Blast you fast food chains!

I crab about these all the time but it's about time I just rant it out.

I used to be a huge fast food consumer and I still grab it every now and again when I'm traveling. When I first saw the display screens in drive-thrus years ago (you know the ones that let you confirm they are entering what you are ordering) I was ecstatic. This improves my life because it improves the quality of my orders and gets the employees less grief. I would assume it gets them less grief because people can politely correct them at order time as opposed to being pissed when they return. I would at least assume they wouldn't be getting more grief and they'd be getting happier customers.

But here comes the anger part: NO ONE USES THEM ANYMORE! Why do they bother spending the money to basically buy tvs they are going to put outside to improve their service if they're not going to use them?! This, to me, doesn't even seem like a case by case lack of use. It just seems like everyone stopped using them at once and it irritates the living crap out of me. I'm back to getting the same crappy service with no ability to check if they're actually hearing me or not and now I also have a wonderful piece of unused technology in front of me just mocking me.

On a related note I also feel like fast food employees are getting less good at their jobs. This could also just me getting older and crankier or spending time in areas with crappy service. Here's what I mean by worse service though: when I used to place an order I would get this pleasant "that will be $X at your first drive thru window" or something like that. It lets me know how much money it's costing me so I don't have to look at the useless receipt (and if it's way off that's also another check on poor order taking) and it lets me know that we're good to go and telling me which window to stop at. These may seem like minor things but it just seems like common sense. Most places have at least two windows and I want the person at the other end to know we're all set. GRRRRR! Damn you fast food chain!