[lbo-talk] Re: Dreams in the Dark at the Drive-Through Window

[Tim Francis-Wright]

Steven L. Robinson quoted:
> The customers are rude tonight, drunk and bellicose. One guy doesn't want to
> pay for his food, figuring it ought to be free. If he had wanted to rob the
> place, Ms. Castillo says with a tight smile, it would have been easy enough;
> the window doesn't lock here like it does at the McDonald's.
> 
> From the car window, the whole fast-food experience is a numbing routine.
> Pull up. Order from the billboard. Idle. Pay. Drive away. Fast food has
> become a $120 billion motorized American experience.
> 
> But consider the life inside that window on Loop 12 in West Dallas. There is
> a woman with children and no health insurance, undereducated, a foot soldier
> in the army of the working poor. The fry cook sneezes on the meat patties.
> Cigarettes go half smoked. Cameras spy on the employees. Customers throw
> their fries and soft drinks sometimes because they think it's funny.

Yet even this experience is being commodified.  Fast food chains are 
starting to centralize their drive-through ordering systems to sell 
more food faster and free up employees to make nice with the customers.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/11fast.html?ex=1302408000&en=fba08e17788e24c9&ei=5090>
<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/11/05/miles_away_ill_have_a_burger/>

--tim francis-wright