Just Show Up, for Crying Out Loud
I slummed it for dinner last Friday. Went to McDonald’s. Did the drive through thing. Now, if you pay any attention to business news, you have probably heard pundits talking about the future of retail being in selling the experience, not just the product. I believe they’re right. Unfortunately, my experience at McDonald’s wasn’t worth the money I paid for my meal.
I got my food fast, they’d filled my order correctly, and the food was exactly what I expected (no more, no less). But with 3 opportunities for human interaction, the only time I felt remotely like I was dealing with a human being was when I was staring at a two-way speaker, placing my order.
By the time I got to the first window (the pay window), the cashier (who I supposed had just taken my order) was already taking the order of the car behind me. She didn’t speak to me at all, just took my debit card and handed me the keypad. I don’t even think she looked at me.
On to the second window to pick up my food. It was surrenderd without a single word (even though this McDonald’s employee wasn’t speaking to someone else on a headset). I asked for a drink tray because I’d ordered a milkshake as well as a soda, and was given it, again, without any verbal acknowledgment whatsoever.
I drove away feeling, myself, a little less human. Nobody asked me a question, smiled at me once, or even thanked me for my business. I might as well have been dealing with a machine.
In fact – if this trend continues, the automated fast food kiosk, sans personnel, isn’t far off. Prototypes of burger slinging robots who can churn out more food per minute than an experienced fry cook already exist and are being tested in some restaurants. The front of house staff would be even easier to replace with technology.
If people don’t show up for work – I mean REALLY show up, as a human being and do their job, which is to be a human being to other human beings – then pretty soon that job will disappear, and we’ll plunge even deeper into the kind of isolation predicted by the “no-human-contact” future in the PIXAR film, WALL-E. That’s frightening. And not just to me. Over 35% of North Americans have some degree of fear of loneliness, a figure that’s sure to increase as we insulate ourselves from one another.
People want to connect with other people – even if they behave like they don’t. If you smile at your grumpiest, most anti-social customer and tell him to have a good day, even though it won’t look like it, it will have a positive impact on his day. And you’ll be worth more than the machine that’s coming to replace you. Guaranteed.
