this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I'm not that often in Maccies but I've never heard of the flurry machine being broken, I've read it's a US thing due to the maintenance contracts

That said the meme still works in Europe because I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to call that hydrogenated vegetable oil-filled shite "ice cream" here πŸ˜‚

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Hydrogenated vegetable oil? The stuff that is used for soft-serv in the US is ultra-thick sweetened, vanilla flavored, milk. You could put it on cereal, if you really want diabetes.

Ingredients: Milk, Sugar, Cream, Corn Syrup, Natural Flavor, Mono And Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Vitamin A Palmitate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Idk... Here in Spain it is called Ice Cream and based on what I read it uses cream.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Funny thing is that over here in Europe the ice cream machines seem to work almost all the time. I understand that it’s because they use a different brand of machines, but I’m not sure about the details.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

There they had to change the machines to the other brand because the ones they use here (us) was found to literally be designed to require a ton of maintinence so they could make money charging for repairs.

TLDR machine designed to break breaks a lot, not allowed in Europe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Thanks! That was remarkably well done.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Canada here, never encountered a broken machine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They are down for maintenance frequently, but nowhere near as frequently as the American locations that have the fucked up contracts with the machine manufacturer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Seems like something that is location dependent. I go to McDonald’s far more than I’d like to admit and like I said, I’ve never seen them down.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

I feel for Americans and their broken McDonald’s ice cream machines… McFlurrys are bomb af

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The interwebs seem very, very concerned over Mac and Don's supperclub's ability to provide an awful excuse for "ice cream" in the world's worst cone. Stop the madness. Touch grass and eat real food, nerds.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Look, I'm addicted to sugar fat and salt okay.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Don't feel bad. Biology programmed you to prioritize it because it's calorically dense and rare in nature, therefore important to survival and the propagation of your genes. The fact that it's become widely available and cheap is not a matter of failure in individuals, but rather an example of the success of our species and civilizations.

Or something. Idk. Junk food is yummy. The key is moderation.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Am I weird for thinking McDonald's soft serve is decent? I see a lot of people joking it's not ice cream.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I love burger kings soft serve, I haven't had it in a while but McDonald's Sundays were always a hit for me

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

It's almost never broken. I have only been turned away for a broken machine one time ever, and McFlurries are more or less a monthly treat.

Sorry to break the internet meme, but I'm pretty sure this isn't all that common.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Fortunately there is objective data: https://mcbroken.com/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's probably locational and possibly the time of day. Since I understand cleaning them are a pain, certain locations may not prioritize it properly, or the downtime is always when you would go. The one by me for example has been down all of the 10+ times I've asked for something, but I know family members have gotten some ice cream there, so it's not like permanently busted or anything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The documentary on it explained that the cycles are timed to ensure proper cooling, and not warming too much for too long for sanitary reasons, so if an employee over filled the milk by a small amount the machine would sense the extra process time and default to needing a dump and clean. There was that raspberry pi device that would bypass that but for obvious reasons mcdonalds repair company lobbied against it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They can't legally call it ice cream. It ain't ice cream.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

The McDonald's menu is seemingly missing the exact phrase "ice cream" in lieu of "vanilla cone".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Even when it works, it's still not ice cream.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

So this "joke" is still funny in 2024 huh?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I had one yesterday after 3 years. Is good

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

By broken, they mean we were too lazy to clean it today.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It is less about being "lazy" than it is about being understaffed and the ice cream machine having a very labor and time intensive cleaning process.

I know this is The Internet, but could we maybe not shit on overworked and underpaid labor? Since, that is the whole point. Corporate McDonald's and the companies with contracts to maintenance those machines actively want all of your ire to go to the 19 year old night shift manager rather than actually question the fundamental problems with this setup. And a lot of the issues plaguing this are the same that plague you in your comfortable home.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/80215/whats-inside-that-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machine-broken-copyright-law is a good article on these issues and why it is, like most things, a problem of lobbyists and corporate interests. That you chose to blame on the workers.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

It only gets more frustrating when you learn how franchising works too. The pseudo "owner" of a location doesn't have much say in anything in particular and doesn't have much of a budget to do the right things with because they spend everything to have the names, logos, ingredients, recipes, and specific equipment, and there are very tight specs to fall within that can get inspected at any time. So it's clear that the "owner" should hire enough staff and pay them enough to attract good workers who will make it possible for you to buy a mcflurry, but that "owner" probably pulls 60-90 hour weeks for only about double the rate of what their lowest paid employee makes. They tend to get suckered in because it looks so good on paper but it's so much worse than it seems. They thought they were signing up to be capitalists and instead they just become a slightly different tier of exploited laborer with much higher stress because of personal investment in the failure or success of the location. They're effectively indentured servants. The standard workers at least have the freedom to say fuck you and go get a different job without actually losing anything.

If a franchise unionizes, I think that it should be collective for all of the laborers to have security against the corporations ratfucking interests. Corporations want us to demonize their proxy lightning rod location "owners" but we should see through that bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I only regret, that I have but one upvote to give this post.