A Hamburger Today
Outsourcing the Drive-Thru
From the New York Times:
[Julissa] Vargas works not in a restaurant but in a busy call center in [Santa Maria, California], 150 miles from Los Angeles. She and as many as 35 others take orders remotely from 40 McDonald's outlets around the country. The orders are then sent back to the restaurants by Internet, to be filled a few yards from where they were placed.
McDonald's hopes the practice will shave a second or two off each transaction—which would add up to significant time if multiplied by the billions and billions served by the burger giant.
Great. It's already hard enough to understand the garbled speakers without the order-taker being MILES AWAY.
The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order [New York Times; via Get In My Head Or My Belly]