Working in food sucks in general. I would know I’ve been doing it for almost 14 years now. You drive to the store. You enter the store. You order your food. If there are any complications with your order you’re told right then and there.
But I’ll never forget the day my job introduced mobile ordering. It immediately made everything worse in almost every way. Customers ordering shit we ran out of, shit we no longer offer, setting the pickup time 5 minutes after placing the order then getting mad when it’s not done on time. All this while we can’t communicate with the customer at all until they arrive to find the order incomplete because we couldn’t contact them to figure out what they wanted to do.
Then door dash became a thing and all those exact problems became even worse. It slows down the entire store to the point of disrupting the customers who came in to order.
Why the fuck would you go through a third party system to obtain food when you can just go get the fucking food
Basically if you use mobile ordering or a delivery service you’re a big part of why food service has done nothing but get harder and more frustrating. And I do hold it against you.
Edit: I don’t think lemmy understands how unpopularopinion is supposed to work…
Edit 2: Considering how many people clearly disagree with me and seeing how few upvotes this post has gotten, lemmy clearly has no idea how unpopularopinion works.
Glad to know the Reddit custom of ignoring that still lives on.
I like your unpopular opinion, here is my take on it:
Don’t fucking offer mobile ordering of it’s such an inconvenience. It’s not like you’re forced to offer it.
Actually some third party companies will list businesses even if the business doesn’t offer delivery, so long as they have online ordering. The only solution would be to not allow take out of any kind.
To be fair (and again I can only speak to the UK here so maybe it’s different in the US). If a takeaway place isn’t on these sorts of services, then they’re going to miss out on an awful lot of custom.
But this is directly contradictory to the statement of op saying offering it actually grinds the operations to a halt resulting in LESS customers being served?
Customers don’t see that though. They just assume their food is late and decide to use a different restaurant next time, or just wait a bit longer.
15% of the world self-identifies as having a disability. The most common category of disability is mobility-related. E.g “going to the and entering the store” may not be as easy as it is for you, or even impossible. Even if you don’t have a mobility problem and can do that just fine, for other people “ordering and dealing with complications” is a lot harder if you have trouble hearing, or have facial paralysis and can’t speak, or even if you just don’t speak the local language fluently. There are a million reasons that might make the simple task of getting food impossible for a person, and there’s way more people out there who experience things like this than you might guess.
Maybe you simply never saw these people in person previously, because they weren’t able to order from you at all. Maybe you just assumed your customers didn’t have a disability because they didn’t say so. You have no idea how many people ordering from you have disabilities. You can’t know. Assume it’s one out of every 4 people you meet if you live somewhere poorer, because that’s realistic.
When mobile ordering went online, it meant that so many more people were able to choose what to eat, which meant more business for restaurants, which meant restaurants needed to staff their restaurant sufficiently, or upgrade tools. They don’t just get to enjoy the extra profits for nothing.
And yet your frustration is directed at the people who are just trying to eat. I would like to offer you a reframing of this situation and suggest that your problem is not with customers at all.
Customers ordering shit we ran out of
People can’t be expected to know a restaurant’s stock inventory. The responsibility is on the business to communicate that to the customers. Some restaurant’s make the cashiers say it in person to every single customer. Some restaurants erase them from displayed menus in the store. These days, restaurants can just tick the box “unavailable” in an app to let all future and present customers know immediately. It can even be scheduled, or automatically respond to events like “removing the last pack of an ingredient from the fridge”. These options all exist already, your employers need to figure out how to use them properly, or the software they use needs to add these features, or they can just not accept online orders when the restaurant is too busy. Your beef is with management or the order service companies they use.
shit we no longer offer
Same deal, but an even worse look for your management for not ensuring they tell their delivery services that something is permanently gone. Your beef is with management or the services they use.
setting the pickup time 5 minutes after placing the order then getting mad when it’s not done on time.
Still a software and management problem. They need to be able to set minimum waiting times, and management needs to update them if they know the restaurant is too busy. Your beef is with management or the services they use.
All this while we can’t communicate with the customer at all until they arrive to find the order incomplete because we couldn’t contact them to figure out what they wanted to do.
I have ordered online and later received an automated notification when the restaurant has had to extend waiting times unexpectedly.
I have also ordered online and then had a restaurant send an automated notification that a specific item went out of stock after I ordered and asked me to choose an alternative item or just leave it off the order. It also automatically recalculated my payment when I decided to leave it off. No in-person interaction required.
These features all already exist. It’s up to the managers of the restaurant to use them and to take the burden off the people they manage. It’s up to the owner to only use companies which provide useful tools that don’t harm their employees and customers. It’s up to the software companies to put features in which don’t harm customers and restaurants.
Your beef is with management or the services they use. You are misdirecting your frustration at the only people in the situation with the most reasonable time-sensitive important problem out of everyone involved. None of the problems you listed are the customer’s fault, they have no idea how your workplace runs or what is normal for them.
Start a union instead of blaming people for ordering food and you might not have to experience years more of the same.
The apps don’t actually help disabled people, they just exploit and rip them off.
Of course people with disabilities are getting exploited and ripped off, so is everyone in a system where profit is the motive.
But at least I can eat my favourite foods now while it happens. Not many other forms of exploitation provide me with any value at all. And the purpose-built disability service providers where I am are often some of the most exploitative, because they know their clients are vulnerable. Uber just thinks I’m lazy.
How is it exploitation to offer a service to someone for money?
Why? Because it’s more convenient dude, at least in the UK. Is it lazy?, yes. Is it negatively affecting the takeaway industry?, also yes. Is it more convenient than going out of my house when I’ve finally got the kids to bed and just want to settle down onto the sofa and wait for someone to bring me food? Absolutely it is.
I’d probably direct my anger towards the shitty companies who exploit you, the drivers and the customers rather than the people just trying to get some grub down their throats after a long shitty day.
Wtf is wrong with ordering from mobile to go pick it up yourself? It slows nothing down; those orders are added in the same order as those taken in-store. It doesn’t charge more. It doesn’t even really take a job away from anyone since the cashiers at these places aren’t just cashiers. Nobody is getting screwed, unless the app fucks up.
Door Dash I will never. Nor will I Uber Eats. I don’t even order by phone at places with door dash because I’m afraid they take a cut of that too. Small places I go in, order, wait, tip, the whole thing.
But corporate apps like Panera? Yes. It doesn’t let you order stuff that’s not in inventory (and seems to have a cushion built in for in person orders.) Turns you down entirely if the shop is too busy for online orders. Easier to customize stuff, the kitchen can SEE what I ordered so I am more likely to get what I ordered.
If you are just saying it makes in person dining worse, then yes. I agree. But it’s at least partly because the restaurant is doing more business, which isn’t all bad.
Hey my fellow lemming
Here’s my take on your edits: they’re pathetic.
These things are an absolute godsend for the disabled.
Also those of us with crippling anxiety issues.
I don’t, however, like the added fees or how they screw over the people who do the work. I try and avoid using gig-type delivery services, and prefer the regular kind that existed long before Uber and DoorDash. Like a pizza or Chinese place do.
I’ve been ordering delivery since the '70s.
I’ve leaned that anyone posting shame to people who don’t share their unpopular opinion are excellent people to block.
If you don’t kill your own meat I think you’re pathetic.
If you hurt animals for the personal pleasure of your taste buds, then I think you’re pathetic.
No different than watching dogs or chickens fight because you enjoy watching it.
Food ordering/delivery services are a double edge swords. Its convient but it “keeps you in your pod”.
I am not bothered by these services as long I can still go to the restaurant itself and get the food in person.
