On The Third Hand

I think I’ll stop using drive-throughs as my own personal protest against this nonsense.

The local pizzeria or fast-food drive-through might fill your order, but it is increasingly likely they won’t take your call.

More and more pizza restaurants – including two chains in the Washington area – are relying on operators at call centers to take orders for delivery and give employees more time and space to focus on food preparation.

Two fast-food restaurants are testing the use of remote order- takers to cut down on errors.

People taking orders can be thousands of miles from the restaurant preparing the food. One chain has workers in Southern California taking orders from Florida. Another chain has workers in Pennsylvania talking to customers in Reston and other Washington suburbs.

“We envision order-takers sitting in offices or sitting in their homes. They could be one mile away from the restaurant or 2,000 miles away,” said Jeff Chasney, executive vice president for strategic planning at CKE Restaurants Inc., the Carpinteria, Calif., company that owns the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. chains.

Well pal, I envision a screw up of the first order. It’s dammed hard enough to receive an order that is not only the type of food ordered but in the correct amount, from three feet! (Hey, you. I ordered five fries, not 3 and this Paris Hilton burger has “special sauce” on it. I said NO SAUCE!) Now they want to send your order through a labyrinth of fiber-optic cable thousands of miles away.

And you just know this had to happen. In ride the PC Police on their trusty diversity steeds:

Domino’s Pizza Team Washington, which has 60 locations in the Washington area, started using a call center in Oklahoma to take orders from Spanish-speaking customers about two months ago. Customers call the store and are directed to another number, which connects them to the call center and allows them to place the order in Spanish. The order is then sent back to the store through a high-speed Internet connection.

Well gee, why didn’t they go PC all the way? Why aren’t the remote call centers located in Spanish Harlem NY, or Little Havana in Florida?

You want PC, you want an Oklahoma call center? Ok fine, but I’m playin the racial discrimination card. This white bread American loves the fish tacos from San Diego’s Roberto’s or Royberto’s drive-throughs. To rectify this racial imbalance here’s what needs to be done. When ordering my Roberto’s battered and deep fried white fish, in a soft corn tortilla topped with cabbage, white sauce, salsa and a lime I fully expect my order to be routed to an Oklahoma call center and to an English speaking operator.

Cross posted within the Cranial Cavity.