I actually interpreted the comment a bit differently. I read it that the employee who used to have some autonomy on when to make adjustments is now doing it because the computer, which they (perhaps) have no control or insight into, is telling them to. I'm sure there's more nuance and people who would view that instruction differently. But to the comments direction, I'd assumed it was alluding to a dystopia of sorts where we do more and more things "because Computer™ said so".

Yes, that’s exactly it.

In hindsight, “sod” wasn’t the right term to use (that’s what you get for posting at midnight) but the point I wanted to make was the removal of meaning, autonomy and human interaction when not only are you doing a repetitive job, but how you’re doing it is dictated by a machine. The movie Brazil came to mind, although I’m sure there are better parallels to make.

You'd be amazed how much satisfaction you can get out of learning to keep a steady stream of perfectly-crispy fries going. It's quite fun on a busy day - hectic, but strategic, and rewarding when you can stay on top of things _and_ produce minimal waste in the process.

In some sense, the automation of demand prediction takes some of the fun out of gaining that intuition yourself. On the other hand, it is nice not to be the queue blocker with orders piling up behind you because you weren't prepared for a sudden burst of traffic...

Okay, looking at it as the computer helping you stay in the flow is certainly a different perspective.

It might be looking back on my time in fast food with a slightly more romanticized lens than most would probably give it. :)

There’s a short-order chef game my kids play on the iPad, you can practically see the endorphins pumping when they manage to serve all the customers in time.

The human brain is definitely wired for this sort of thing.

Me too probably. I loved my fast food job in high school. That said, I'm glad I'm not still doing it.