Worked at one for maybe a year and some change. Thinking back on it, it was kinda enjoyable. I liked my colleagues, I liked prepping drinks and getting orders out the window. I even liked mopping. The real drawback, what eventually drove me away from it, was doing it every day for the foreseeable future.
If I could, I would sign on to work, like, two weeks. Then move on to something else. Maybe pick up another two weeks when I felt like it. The idea that you have one job that you sign on and do everyday until you quit or die seems... silly. Surely it's possible to make employment more flexible -- to let people train for and try a lot of different things. How are you supposed to know what you like doing before you've done it? And, one imagines, a workforce with a better understanding of a variety of different jobs would be better equipped to anticipate problems and find solutions.
As I get older, I think it would be kinda fun to like work McDonalds Thurs-Sun evenings and banter with the drunk and high kids. But only if there wasn't the hurry hurry bullshit from the greedy profit driven managers.
It's fast food. Hurry hurry bullshit is pretty baked in. Even at a sit down pace you're fucking busy most of the time. That's just how making food for a lot of people is.
there's probably a way to make food service chill out a bit. the problem with lunch/dinner/bar close rushes have to do with too many people trying to eat all at once and rent keeping out having 5x as many restaurants but they're only open for like 90 minutes twice a day around busy times to spread the burden.
i guess food trucks do some of that but we can do better.
For dine in its about creating the right expectation. If you're going to a sit down place it should be an occasion and you should be willing to spend a couple hours there. Chill out, have some drinks, get some apps and order your meal like an hour after arriving or better yet, if you know what you want let us know what you will be having and we'll put it on hold. But if people went in with the expectation that they're gonna make an evening out of it and don't want to be in and out of a sit-down place in 40 minutes as a group of 8 that'd help.
As far as fast food goes, it should be massively expanded but changed fundamentally as far as what food is being done. Stuff like soups, pastas, salads etc can be made in massive quantities in about the same time as a single to order portion and then just just gotta put it in a box to order, maybe some garnish stuff. The idea that Fast And Fresh is ideal is dumb. Fast food could be so much healthier if people realized that almost any food you get from anywhere is mostly prepped ahead of time and are glorified reheated leftovers.
It's about half capitalism and half how making food fresh to eat by order just works. I'm genuinely fine with working kitchens, I've never done Fast food but have done catering services that did take away meals for grocery stores and stuff. Most of my experience is higher end stuff. As far as under socialism stuff goes, shorter shifts are probably the biggest thing. I don't mind being busy and it does come with the territory to a certain extent. More people and shorter shifts would handle most issues.
If you're in a small town it's usually more empty