Ah, Domino’s. Not only are they delivering pizza, they’re also delivering quality material for my book. In a week when I’ve been focusing on robots and how they might break out into the mainstream, a couple of dim-witted employees at the pizza chain had to go and post this video to YouTube:
If you haven’t heard, the video of these employees pretending to stick boogers into sandwiches went viral and caused quite the PR headache for the company. The media went whole-hog on it and the president of the company even took to YouTube with a response/apology.
This reminds me of a story I did last year on fast food technology that looked at HyperActive Technologies, a company that makes a robotic order-taking system for U.S. chicken chain Zaxby’s. Company founder R. Craig Coulter’s remarks that the fast food industry was a laggard when it came to automation were pretty much proven with the counter from a McDonald’s executive, who said the secret to good service was making sure you were properly staffed at all times.
The big problem with McDonald’s view, however, is that the teenage, minimum-wage employees manning its restaurants are just like those at Domino’s, and therefore liable to go sticking boogers into burgers just for kicks. Maybe the huge PR damage such episodes cause might finally push some of these fast-food chains to invest in safe robots to replace the risky teenagers. It’s not like their tasks aren’t largely automated and repetitive anyway.
WordsByNowak 