So i went home (England) recently. First thing i noticed is you can now order your own meals in MacDonalds using these giant tablet things they have around the store. They even deliver them to your seat!
Then i realised how easy it is to use self service checkouts. Why don’t we have them here in Taiwan?
My gf commented that you miss out on human interaction by using them. But there is no human interaction here anyway. Nobody ever has a conversation or an out of the ordinary comment.
and the whole time i was there i was using contactless to pay for pretty much everything. I got some money out a couple of times and managed to keep the change under control. In Taiwan i literally have a box full of 1ntd coins because i use cash for everything.
What is this madness? I thought asia was the future. But since i have got back to taiwan all i can think of is how dated a lot of things here are and look…
McD’s were doing home deliveries way before Taiwan got in on the act. Was in a McD’s in the outskirts of Xi’An late last year and they had the tablet with table service, or counter service if you preferred.
I also thought the same thing after a week plus in Melbourne (AU), but thought it because of the high labor expense there. But then yesterday in Shanghai saw the touch screen ordering system so I think yes not so advanced here in Taiwan. It seems in the near future at least in Mainland China all payments will be cashless, at a coffee shop for espresso I had use my phone to pay something I am not used to. I did not eat at Maccas (Micky D’s in AU/NZ) but see the set up was very modern. I am guessing self service cashless payment will come to Taiwan a bit slower than other places.
the fact they have the self service tablets in china is a good sign that they should be on the way to taiwan. that they have had them in china for over a year and so far nothing in taiwan is less of a good sign…
i mean the food is what it is, my gf wasn’t too impressed that they didn’t have any fried chicken in the uk macdonalds but the experience was pretty damn cool. the staff looked happier too. seems they have multiple jobs now instead of just standing there being a till monkey.
its cool about china being cashless too. i wasn’t for nor against it before but after 2 weeks of quickly swiping my card to pay for nearly everything i am all for it. i guess Taiwanese must like things the way they are. there are plenty of relics here. like the old salons you can see that have been the same for like 50 years or whatever.
7-11 is definitely great though, i can’t knock that but other places are catching up.
Those are the things “taking our jooobs”. How can you be successful by working 12-hour shifts with overtime 9 consecutive days, when you’re replaced by a self-service terminal?
One of the side-effects of mandatory minimum wages in advanced countries is automation of the basic service industries like fast-food, etc.
I’m not arguing for/against such wages, but that’s how the market works. It looks for technology replacements for lower-cost jobs.
Me and my youngest went to some ramen joint off Yongkang and they had one of them table console systems.
Of course, the fucking software was so badly designed that the poor little bastards waiting tables had to spend, and I’m not bullshitting back here, 2 or even 3 times as long explaining how to use them as they would have just taking the frigging order with a pencil and pad.
Unfortunately, attempting to do a Ron Swanson and keeping all your assets in gold and burying it doesn’t work so well when you only have window boxes on the balcony…
Not far from the Taipei Uni of Education there’s a restaurant operated by a really old couple who prepare mostly curry based dishes. Fried chicken, fried pork, fish etc etc, pretty standard stuff.
At the entrance they have a cabinet where you can make your order and pay for it, then the old Taiwanese laopan will deliver it to you at your table. For me it was mindblowing to see a really old couple who decided to invest in such a modern system, but I guess it saves them a lot of money because they don’t need an extra staff and they also don’t need to worry about having a cash register and spending time for the payments.
Eventually even McD, KFC and friends will do it, just wait for the next push to increase the base salary.
