Having to trick the app is very much a minor thing that bothers me. Any company that requires you to say you're "here" before starting your order has zero understanding of 21st century customer service. People are ordering ahead because they want to make sure it's ready. They could care less if it's ready 5 minutes early, but they will be annoyed if they have to wait for it, or forget to say they're "here" and have to ask for it only to find out it hasn't even been started.

There's a certain risk here too.  Start it too early, then the food gets cold or tastes like it was under a heat lamp.  Or the driver gets stuck in congestion.  Or the pickup option has a long line.   Or the driver thinking they're 5 minutes away was really 15 minutes away.  A lot can go wrong especially with food that they want hot.

[J N Winkler]

There's a certain risk here too.  Start it too early, then the food gets cold or tastes like it was under a heat lamp.  Or the driver gets stuck in congestion.  Or the pickup option has a long line.   Or the driver thinking they're 5 minutes away was really 15 minutes away.  A lot can go wrong especially with food that they want hot.

In my experience, the real risk is having the food picked up by someone else, as I've had happen a time or two.

[kphoger]

No doubt corporate structures are filled with bloating positions, but Burger King brought in $22 Billion in 2019.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say them paying millions to those "always buzzing around causing problems" are responsible for the company earning billions.

It humors me when someone seems to suggest that a corporation like Burger King hasn't already figured out how many of its expenses it can afford to trim–as if it isn't already in the business of calculating profit and value down the penny.  "Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money"?  Yeah, I'm betting the company's financial analysts area constantly evaluating just how worth it those folks are to the company–and, if they determined that the positions were a drain to the bottom line, that the company would eliminate the positions.

[J N Winkler]

It humors me when someone seems to suggest that a corporation like Burger King hasn't already figured out how many of its expenses it can afford to trim–as if it isn't already in the business of calculating profit and value down the penny.  "Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money"?  Yeah, I'm betting the company's financial analysts area constantly evaluating just how worth it those folks are to the company–and, if they determined that the positions were a drain to the bottom line, that the company would eliminate the positions.

We live in a world with information asymmetry, so I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

[GaryV]

We live in a world with information asymmetry, so I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

One year decades ago when I worked at Chrysler (so long ago that "Chrysler" was it's name), management got bonuses. My manager got a 100% bonus. We grunts got nothing or just a few percent, I forget. That clearly was a case of a middle manager parasite. The conversation around the office was, "What did Bill do deserve that money that any of us didn't do for him?"

[1995hoo]

There's a certain risk here too.  Start it too early, then the food gets cold or tastes like it was under a heat lamp.  Or the driver gets stuck in congestion.  Or the pickup option has a long line.   Or the driver thinking they're 5 minutes away was really 15 minutes away.  A lot can go wrong especially with food that they want hot.

In my experience, the real risk is having the food picked up by someone else, as I've had happen a time or two.

The Starbucks near my office has one employee during the morning crush who is specifically tasked with handing mobile orders to customers and verifying names before handing you your order. It works well and I have not seen that elsewhere, including at the other Starbucks two blocks in the opposite direction.

[Hunty2022]

1. My 2+ month long curse on the Guess the Speed Limit Challenge, it started when I got the speed limit right, but I chose not to post anything since I was, and still am, on mobile. All of my guesses since then were wrong.

2. Whenever I find an interesting "in your state"  thread, but someone already said something about Virginia, significantly lowering my interest and chances of posting something there.

[kphoger]

I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

Are you the new Alan?

[webny99]

I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

Are you the new Alan?

Well, Scott5411 is definitely fictional. 

[webny99]

Having to trick the app is very much a minor thing that bothers me. Any company that requires you to say you're "here" before starting your order has zero understanding of 21st century customer service. People are ordering ahead because they want to make sure it's ready. They could care less if it's ready 5 minutes early, but they will be annoyed if they have to wait for it, or forget to say they're "here" and have to ask for it only to find out it hasn't even been started.

There's a certain risk here too.  Start it too early, then the food gets cold or tastes like it was under a heat lamp.  Or the driver gets stuck in congestion.  Or the pickup option has a long line.   Or the driver thinking they're 5 minutes away was really 15 minutes away.  A lot can go wrong especially with food that they want hot.

If you order ahead on the Dunkin app while several miles or more away from the store, there's a pop-up that asks if you want to wait until you're closer. You can choose to wait or place the order now, and there's also an option to never ask again for that location. That's the best way to handle it IMO, since it transfers the risk of it being ready too early to the customer. Yes, unexpected issues can arise, but 9 times out 10, people are using the app to save time, and they care more about the time savings than the order being ready too early (especially at Dunkin, where the morning drive thru lines can be absurd and the app regularly saves 10+ minutes).

