McDonalds piloting drive-thru order-taking outsourcing

Mark posted the craziest thing I've heard in a while.

McDonald's is piloting a program where your drive-through order is taken by a remote call-center, sent back to the restaurant's computer system, and delivered to you as normal at the pick up window.

That this could save money is hard to wrap your head around. It makes sense when you think about it (economies of scale, average-load-balancing resulting in less down-time, rush-hour loads absorbed across time-zones...) but it's still nuts.

The world is a crazy place.

The pilot has the call center based in California, but it's not a leap to imagine that if successful, it'd be moved to India in short order (pun intended). If this occurs, there's a delicious (yes, intended) irony in all those burger orders being taken in a land with a large (~3/4 IIRC) Hindu populace.

This paragraph about the call center worker's job was particularly Orwellian:

Vargas seems unfazed by her job, even though it involves being subjected to constant electronic scrutiny. Software tracks her productivity and speed, and every so often a red box pops up on her screen to test whether she is paying attention. She is expected to click on it within 1.75 seconds. In the break room, a computer screen lets employees know just how many minutes have elapsed since they left their workstations.

"Hello, may I take your order?"
"Sure, I'll get the Soylent Green trio."