As Wendy's Tests AI on Drive-Thru, McDonald's Staff Seen Struggling With Existing Tech
On one hand, fast-food chain Wendy's is testing AI to process drive-thru orders, triggering speculations about tech stealing jobs from humans. On the other hand staff at its rivals are struggling to serve consumers with the existing tech. Burger giant McDonald's is making headlines for its workers facing glitches with the drive-thru cash register. The videos are going viral with more people complaining about similar hilarious incidents. A TikTok user @dakibii posted a video about how a worker was unable to help the drive-way customer due to a glitch and amassed 4.2 million views with 537.8k likes. The video starts with an order screen for a customer named Jose showing a big order for 29 medium Hi-C Orange drinks and 2 Senior Hi-C Orange drinks, worth a total of $54.99.
The worker starts panicking with the number of medium Hi-C Orange drinks increasing rapidly due to a cash register glitch. The worker is seen responding, "Hold on honey. I know we’re gonna get it off. Just give me a second." To this, the customer replies, "That’s OK, don’t worry." But nothing good happens as the number of drinks continues to increase, thereby, drastically inflating the customer's bill. After a few seconds, towards the end of the video, the worker says, "Lord have mercy, it’s going up to 51. How did it do that? I can't press this." The video ends abruptly without giving clarity on how many drinks were added by mistake and how they fixed the glitch.
The video led to a flood of responses on social media with @Mimialice931 commenting, "The poor person at the 2nd window is panic restocking the cups and straws." @rottingfawn reminisced, "I had this happen more or less once when I tried to fix this woman's filet of fish but my brain kept misfiring and instead of voiding it, I kept adding more." @Grant G commented, "My local McDonald’s did this and got up to 79 pancakes and it was frozen onto the screen for a few weeks lol."
@xo.js remarked, "I just know she was tapping all over the screen trying to fix it." @shawty commented, "That awkward moment when you accidentally hit quantity." @molly empathized saying, "Omg. Her calling y'all honey and her stressful tone would have had me crying for her." @el recalled, "Did this one time when I was trying to make a tea with lemon. Lemon fell on my screen mid-order and rang up 74 medium fruit punch and 8 different sandwiches. LOL!" @Kai they/he commented, "She had probably worked there for 40 years and is the mom to all the kiddos who need it."
The comment section was filled with comments about such incidents which have been found to be pretty common. In one such instance, a worker was caught lying about wait times at a store while a customer was frustrated with Wendy's new voice-AI ordering in their drive-thrus. Many videos are circulating on TikTok where McDonald's workers are seen charging extra from rude customers.
You can follow Jacky (@dakibii) for more such amusing and informative videos.