
At an Outback Steakhouse Franchise, Surveillance Blooms - lnguyen
https://www.wired.com/story/outback-steakhouse-presto-vision-surveillance/
======
chooseaname
So much wrong with this. Look, hire good people. If you need to pay a little
more, do it. Then trust them to do their jobs. If they don't, the _customers_
will let you know. But for ... sake, just treat your employees like people;
people who have bills to pay and family to take care of.

And make the food better. I was at a (admittedly not Outback) restaurant the
other week and the food tasted about as good as what you would pour out of a
frozen bag. Why do people eat out if this is what they get?

This incessant wringing of every penny out of every dollar is tiring. Tell
your investors quality matters, employees matter, not their returns.

------
elbrian
I wouldn't patron an establishment that utilizes such a system, out of respect
for the waitstaff.

Anyone who has ever worked at a call center knows just how soul-sapping these
types of metric-monitoring systems can be.

~~~
njc521
I imagine you also keep an eye on the manager everywhere you dine to ensure
they aren't actively monitoring the patrons or staff?

This article is the kind of sensationalism that discredits very real concerns
about a technology by bundling all use cases up with a big, scary bow.

~~~
jjulius
>I imagine you also keep an eye on the manager everywhere you dine to ensure
they aren't actively monitoring the patrons or staff?

Surely you're not suggesting that human managers and a 24/7 machine learning-
powered surveillance system are the same? We expect managers to do their
rounds through the kitchen and the dining room to check on both customers and
employees, and to speak with people directly so that they can understand the
many nuances of why things are the way they are that come with running a
restaurant. Cameras placed above diners feeding raw data to management at the
end of the day not only A.) Doesn't allow issues to be resolved as they're
happening, and B.) Does not take into account the variety of nuances that
occur in a restaurant on a nightly basis.

Managers _can_ be sent texts in real-time if, say, the number of people
waiting for a table exceeds a certain threshold, but c'mon, is it truly cost-
effective? Why implement costly machine learning software, and place the extra
stress of 24/7 job performance surveillance on your employees, for something
like this if your waitlist is managed digitally and you can easily look at the
total number of people waiting? Even if it's not managed digitally, it's easy
to look at a sheet of paper or a crowd in front of you and know that you've
got a problem.

------
watertom
Restaurants treat wait staff like straws, cheap, of no value and easily
discarded and replaced.

Using surveillance to track the efficiency of people who are poorly trained,
poorly managed, and poorly paid is the hallmark idea of a consulting company
trying to prevent a company from sliding into oblivion because their food is
just not that compelling.

------
chimi
How is this different from Jira, or remote worker software that periodically
captures your screen to be sure you're actually writing code and not grabbing
a coffee?

The amount of surveillance I've seen lately is scary. We had a new policy come
down from on-high that said we can't bring laptops to meetings anymore because
whatever the folks upstairs were using to track us said there were too many
emails being sent by people who were scheduled in outlook as being in a
meeting.

I'm required to go to these pointless meetings and also required to get all my
points done by sprint close, almost always requiring lots of overtime, that I
can't track. I have to fill out timesheets, but I can't put more than 8 hours
a day even though I work 14, but yet if I'm out of the office for half a day
for a dentist appointment, I can only report 4 hours even though I skip lunch
almost every day to rework some story the BA's got wrong because they didn't
really care what the business wanted.

And if we don't meet the sprint deadline, all hell breaks loose and the bosses
ask why the developers are losing productivity when the system is 1000x bigger
now but you require us to put the same points on stories as when there was no
code written, no other systems to integrate with, no regression tests to
execute. And don't even think about working on automated testing because
that's not a deliverable. No, you need to retest those 100 scenarios manually.
Then the business says, "Oh wait, we forgot about this scenario." Recode,
Retest, Re-architect the system to track more data, rebuild all the forms,
reports, audit logs, on and on...

But _I_ have to care and all the mistakes made up stream from me are on _my_
back to solve and I don't even get to record how long it _actually_ takes?

Frankly, if you're waiting my table and I need more water, you should bring me
more water.

If surveillance helped me meet my customer demands better, then by all means,
watch me like a hawk. If it's just there as automated paperwork for the
project manager then buzz off.

~~~
phyzome
> How is this different from Jira, or remote worker software that periodically
> captures your screen to be sure you're actually writing code and not
> grabbing a coffee?

Those are... two _extremely_ different things. Did you really intend to put a
communal chalkboard and an invasive surveillance program in the same category?

~~~
eweise
They are different but certainly Jira is tracking your individual productivity
and reporting to leadership.

~~~
pensatoio
If you’re working somewhere that treats Jira stays as a measure of your worth
as an employee, that’s a company problem, not a Jira problem. We literally
wouldn’t function as a team if we didn’t use some kind of task/epic tracking.
Remote screen capture isn’t even on the same planet as Jira.

