The Fried Chicken Is in New York. The Cashier Is in the Philippines.

Stupid.

A recipe for disaster. Any fast food joint that wants me to converse with an employee whose first language is not English has lost my business permanently.

I can't wait for the news story of the customer who inappropriately takes out his penis and masturbates in front of her. Believe me it will happen.

Sir if you don't calm down the security guard will be despatched from Chile and arrive in 11 to 13 hours to escort you out.

And I bet the chicken still won't be cheap.

The rats in the kitchen are still NY based

I can't wait for virtual flight attendants. Some fat bitch in Nigeria asking me if I have any trash while some robot juts a bag into my aisle.

I love the "inappropriately" qualifier in r3

My first thought was this: since the employee is offering live customer service in NYC, it does not seem legal to pay her 3 USD an hour. She isn't a subcontractor.

Then I realized that the customer service is off shored in many industries. So I guess this is the same?

[quote] Any fast food joint that wants me to converse with an employee whose first language is not English has lost my business permanently.

R2 I assume this is a joke...

They should have the cashier’s use second life avatars.

[quote]A recipe for disaster. Any fast food joint that wants me to converse with an employee whose first language is not English has lost my business permanently.

English is an official language of the Philippines and the primary medium of instruction in education. I doubt the restaurant would employ a cashier who doesn't have a good command of English.

I’ve heard about a similar setup in apartment buildings. There are no human security staff on site— just virtual staff displayed on monitors.

Shame on anyone who gets gets food from this restaurant.

The title of this thread sounds like a code phrase and counter phrase used during the Cold War between spies.

Spy 1: [Quote] The fried chicken is in New York.

Spy2: [Quote] The cashier is in the Phillipines.

They then hand over the envelope with the satellite pictures. .

“The Jollibee flies at midnight” (Manila time).

so are we going to send all US jobs off shore eventually?

An inevitable result of raising minimum wage on fast food workers. Employers will always try to find ways to cut labor costs.

[quote]A recipe for disaster. Any fast food joint that wants me to converse with an employee whose first language is not English has lost my business permanently.

There are literally millions of service workers in the US that you deal with every day whose first language is not English.

"Would like lumpia with that?"

R18, True. Outsourced service workers, robots and self-serve kiosks are the future.

Um, why are people angry about this? Why do you need a live, in person, cashier?

I guess everyone in NYC has a job so the restaurant needed to hire out of Manila.

[quote]There are literally millions of service workers in the US that you deal with every day whose first language is not English.

Yes, and I have two responses to this: 1) It's not the service workers inside the US that are the problem, it's remote-based customer "service" that I'm sick of; 2) I won't patronize any establishment that thinks I'm going to speak to an overseas order-taker via a monitor when I visit them in person.

And no, R10, this is not a joke.

Now for my mea culpa: I don't object to foreign and mostly Hispanic workers in the US. That ship has sailed. I am happy to converse with them in person (and since I speak conversational Spanish, it's never been an issue). But my trigger was that the offshore order taker is based in the Philippines, undercutting American workers in a whole new way but in the tradition of offshoring customer service. At least when the worker is in the US, US citizens and residents have a fair chance at that job; if the worker is based in the Philippines, no US worker can or will compete.

When telecommunications became so cheap that it was viable to put customer service overseas, we opened Pandora's box. There is no going back; again, that ship has sailed. Anyone who has called any company for service or support can understand my frustration. Simple questions become complex, problems become an all-day affair, and anything beyond which they can tell you to unplug, wait 15 seconds and plug back in is nearly impossible to resolve. Worse, these agents are never empowered to solve the problem, and now when you ask for the call to be escalated they tell you no one is available to transfer the call. It is infuriating.