[jeffandnicole]

It humors me when someone seems to suggest that a corporation like Burger King hasn't already figured out how many of its expenses it can afford to trim–as if it isn't already in the business of calculating profit and value down the penny.  "Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money"?  Yeah, I'm betting the company's financial analysts area constantly evaluating just how worth it those folks are to the company–and, if they determined that the positions were a drain to the bottom line, that the company would eliminate the positions.

We live in a world with information asymmetry, so I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

And Scott#### isn't wrong - there are many companies that have done away with middle managers.  And while some of the work is paper-pushing that will never see the light of day again, there's also work that gets pushed to others to complete, without corresponding compensation.

Later on, the middle manager positions always seems to quietly come back, until the next round of layoffs needs to occur.

In my office, I can name the 'middle managers' that I wonder what they're really doing. I was involved with one of them today, as he was questioning me about something he had no clue what he was talking about.  And in turn, I had no clue what he was questioning.  I finally figured out enough to realize this wasn't a Jeff problem, so I pushed him off onto someone else.

The secret shoppers of the world are a necessary evil.  Employees will act more proper around bosses and suits.  And companies have their traits.  Some of which may be stoopid, but that's their culture, and if you wanna be paid by the company, gotta live that culture. 

[J N Winkler]

Well, Scott5411 is definitely fictional. 

Ooops!  (Sorry, Scott.)

[Scott5114]

I don't know, maybe? Probably not, because I've seen a friend use the McDonalds app and it didn't really seem like it made the transaction any faster or more convenient. We just waited in a parking spot instead of in the drive thru and it was about the same amount of time. I guess she got a discount or something, I don't know. But it just seemed like a hassle compared to paying cash.

Do restaurants tell people it's faster thru the app?  I'm not sure.  But even if they do, I agree it's certainly not faster than pulling up and saying what you want.  However, the apps are really meant for the restaurants to make money - after all, that's why they offer it.  When you're sitting there, you can look at what you want, and they can push for larger portions, or an extra side, or a higher priced drink.  That's the real incentive behind that app.  Sure, there's coupons, but if that app convinced someone to order food and go to the restaurant, whatever revenue is brought in is 100% higher than no revenue.

Just having the app itself is an advertisement as you scroll thru your phone, and incentivizing the potential customer to order something.

This is more or less a summary of why I don't use the apps. All of the benefits here are to the company. There's no real incentive to me to play ball other than the potential for discounts, which feels less like a carrot and more like a stick ("submit to our desire to more directly manipulate your purchasing pattern or we will charge you higher prices").

Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money and provides no benefit to the customer. When I was at Burger King we always had all sorts of district managers, regional managers, corporate secret shoppers, and who knows what else always buzzing around causing problems. None of them made things any better for the customer. They can be cut. (After all, you can have a burger joint without a regional manager, but you can't have a burger joint without a cook or a drive-thru person.)

No doubt corporate structures are filled with bloating positions, but Burger King brought in $22 Billion in 2019.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say them paying millions to those "always buzzing around causing problems" are responsible for the company earning billions.

You have a much higher opinion of BKC corporate than direct experience with them indicates is justified. These were the same people that whipped for 2m 30s drive thru times and yet also continually created products like the Oreo shake that took about ten steps to make and thus was basically impossible to actually fulfill in 2m 30s.

A guy I carpool with works with Home Depot part time.  He used to work for Lowes, but was dismissed during a "layoff of 1".  He also tends to speak his mind in what the stores are doing wrong, and his experience there 12 hours a week for 8 months no doubt qualifies him to inform everyone what the international company is doing wrong (end sarcasm).  Similar issue. He makes $13 an hour.  Home Depot made $110 Billion in revenue in 2022.  He sees what's going on in Aisle 17 of the one and only store he's worked at.  Those district managers and secret shoppers see a lot more.

While someone with only 8 months of experience probably doesn't have the answers to everything, a recurring problem in my corporate employment experience was edicts coming from higher-ups that assumed facts on the ground that simply didn't match reality. Many times, policies would come down the pike that made certain assumptions that customers would act in a certain way, or that machines or computer programs would allow certain things that that they didn't. The result was often that following the policy as written was either impossible, only possible under a narrow set of circumstances, or produced ludicrous or customer-angering results given real-world inputs. These policies could have easily been improved if the manager writing them had merely bothered to consult with an experienced frontline employee for 15 minutes.

One example was the member casino upper management who visited one of our properties and declared that the gaming floor looked too cluttered because there were too many trash cans. He ordered that half of them be removed, then fucked off back to HQ. On his next visit to the property, he got to bear witness to customers throwing their trash–including full drink cups!–directly onto the ground because they couldn't be bothered to walk twice the distance to the next available trash can. (Fortunately, the removed trash cans were kept in storage rather than discarded.)