~~~
eweise
Much of management's function is to measure and improve worker productivity.
[http://bostonreview.net/race/caitlin-c-rosenthal-how-
slavery...](http://bostonreview.net/race/caitlin-c-rosenthal-how-slavery-
inspired-modern-business-management)

------
outworlder
> At the end of a shift, managers receive an email of the compiled statistics,
> which they can then use to identify problems and infer whether servers,
> hostesses, and kitchen staff are adequately doing their jobs.

> “It’s not that different from a Fitbit or something like that,” says Suri.
> “It’s basically the same

This is completely and utterly unlike "a Fitbit". They are presenting their
metrics to the _managers_ first. Thus not allowing the employees the chance to
self-correct, and to even know what metrics are being evaluated. THAT would be
"like a Fitbit".In such a system, you don't even need to present metrics to
the management (although I reckon the chances it would be implemented like
this would be slim).

Not to mention, that's a massive disrespect to the employees.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Another thing that makes it different from "a Fitbit" is that most Fitbit
users wear the device completely voluntarily. But with this device tied to
employment these workers now would have to choose between their privacy or
their job. Very unlike a Fitbit as far as the general implications.

------
mikestew
If they're watching their employees, ya think they're not going to use those
same cameras to collect customer data at very low marginal cost? And if the
workers want to make a stink about it to the media or the like, I would
suggest that they pound that point until it reached the Earth's core.

~~~
imgabe
What customer data? That you chew with your mouth open? What are you doing in
a restaurant that is such a tremendous, valuable secret?

~~~
LinuxBender
I suppose one risk would be if you collect who is in the restaurant with whom
and then this data "leaks" out from some S3 bucket. It would be similar to the
dating/cheating sites that were breached some time ago. Do all of these
systems link up with the payment system or tie into any systems that can do
facial recognition? /shrug Maybe not yet.

------
hogFeast
The issue with all these systems is: you aren't measuring anything useful, you
are just measuring what you can measure AND the people who use these reports
are clueless.

More common sense about the real world is needed. In economics, you have
people making huge top-down decisions who, often, have spent years studying
how to become stupid. More and more of the world is going this way as the
"specialists/self-appointed experts" take over.

------
minitoar
For those that do not know, the Bloomin' Onion is an iconic appetizer
available at Outback Steakhouse. It's a battered deep fried onion that's been
sort of julienned to look like a flower.

~~~
blueberry_47
And its delicious

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
When they do it properly! I remember my first bloomin' onion as a revelation.
But the next two times I went back over the years, what I received as a soggy
mess, sometimes with undercooked batter. I have coincidentally only gone to
Outback three times, since I was so disappointed by the repeated failure on my
third attempt that I felt no need to return a fourth time. (This was back in
the '00s at multiple franchises.)

------
vector_spaces
My partner and I were recently eating at an Olive Garden. On each table at
Olive Garden there are these Ziosk tablets that you can use to call your
waiter, order drinks, or close out your bill with a card.

Our server was a bit irritable and disengaged, and food was taking a
loooooooong time to come out. We noticed that tables that were seated after us
were being served. It wasn't a big deal -- we weren't in a hurry and were
doing fine talking and sipping our drinks. I used to work in restaurants for
years so I tend to empathize a little with underpaid, overworked, and now
evidently hyper-surveilled waiters and waitresses, so her demeanor didn't
really bug me.

Anyway after close to an hour I said to my partner "yikes... Food is super
late and the service really left something to be desired huh?"

Perhaps a minute later, a non-uniformed, well-dressed managerial looking
fellow tapped my shoulder, and said "I am so, so sorry for the experience that
you had here tonight. Your food will be out in just a few minutes."

Shortly thereafter, the waitress arrived, looking flustered, and said "Your
food is on its way out guys -- is there anything else I can get for you? Your
drinks are on the house tonight".

Our food came, and the rest of the night her demeanor was entirely different:
she was hyper-attentive, warm, and apologetic.

I read later that the Ziosk tablets are equipped with microphones and cameras.
I could find one article about the tablets mentioning the microphones and
cameras [0], but it seems unclear as to whether or not restaurants use them to
surveil patrons -- both Ziosk and the restaurants themselves deny doing so.

I'm aware that our experience was probably purely a fluke and completely
explainable by my comments by chance coinciding with someone in the kitchen
finally noticing our ticket, but the whole experience really irked me
regardless.

Probably because it's technically feasible -- the tablets are literally
equipped with microphones, cameras, and possibly other sensors and are already
speaking with remote servers to handle payments and ordering -- and probably
also because this sort of thing is already happening at scale in other
physical and digital spaces we inhabit, where pointy haired types mindlessly
seek opportunities to gather data allegedly in the name of optimizing process
and driving basket sizes.

[0][https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/11/18/call-kurtis-
inves...](https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/11/18/call-kurtis-investigates-
are-restaurant-tablets-spying-on-you/)

~~~
1MoreThing
I've known more than a few restaurant managers in my day, and I have zero
confidence any of them would have been able to keep a secret if they were
actively surveilling their customers.

------
mrfusion
I think we almost have enough technology for someone to build the manna system
for a restaurant (1). What do you guys think?

