McDonald's is phasing out self service drinks...by 2032.

[MillauFr]

A lot of the McDonald's around where I live are homeless hangouts where I've seen various stuff going on. Water cups used for soft drinks and some old cups being brought in. I remember one manager confronting someone attempting to refill a cup and saying that she knew he brought it in.

Yes the ones in Seattle were mostly homeless day shelters preCovid. Most went out of business over the last 10 years. The owners made more money selling to an apartment developer that was willing to pay them $20m an acre for their property. The ones that are still open are a magnet for drug dealing. I avoid at all costs. The Chipotle 1 block away is always clean and bright, pretty decent food, open for in person dining, and free from any riff raff.

 

[BrianL]

I completely agree with this. One of my few guilty pleasures in life is Captain Ds. They were way later than all the other restaurants opening back up their dining area after the pandemic. Now they just closed it down again! I just want to go in and eat my unhealthy fried fish in peace with plenty of ketchup and hot sauce. I want to sit there and read this board for a few minutes and enjoy my food. Then grab a refill on my drink as I head out the door. It’s just not the same trying to use the truck center console as a table and if I wait until I am back at my office it’s cold and soggy. Also if I try and eat at my desk, I can never get through a meal without needing to stop and run out to check on something in the factory for someone.

Hate hate hate this!

Yeah, a lot of fast food doesn't travel well. Chick-fil-A is great, but their fries are only good when fresh and hot, and with a ton of sauce. They get cold and soggy fast! Captain D's I can see getting cold fast too. I've never understand how people will use Uber Eats for like McDonalds, then wait an hour for it, and it's all cold. I'd like to eat it fresh - ar at least as "fresh" as fast food can be.

 

[MillauFr]

Times they are a changing! I'm sure "theft" is part of the reason for this change, but I just hate 'if' I decided to eat in, and want a refill, it will take forever to flag down someone to refill it! That drives me nuts. I'm not a big soda drinker, usually one a day, but a fountain pop.... that's heaven... so much better than a can and I will go for a delicious re-fill!

I don't think they care too much about losing 5 cents worth of soda. The bigger problem is that the self service machines attracts a certain type of people that steal the soda. Scares away the paying customers.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

One thing I hear over and over is no one wants to come to work anymore. Unfortunately our work ethic is eroding rapidly in this country. What I can’t figure out is how people have found a way to sustain their life without working. I have had a job since like 14 yo and worked about 30 hours a week while I was getting my engineering degree as a full time student.

A local McDonald is advertising $18 / hour starting pay with a $2000 signing bonus if you stay 6 months. I am in a pretty rural area with extremely low cost of living. That is bonkers! A lot of degreed teachers in my area barely make $18 per hour when you count every hour they actually work. The system appears broken!

Did the pandemic just condition people to stop working and sit on their rear ends? I don’t get it. Seems to be tons of opportunities out there for people that actually want to show up to work and actually work.

 

[Moliphino]

One thing I hear over and over is no one wants to come to work anymore. Unfortunately our work ethic is eroding rapidly in this country. What I can’t figure out is how people have found a way to sustain their life without working. I have had a job since like 14 yo and worked about 30 hours a week while I was getting my engineering degree as a full time student.

A local McDonald is advertising $18 / hour starting pay with a $2000 signing bonus if you stay 6 months. I am in a pretty rural area with extremely low cost of living. That is bonkers! A lot of degreed teachers in my area barely make $18 per hour when you count every hour they actually work. The system appears broken!

It's more accurate to say nobody wants to work a thankless job for a pittance anymore.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

I laid brick when going to college, not much more thankless than lowest ranking person on a brick laying crew. It provided money to allow me to eat Ramen and get a college degree, which has allowed me to provide for my family of 5. It’s a means to a better opportunity simple as that.

So $18 an hour is a pittance for someone with basically no trade skills or work experience or secondary education? Yeah I don’t see that at all.

 

[gmi3804]

It's more accurate to say nobody wants to work a thankless job for a pittance anymore.

Nothing new, really.

It seems that those who say no one wants to work, already has a job. It's all rather self-righteous.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

So what’s your solution? Just raise entry level hourly jobs to $30 an hour or the equivalent of what people start out with college degrees make?

Paying someone $30 an hour at McDonalds is just going to make a Big Mac combo $30 instead of $12.

 

[gmi3804]

So what’s your solution? Just raise entry level hourly jobs to $30 an hour or the equivalent of what people start out with college degrees make?

Paying someone $30 an hour at McDonalds is just going to make a Big Mac combo $30 instead of $12.

Your assumption is only partially true (unless you've actually crunched the numbers, in which case I bow to your financial prowess, if the CEOs continue to draw tens of millions in salaries every year and take enormous severance packages when they leave. They could even manage to deliver dividends "to the shareholders," which is likely your next objection.

 

[BrianL]

So what’s your solution? Just raise entry level hourly jobs to $30 an hour or the equivalent of what people start out with college degrees make?

Paying someone $30 an hour at McDonalds is just going to make a Big Mac combo $30 instead of $12.

The problem is that those entry level jobs weren't intended to provide enough to support a family, etc. but a lot of the better jobs have dried up. There's nowhere to advance to for a lot of people. I honetly have no idea what the solution is, but we created this economy as it exists today.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I laid brick when going to college, not much more thankless than lowest ranking person on a brick laying crew. It provided money to allow me to eat Ramen and get a college degree, which has allowed me to provide for my family of 5. It’s a means to a better opportunity simple as that.

So $18 an hour is a pittance for someone with basically no trade skills or work experience or secondary education? Yeah I don’t see that at all.

You sound like you're at a certain age, not sure what age, but bringing up the age at which you worked (which at that age means strict Federal guidelines), what type of work you did, better opportunities, etc all are indicative of talk from people long removed from the world of today.

