There are ways to get around the system in any kind of job. Everyone suddenly got familiar with “mouse jigglers” back when the pandemic forced everyone to stay home, and the bosses kept an eye on employees to make sure they were actually using their computers.
Even when they were actually out having coffee, they made them appear online. Now, hacking your job can refer to anything from using AI to automate specific tasks to outsourcing parts of it to others or adopting clever tricks to boost your metrics.
At a local KFC drive-thru, a user on TikTok recently caught an employee seemingly using one of those metric-boosting tactics. However, how does it work? TikToker @moments.r.precious, in a video that has received more than 8 million views, shows a car leaving a KFC drive-thru in Compton, California.
An employee leans their head out the window after a short while. Then they extend a long metal rod toward the ground. The employee then pulls the rod back into the window after waving it around for a little while.
The TikTok user wrote in the overlay text of the video, “I’ve never seen them do this before.” “I thought it was just a coin scooper for coins that fall off.” A user shared their theory about what’s happening in this video in a comment.
The user wrote, “As someone who works in fast food, here’s the explanation: there is a sensor underneath the concrete which senses cars when they approach and stop at the windows.”
“We have a short timer (ranging from 3-5 minutes) to get your food out. If our times are bad (orders taking longer than designated time set) we get in trouble and can get privileges taken away,” the user added.
The user went on, “That device helps us because we trigger the sensor and trick the system into thinking the car drove off so our times will be normal.” Many fast-food restaurants use sensors to detect the presence of cars.
This has many advantages. First, if employees are preoccupied with other duties, it might alert them to a customer's arrival. Second, the restaurant can theoretically reduce wait times for all customers by collecting data on wait times.
However, some employees claim that if they don’t reach specific efficiency requirements, they face scrutiny. Even if they are working as quickly as possible, this is still the case. They might be pushed to cheat by this system.
The idea that messing with the sensors is pretty common has been confirmed by many Reddit discussions. Many comments claim that “cheating” the system is a fairly common practice. They use metal objects like the one in the video to do this.
As many viewers mentioned, people find various ways to trick the system if they don’t have a metal item. One commenter recalled, “When I worked at a Taco Bell,the timer wasn’t actually correlated with the orders, which was kind of stupid.”
“There were several instances where one of us workers (teenagers) would just circle around the building in the drive through waiting ten seconds at each window and the order speaker for 45 minutes or so to get the time down.”