Here's an example: I helped my sister choose and install cable and internet when she recently moved. From the moment we went into the Xfinity store last October to my most recent call with their support just last week to get the problems they made fixed, it has been a nightmare. The worst was the day she called me saying she'd received a collections notice from Xfinity (after 3 whole months of service), and I spent over four hours total on the phone with their support trying to figure out why they were not processing her payments when the contract pricing was dependent on it being direct autopay. The support personnel couldn't understand basic English, and despite repeated attempts at escalating the call, they demanded payment in full immediately or they were turning her service off. It was only when I screamed "I want to disconnect" that they finally transferred me to US-based "customer retention" (because clearly Xfinity thinks retaining a non-paying customer better than them going to the competition, so puts the resources [italic]there[/italic] ), who solved the problem within 5 minutes. It turned out they transposed two digits and thus had the incorrect routing number for her bank — which their system showed as the problem resulting in non-payment, but he said that the offshore support people routinely ignore such error statements because the error statements use words they don't know. They are told "collect, collect, collect" and that's all they do.

We can let corporations continue to raise prices, offer less service, cheaper components, and outsourced support. The result is inflation, shitty quality, and incalculable wasted time spent explaining any problem or issue again and again, begging for support. Or, we can say enough is enough and no more outsourcing of American jobs for the sole purpose of increasing corporate profits.

It doesn't seem all that efficient to me. I went to a new restaurant last month and instead of a cashier there's just a touchscreen kiosk. I was unfamiliar with the menu and had four different employees approach me and ask me if I needed help ordering. The whole process would have taken half the time if I could have spoken to a human being rather than scrolling through a screen.

[quote]But my trigger was that the offshore order taker is based in the Philippines, undercutting American workers in a whole new way but in the tradition of offshoring customer service. At least when the worker is in the US, US citizens and residents have a fair chance at that job; if the worker is based in the Philippines, no US worker can or will compete.

But you're smart. Most Americans are fucking stupid morons. They'll line up to order food from this restaurant. Just like these stupid cunts sat back and watched as American companies moved manufacturing and even their own jobs overseas. They'll do the same with this type of thing. Heaven forbid the fat fucks go without fast food or crap made in China.

I hardly ever buy anything from Amazon. The only things I've bought from them are car parts that are just too outrageously priced at the local dealership or would take too long to get here (the dealer has to get them from China)

If you totaled up all my purchases at Amazon, it's not even $350 - TOTAL

Fuck you idiots that are members of Amazon Prime. Stop buying "stuff"

So if they aren’t paying wages to cashiers anymore does this mean the prices will go down?

At least the cashiers would be safe from armed robbers.

American capitalism has gone too far.

This is late-stage capitalism r29. The gloves are off, as corporations continue to extract every last possible dollar of profit from hapless consumers and pound every last possible resource out of an exhausted planet.

This makes me incredibly sad for the state of American employment.

HOWEVER-

The little gay boy still somewhere inside this eldergay body is reminded of the first years at Epcot when you could go to a kiosk in Future World, hit a touch screen (itself a miracle at the time,) choose a country in World Showcase and talk to an employee there (from the actual country) about making a reservation at the country's restaurant.

It was a huge thrill. and felt like THE FUTURE.

I guess this is what it lead to, unfortunately.

R24 for President.

R24 gets my vote.

This isn’t right!!! If I buy fried chicken in the Philippines, I expect to get it from the Philippines!!!

R14. Why should someone be ashamed from getting food from this restaurant?

From a business case perspective, this is interesting.

From a social perspective, if this is successful in providing the personal interaction that many people prefer over automation, a lot of people are going to be out of jobs.

It didn't take more than a handful of years to offshore call centers in industries that you'd never believe would be willing to do so. Even if you didn't want to send the workers our of the country, Georgia and Wyoming minimum wage is only $5.15 and West Virginia and Minnesota are both below $9 - that's a 50-75% reduction in hourly wages.

Further, you gain even more efficiencies by not having to staff counter people during non-peak periods by having the remote worker cover a few locations during slower periods and using queue theory.

[quote]that's a 50-75% reduction in hourly wages.

compared to some place like California or even NY.

Off-shoring or remote workers aren't an issue; AI will replace them too. And sooner than you think. These jobs are gone.

Still asks for a tip too fyi.

[quote]Off-shoring or remote workers aren't an issue; AI will replace them too. And sooner than you think. These jobs are gone.