Instead of monitoring what they do and punishing them why not just tell them
what to do at all times?

(1)
[https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

~~~
trevyn
Indeed; I would consider this story (by the HowStuffWorks guy) required
reading if you’re in the field.

We have a lot of important decisions to make soon regarding what kind of
society we want in the future.

------
Mindstormy
Reminds me of a good story.

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
dawg-
In college I waited tables at a Big Corporate Restaurant, the one that gives
out unlimited breadsticks.

This was like 2014-2016, and the trend we see here was already in full swing.
They came out with these little touch screens where the customers could swipe
their card to pay instead of waiting for the check(which was actually a cool
feature). But they would also be prompted to take a survey after their meal,
rating their experience. The managers would print the survey results for the
60-something servers on staff and posted them outside the office. If you were
below an 80 out of 100 for three shifts in a row you would get your hours cut.
If you couldnt get the rating up it was widely understood that you would be
essentially fired by just not getting on the schedule.

It was all incredibly stupid and clear that whoever came up with the idea had
NEVER worked in a restaurant in any capacity. Like yeah, lets give the
customers, the people with the LEAST information about whats happening in the
restaurant, the ability to be the sole evaluators of performance. Its "the
customer is always right" in its absolute worst iteration ever.

So if the star dishwasher had the bubonic plague and was out for two weeks,
and the kitchen was backed up because the line cooks had to do double duty
washing dishes, and the host team kept forgetting to give custmers silverware
because they were constantly waiting for all of it to be cleaned, then the
surveys were fucked because theres nothing you can do to make someone happy if
their food take 45 minutes to come out and they dont have silverware when they
get it. And it all went on the servers, who then lost money by losing shifts.

I could see how this Outback system may even be an improvement on certain
aspects of the data. First, you are not relying on the idiot customers of
Outback to rate your restaurant's performance - something a manager should be
trained to do anyway. Second, if the above scenario happens, the servers can
avoid culpability by showing that they are doing their job- check tables often
and refill drinks - so if customer is pissed that their food took 45 minutes
at least you can narrow it down and be able to tell whose fault it is. That
sounds like an improvement to me.

BUT, i would never trust the managers to actually be able to interpret the
data and pinpoint something like that. The average manager of TGI Chilibees,
or Outback, or Olive Garden, does not know anything about data or how to
interpret survey results. So more often than not, the numbers just become
another weapon for them to exercise their power trip with. And the more
numbers they get, the more opportunity to screw it up. Its gonna be too much
information for them to handle.

Hell, it would be too much info for a full blown data savant to handle
considering how damn busy running a restaurant is, and dealing with the human
element of employees and customers on top of the data. Even if they aced their
high school statistics class and are capable of properly interpreting the data
to make adjustments, they will NEVER have enough time to sit there and crunch
numbers enough to make proper "data driven" decisions. For that reason, this
will fail.

------
amdelamar
> Presto Vision takes advantage of preexisting surveillance cameras that many
> restaurants already have installed.

For staff, this isn't going to go over well.

For customers, this isn't _adding_ more surveillance than they already have in
their restaurants. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy when dining
out.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_You have no reasonable expectation of privacy when dining out._

You have no reasonable expectation of enough privacy for sex.

That doesn't mean it's open season and you should expect photos and audio
recordings of your conversations to be on the local front page.

Privacy exists along a continuum. It isn't an on/off switch type thing.

~~~
imgabe
There's nothing in the article that implies they're going to be making audio
recordings of customer conversations. They're using existing surveillance
cameras, so even if that were possible, it's already been the status quo.

Do you have an expectation of privacy in regard to whether your drink got
refilled when you're at a restaurant? I should hope not.

~~~
DoreenMichele
When I was child, you simply didn't have the kind of ubiquitous cheap tech you
have now. You didn't need to worry that anyone would photograph you or record
you and publish it for free via a medium -- the internet -- that could reach
millions of people.

It's a slippery slope. Arguing this small thing doesn't matter and that small
thing doesn't matter ends up having consequences down the line.

When I was a child, yes, you had a completely reasonable expectation that no
one was going to record anything you did at a restaurant. And our sense of
privacy has fundamentally changed with the rise of the ability to record and
broadcast things so readily and easily.

My comment was not about the article per se. My comment was about a sweeping
statement that I don't agree with.

~~~
imgabe
I don't know how old you are, but I was a kid in the 80s. There were
surveillance cameras then.

The society page in the newspaper is even older and that consists mainly of
taking pictures of people at restaurants and publishing them in the local
newspaper.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Society pages were considered shocking when they first came out and generally
were pictures of famous people, not random nobodies.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_reporting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_reporting)

~~~
imgabe
I'm just pointing out that it was always possible for someone to take your
picture in a restaurant. And even to publish it in the newspaper if they
wanted to. In the future, as in the past, there is no reason for anyone to do
this if you aren't a celebrity.

Lots of things were controversial when they came out. People thought cameras
would steal your soul at first. Time moves on and it becomes commonplace.

