Drive Thru Robot Revolution

 

One of my recurring pet peeves involves interactions with ordering food in the drive thru.

 I think there should be a basic understanding of who needs to say what in such communications.

 

“Welcome to ______! How may I help you?” is a basic way to kick off such a conversation.

 

But what I’ve gotten instead is these gems in kick starting a food order in the drive thru.

• “Yeah?”
• “What?”
• "uh...hello?" 

Or just static. I’ll hear a click and I know someone is there but not saying anything.

 

So I go, “Hello?”

 

And then someone responds.

• “Yeah?”
• “What?”
• "uh...hello?" 

Why is this so hard?

 

I actually had this happen once where the person said, “Hold for one moment please.”

 

I replied “OK” and waited.

 

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

So I said “Hello?”

 

And then that person said (and I kid you not) “Are you going to order something?”

 

Huh?

 

I said “You said to hold a moment.”

 

And she replied, “Yeah, I did. And now I’m waiting for your order.” 

 

I drove away.

 

I should’ve gone in to demand to speak to a manager or something cause am I wrong or was that rude?

 

That particular place was a Bojangles and I recently returned reluctantly to that location.

 

Where I talked to a robot.

 

Specifically a female presenting AI chat bot who began the interaction with “Welcome to Bojangles! How may I help you?”

 

I presented my order and the AI interface asked me 3 questions:

• Did I want to add a drink to the order?
• Did I want to add their peach cobbler biscuit?
• Was there anything else?

 A simple “no” to each question and the bot gave me my total.

 

I drove up to the window to pay the people working there and saw the people preparing the food who handed me exactly what I ordered.

 

Now I hate that AI has taken a job away from a human being.

 

But given the frequency of my encounters with human beings who do not seem to understand the basic tenets of human communications and the complete ease of this interaction, it’s hard for me to feel too bad about this. 

By the way, a second visit to that Bojangles went just as smoothly.  

I know there are horror stories of people trying to interact with AI for drive thru and experiencing some epic fails.  

Here's a novelty record from the Dr. Demento show about the peril's of ordering through a drive thru.