2.2 min. read
We looked earlier this week at the vexed question of whether employee safety or customer com-mitments should come first. The specific issue was how to handle late-night and overnight access to a 24-hour Fast Food joint…
It was bound to come down to a choice, rather than to some conclusion that would please – and serve – everyone involved fairly and adequately…
Reality strikes again…
The reality of the situation is, today’s atmosphere of growing fear and paranoia about protecting the vulnerable in all possible situations poses insoluble questions.
The bottom line is clear: You can’t ensure total safety for your emp0loyees over the wee, small hours or early morning unless you isolate them completely from the outside world. But then, how do you do that without making it impossible to accept and fill orders?
So what do you do? For practical purposes, you have to either give up on the idea of 24-hour service, or resort to that old imperfect option that nobody really likes but everyone eventually accepts: compromise.
A modest proposal…
The McDonald’s operator in the original story came to the conclusion that he could ensure emp-loyee safety best if he took orders only via Doordash. The input sie of the service equation was perfect. And that risks on the output side were minimized, because the resto would only have to admit delivery drivers to the premises, not all comers form the greater public.
But that disenfranchised the folks who didn’t want to incur burdensome delivery fees and wait for their orders. A drive-thru, after all, is supposed to make it easier and faster to get your fix – not harder.
So I propose that fast food operators concerned with the safety of their staff after hours add the functions inherent in a kiosk to their drive-thru ordering system. And accept orders via app an the website as usual.
‘Fulfilment’ – getting the orders to the customers – could be mediated by addition of a chamber to the drive-thru window similar to the old connecting doors between adjacent rooms at hotels. Or the old fashioned pass-through milk boxes we all had at the side door when I was a kid. So the milk man could collect empty bottles and leave his delivery safely ‘inside’ without having to allow him full access to the whole house.
Many fast food joints already have similar systems for express customer puck-up of orders placed electronically. And for delivery drivers picking up pre-paid orders…
My take
The problem at hand, therefore, is not insoluble, given a little creative thought and a lesson or two from history!
My questions for you:
Does the issue of 24-hour availability impact you and your lifestyle…
A lot?
A little?
Not at all?
If it does affect you…
Would you go ahead and order via Doordash if you ‘had to’, to get a late-night Fast Food fix?
Or would you go to another outlet, even one of anther ‘brand’, to get it without the ‘hassle’?
Or would you just give up on your quest for late-night sustenance?
Do you agree that a solution that serves both staff and customers adequately is possible, along the lines of my suggestions above?
Or do you agree with the complainant in the original story, that any business which offers 24-hour service should literally, and transparently, provide the service?
Muse on that!
~ Maggie J.