Also, a company making X amount of money is no guarantee that it is doing everything right. Home Depot may make $110 billion in revenue, but it's entirely possible that with some adjustments to policy, they could be making $220 billion. (This was certainly true of the casinos I worked at, which tended to just putter along on auto-pilot, secure in the knowledge that if they angered a customer with $100 to spend, they just needed someone to hit the button four times on a $25 machine to get the same total coin-in.) And revenue is only one side of the equation; a reasonably bright frontline employee could probably spot a half-dozen ways the company could save money just through experience of what is actually needed, what is wasteful, and what upsets customers.

No doubt corporate structures are filled with bloating positions, but Burger King brought in $22 Billion in 2019.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say them paying millions to those "always buzzing around causing problems" are responsible for the company earning billions.

It humors me when someone seems to suggest that a corporation like Burger King hasn't already figured out how many of its expenses it can afford to trim–as if it isn't already in the business of calculating profit and value down the penny.  "Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money"?  Yeah, I'm betting the company's financial analysts area constantly evaluating just how worth it those folks are to the company–and, if they determined that the positions were a drain to the bottom line, that the company would eliminate the positions.

Profitability is sometimes not the main goal of these positions–sometimes it's ensuring compliance with policy (which may or may not drive profitability in and of itself–policing the number of tomatoes put on a sandwich probably does, while policing that all employees wear black shoes probably does not). Sometimes management positions are created as semi-sinecures to show favor to particular employees. Or sometimes they're created because there is a need to create a position with a higher level of trust than is afforded to frontline employees.

One example of the latter two functions is the "lead" position above me when I was a casino cashier, which made quite a lot more money than the regular cashiers did. They only had the additional responsibilities of transporting larger amounts of money across the facility, entering override passwords when a computer wouldn't process a transaction, and being the person who appears when someone wants to talk to a manager. I found out after I left that one of the leads I was on good terms with was able to discharge these duties while under the influence of cannabis on a daily basis, and nobody was able to tell, because the position was that useless.

The secret shoppers of the world are a necessary evil.  Employees will act more proper around bosses and suits.  And companies have their traits.  Some of which may be stoopid, but that's their culture, and if you wanna be paid by the company, gotta live that culture. 

Of course, you could do it a lot better than BKC did, which was to invariably order a burger and a drink through the drive-thru at off-peak hours, and wait to be asked if they wanted fries to make it a combo. This just resulted in any burger-and-drink-only drive-thru order getting top priority in the kitchen. The form we were given with our results even had the instructions given to the secret shopper of what to order and when printed out on the top of it, so it was very much an open-book test.

Well, Scott5411 is definitely fictional. 

Ooops!  (Sorry, Scott.)

Not a problem! (The number after my name is pretty arbitrary, after all.)

[skluth]

It humors me when someone seems to suggest that a corporation like Burger King hasn't already figured out how many of its expenses it can afford to trim–as if it isn't already in the business of calculating profit and value down the penny.  "Get rid of a bunch of the district managers and other corporate gunk that just drains money"?  Yeah, I'm betting the company's financial analysts area constantly evaluating just how worth it those folks are to the company–and, if they determined that the positions were a drain to the bottom line, that the company would eliminate the positions.

We live in a world with information asymmetry, so I view Jeffandnicole (middle management is essential to profitability) and Scott5411 (middle managers are parasites) as being both correct.

And Scott#### isn't wrong - there are many companies that have done away with middle managers.  And while some of the work is paper-pushing that will never see the light of day again, there's also work that gets pushed to others to complete, without corresponding compensation.

Later on, the middle manager positions always seems to quietly come back, until the next round of layoffs needs to occur.

In my office, I can name the 'middle managers' that I wonder what they're really doing. I was involved with one of them today, as he was questioning me about something he had no clue what he was talking about.  And in turn, I had no clue what he was questioning.  I finally figured out enough to realize this wasn't a Jeff problem, so I pushed him off onto someone else.

The secret shoppers of the world are a necessary evil.  Employees will act more proper around bosses and suits.  And companies have their traits.  Some of which may be stoopid, but that's their culture, and if you wanna be paid by the company, gotta live that culture.

As a retired government employee, this Dilbert summarizes my attitude towards middle management more than any argument I could write. I had this posted in my cubicle for several years.

[kphoger]

... I don't use the apps. All of the benefits here are to the company. There's no real incentive to me to play ball other than the potential for discounts, which feels less like a carrot and more like a stick ("submit to our desire to more directly manipulate your purchasing pattern or we will charge you higher prices").

The Chick-fil-A app allows my family to walk in the door, find an empty table, sit down, look over the menu at our leisure, and order from our seats–no need to wait in line at all.  Then, when our order is ready, they bring it out to us (as they would anyway).  That's a really nice perk.

It also saves past orders.  So, after we've sat down, my wife can go around and ask each person in the family, "Do you want x, y, and z again"?  Most of the time, the answer is "yes".  Bam!  Ordered.

