The fast, but healthy restaurant chain Freshii is doing something REAL sketchy! And people aren't too happy about it either...
Freshii has a new employee on board named Percy.
"Percy" works from home. Home being Nicaragua...
Percy is the new "virtual cashier" who is being paid only $3.75 an hour.
How is this legal???
The popular food chain has virtual video-calling devices attached to their cash registers in a few locations across Toronto, Canada which light up when a customer approaches the counter to order.
And maybe soon, this creepy Zoom-type, slave labor-cashier will come to a city near you!
While we are grabbing our fast, but hopefully nutritious (I only assume they're healthy because all the meals come in bowls and are totally overpriced), food, on the other side of the screen sits someone like "Percy", someone based in Central America who makes a tiny fraction of what an average minimum wage worker would make.
Freshii has adopted this new virtual technology in hopes of "assisting [its] partners in managing costs and protecting profitability" and has spoken of other upcoming "labour optimization programs in development" in a recent corporate filing.
Meaning... Canadians have gotten used to staying home, collecting government checks and are refusing to get back to work!
Today, practically EVERY restaurant in Toronto is hiring.
But no one wants to work.
The government will take care of them after all!
According to the Toronto Star, this program has been in place since November but now that is has come to light, people are TICKED.
Not only is Canada struggling to get workers back to work, but the recent government restrictions have forced so many business to turn to A.I. and outsourcing.
Due to endless lockdowns, restaurants grapple to keep their doors open. Forget about small business! They never stood a chance in the face of government lockdowns. But even a huge multimillion dollar company like Freshii is cutting costs wherever they can.
After the backlash, this "Percy" character took to Twitter for some damage control.
The third-party company that runs the virtual cashier system set up a Twitter account and they thought this thread wouldn't be just as creepy as paying someone three bucks an hour to take your order:
Currently, the post is at three "likes"...
It also doesn't help the creep-factor having Percy referring to itself in third person.
"Percy helps restaurants focus their limited staff on the highest value work."
"Percy allows for the face-to-face customer experience"
"Percy's global workforce currently has employees in several countries"
"Love, Percy"
Um.. how about "Percy" goes away now?
Come on, folks, let's get back to work!
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