Long-term, the jobs will be eliminated.

The question is whether the path will include an intermediary step that still allows for people who prefer some human contact while AI evolves to address non-standard requests that are more likely to arise in food situations and all the folks with various food issues.

I wonder whether AI will include an interface that shows an AI generated human face along with the voice. There are numerous studies that show that attractive people do better in sales. I wonder whether a "hot" AI interface would be able to upsell or "add fries with that" more successfully.

Why have a person at all? I went inside Taco Bell for the first time in decades. I see an employee back in the kitchen and start telling him my order and he points to a big touch screen behind me. And of course it was the first time they got my order wrong.

[quote]Off-shoring or remote workers aren't an issue; AI will replace them too. And sooner than you think. These jobs are gone.

Since you're so toweringly confident about foreseeing the future, your investment portfolio must be outstanding r38.

R42, I also foresee a lot of futile legislative attempts to try to prop up minimum wages and prevent AI job losses. Lots of pain before we finally come around to a Universal Basic Income.

I have seen ordering touchscreens all over the world - including branches ofthe Filipino chain Jollibee. I don't understand the need to have a service person involved. Especially from the Philippines, for god's sake. It's annoying enough dealing with their call center reps.

It's unlikely that there are investment plays for the average person based on the broader belief that AI is going to result in job losses. Besides timing issues which would impact investment decisions, there aren't really clear cut winners or losers.

There are dozens of companies investing in AI, including the bigger names like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Apple, Amazon, as well as more pureplay companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Anduril.

Job losses are a separate issue from Universal Basic Income. I oppose Universal Basic Income. I am not opposed to universal healthcare or a single payer option while allowing private health insurance to cover something like a more comprehensive Part B or for more coverage options.

American Gen Z workers are this lazy and awful that this had to happen!

My insurance company has outsourced all their customer service people. I can’t tell you the joy in speaking to someone in India who has no authority to resolve any issue whatsoever after the 15th time you have had to call about yet another fuck up by the company. Thanks Anthem.

They're so lifelike..

Anything for these fucking companies to not pay their workers and give money to shareholders. Evil fucking extreme capitalism.

It’s no more evil than sending any other job to a lower cost market (I.e., not evil at all). It’s just novel—and possibly unworkable.

Disagree in part. Sending all a community's jobs to a lower, overseas market is somewhat evil r50.

R51. You want everything we consume to be produced in the US? Even if it makes goods unaffordable for more Americans? Does relocating a business from an expensive high income US state to a low income US state constitute evil? Why is sending a job overseas more evil than automating it?

This is all simplistic outrage.

No.

La negativa.

Hindi.

No.

nope, don't see the point

I had to deal with a call center once in the Phillipines and every 60 seconds she would say, "Thank you for calling. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" I hadn't even finished explaining the problem. At least the Phillipines has sent us some hot gay ass, usually nurses. Otherwise I have no use for them or their country.

Philippines. One L, double-P.

It’ll be looted and set on fire in no time.

R22 So that an American citizen can have the job, rather than someone in another country?

[quote] And no, [R10], this is not a joke.

R24 You weren't clear about how you meant it.

R58. You must be Constantin upset every day about everything you consume. There is almost nothing you consume that isn’t in part made abroad for cost reasons. You’re upset by this practice because it is novel and something we might not have expected . Nonetheless, It is identical to a practice you accept dozens or hundreds of times a day in other contexts.

[quote] Nonetheless, It is identical to a practice you accept dozens or hundreds of times a day in other contexts.

Clearly, it is not.

R61 very, very clearly it is. There’s probably nothing you buy that doesn’t rely on inputs from low cost countries.

[quote] I see an employee back in the kitchen and start telling him my order and he points to a big touch screen behind me.

Yeah, the ramen stand I go to in midtown recently adopted these touch screens. And yes it still asks you if you want to tip!

There’s one less girl behind the counter — there used to be three IIRC, now there’s two.

The business not only saves on labor, but also on Employees Must Wash Hands signs!