In my metro HUD has determined that low income for a family of 5 is 88,600 for 2023. I can guarantee you that many of the people in the poorer counties around my county are making far less than that and are struggling even more than it can be here between housing and other things. An article came out last week that my metro experienced the highest year over year of rent increases in the nation and people simply can't afford their own housing. But yes let's complain about your brick laying, ramen eating habits.

 

[gmi3804]

The problem is that those entry level jobs weren't intended to provide enough to support a family, etc. but a lot of the better jobs have dried up. There's nowhere to advance to for a lot of people. I honetly have no idea what the solution is, but we created this economy as it exists today.

Another fallacy. How do you know what these jobs were "intended" to provide for? Why can't a full-time, minimum wage job, regardless of what it is, be enough to support someone? Granted, they're not going to be living high off the hog, but the also shouldn't have to work two more jobs just to get by.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Another fallacy. How do you know what these jobs were "intended" to provide for? Why can't a full-time, minimum wage job, regardless of what it is, be enough to support someone? Granted, they're not going to be living high off the hog, but the also shouldn't have to work two more jobs just to get by.

I think most people are referring to what they used to be. It was more likely that your grocery workers, retail workers and fast food workers were teens and young adults (outside of management) and more like a stepping stone into other types of work, work for summer jobs or smaller amounts of income in comparison to others. Over the decades that shifted and changed and so too should our viewpoint on the topic. In particular though even if one still thinks of it as a teen and young adult job try affording college these days with that like the many decades ago..

 

[BrianL]

Another fallacy. How do you know what these jobs were "intended" to provide for? Why can't a full-time, minimum wage job, regardless of what it is, be enough to support someone? Granted, they're not going to be living high off the hog, but the also shouldn't have to work two more jobs just to get by.

No, it would support someone, just not an entire family. They were jobs for younger, less established people. Of course, there was always the opportunity to move up, but there aren't enough management jobs to go around. I do not know or profer a solution, though I do agree that someone shouldn't have to work two jobs to get by. Out economy though is broken in that regard.

 

[PollyannaMom]

My DH always wanted to do a drive through on long trips to keep moving. Grab and eat on the road. Nope. We can stop for a few minutes and relax, stretch, potty and move on.

Eating in the car itself doesn't bother me. In fact, when I used to drive DS to school, we would stop at Dunkin's on Mondays and eat in the parking lot. It was a nice little chat time. But I absolutely need the break on long trips.

Seems to be tons of opportunities out there for people that actually want to show up to work and actually work.

Unfortunately, so many of the opportunities right now have no set schedule. Retail workers are expected to work ever-changing shifts, and aren't told them more than a week or two in advance. - You can't plan child care, medical appointments...anything. I don't blame people for not wanting to live like that.

 

[BrianL]

I think most people are referring to what they used to be. It was more likely that your grocery workers, retail workers and fast food workers were teens and young adults (outside of management) and more like a stepping stone into other types of work, work for summer jobs or smaller amounts of income in comparison to others. Over the decades that shifted and changed and so too should our viewpoint on the topic. In particular though even if one still thinks of it as a teen and young adult job try affording college these days with that like the many decades ago..

Man, and the cost of college today is outrageous!

 

[bcla]

Yes the ones in Seattle were mostly homeless day shelters preCovid. Most went out of business over the last 10 years. The owners made more money selling to an apartment developer that was willing to pay them $20m an acre for their property. The ones that are still open are a magnet for drug dealing. I avoid at all costs. The Chipotle 1 block away is always clean and bright, pretty decent food, open for in person dining, and free from any riff raff.

I don't necessarily avoid the McDonald's in my area. But it can sometimes get unpleasant, like once when the police showed up to eject someone who refused to leave. I've seen totally weird stuff at other restaurants too, so fast food isn't necessarily the only place where there's unpleasantness.

There was a notorious McDonald's in San Francisco in the Haight Ashbury right on the border with Golden Gate Park. That had a confluence of different issues including a lot of runaway kids looking for cheap food. Back when the Dollar Menu was real, that place would (at the management's option) charge more for the same items - maybe $1.79. They got some criticism for that, but part of the rationale was to discourage that. The other issue they had was that they had a parking lot. It had been around for decades where they had a parking lot in an area where that kind of space was at a premium, and it becomes a place for small time drug dealers to congregate until they were shooed away.

Eventually they sold to the city, which wanted it gone and it was turned over to build housing. But the whole setup was a magnet for all these little problems. Here's what it looked like before it was razed. I'd probably been there years ago when it still had tables outside on that rather large patio, but obviously those were used by the homeless and drug dealers.

 

[Moliphino]

So what’s your solution? Just raise entry level hourly jobs to $30 an hour or the equivalent of what people start out with college degrees make?

Paying someone $30 an hour at McDonalds is just going to make a Big Mac combo $30 instead of $12.

Any full time job should pay enough to cover someone's basic living needs. And McDonald's in other countries manage to pay a decent wage and provide benefits to their employees while still being priced around the same as in the US.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Any full time job should pay enough to cover someone's basic living needs. And McDonald's in other countries manage to pay a decent wage and provide benefits to their employees while still being priced around the same as in the US.

For most people McDonalds is an after school job for teenagers or full time college students. So I don’t agree with you on this. The manager of a McDonalds, yes I agree with you about their salary.

Another example would be a snow cone stand. Absolutely no reason for $30 an hour and benefits when kids have done this job for just some extra spending money since the inception of a snow cone stand.

You want a career that can support you learn a trade, some skills, or get a degree.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

You want a caterer that can support you learn a trade, some skills, or get a degree.

With what income pray tell?