[Scott5114]

... I don't use the apps. All of the benefits here are to the company. There's no real incentive to me to play ball other than the potential for discounts, which feels less like a carrot and more like a stick ("submit to our desire to more directly manipulate your purchasing pattern or we will charge you higher prices").

The Chick-fil-A app allows my family to walk in the door, find an empty table, sit down, look over the menu at our leisure, and order from our seats–no need to wait in line at all.  Then, when our order is ready, they bring it out to us (as they would anyway).  That's a really nice perk.

It also saves past orders.  So, after we've sat down, my wife can go around and ask each person in the family, "Do you want x, y, and z again"?  Most of the time, the answer is "yes".  Bam!  Ordered.

Not really a perk for me–I'm familiar enough in general with the menus of the fast food restaurants I frequent that I generally know what I want before I leave the house, much less get in line. (For Chick-Fil-A in particular, I know I'm going to either get a #1 chicken sandwich combo or the nuggets combo. I forget what sizes of nuggets they have, but a quick glance at the overhead menu board solves this.)

If I'm ordering for my wife, the procedure is to nudge her awake, tell her where I'm going, and order whatever she mumbles that she wants while half-asleep. (Letting her peruse the menu through the app wouldn't be of much help, because it would require her to put on her glasses, and she won't.)

[formulanone]

Screw the apps and their unnecessary tracking with the ability to get even more time-wasting spam phone calls.

I'll save my sanity and time in exchange for some free fries, which I can get at thousands of other restaurants.

[abefroman329]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

Mine also lets me measure in fluid ounces and milliliters.

[hotdogPi]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

Mine also lets me measure in fluid ounces and milliliters.

That shouldn't be possible. How does it know the density of what you put on it?

[thenetwork]

I drive a work van.  I use several restaurant apps on my daily travels as my van height is a shade above 9 feet, which is usually the max clearance for most drive thrus.

If I'm doing an overnight run, the company pays for my meals, which I throw on their credit card.  Then I have them bring it out to my curbside spot as I can't drive thru and I really don't wish to go inside to order and pay.

What bugs me is that very few restaurant apps will allow pre-ordering for pickup and payment by CASH inside. 

I know a pre-cash pickup order might be risky for some places, as if the person who orders decides to change their mind or makes a bogus order, the restaurant is stuck with the unclaimed prepared food. 

But on the other side of the coin, these restaurants are making cash-payers having to order and wait on-site for the maximum time, and in some cases, they cannot utilize app-only deals because they are paying cash.

I know I'm in the minority with an oversized vehicle that does not want to take the time to sit down and eat inside or having to go inside a "fast food" restaurant not knowing how long the queue is inside, but if you cannot make it convenient for cash payers, I'll take my business elsewhere, just like other truck/large vehicle drivers.

[ilpt4u]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

Mine also lets me measure in fluid ounces and milliliters.

That shouldn't be possible. How does it know the density of what you put on it?

I assume it uses the mass equivalent at the current Temperature and Pressure combination, and being a kitchen scale, is probably set with "water"  as the density basis, as most cooking fluids are water-based

[kkt]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

Mine also lets me measure in fluid ounces and milliliters.

That shouldn't be possible. How does it know the density of what you put on it?

I assume it uses the mass equivalent at the current Temperature and Pressure combination, and being a kitchen scale, is probably set with "water"  as the density basis, as most cooking fluids are water-based

Vanilla extract, brandy, other spirits are cooked with sometimes and have a significant proportion of alcohol.

[ilpt4u]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

Mine also lets me measure in fluid ounces and milliliters.

That shouldn't be possible. How does it know the density of what you put on it?

I assume it uses the mass equivalent at the current Temperature and Pressure combination, and being a kitchen scale, is probably set with "water"  as the density basis, as most cooking fluids are water-based

Vanilla extract, brandy, other spirits are cooked with sometimes and have a significant proportion of alcohol.

Cooking oils also have a different density, but a kitchen scale is most likely using water as a density basis for converting mass units to volume units, unless it has a substance/density input selector (if digital) or an adjuster knob (if analog)

Lets be honest: most (private/residential) kitchen creations aren't exactly exact chemical formulas

[jeffandnicole]

.
I know I'm in the minority with an oversized vehicle that does not want to take the time to sit down and eat inside or having to go inside a "fast food" restaurant not knowing how long the queue is inside, but if you cannot make it convenient for cash payers, I'll take my business elsewhere, just like other truck/large vehicle drivers.

Generally, restaurants are not going to send employees out into the parking lot with cash, collecting cash. That just greatly ups the opportunities to have employees robbed. And considering you're talking about an oversized van that generally has limited visibility for those outside to see inside, you're not going to win your argument with any company that they should be collecting your cash in a parking lot.

[hotdogPi]

Legal tender laws mean that if you order first and then pay (and there's no way to back out of it), they must accept cash.