The humilation of ordering from the Panda Express robot lady in the drive-thru

At first, I thought it was a recording to get the order going. At McDonald's, a recording is played right when you pull-up in the drive-thru: "Are you using the app today?" If you wait a beat then a real human speaks and you can order.

But the display showed an animated visualization of sound waves with the ominous text, I'm listening. So then I realized I must keep speaking. I thought, maybe, this means I should proceed with my order and a real human would record and chime in.

So I spoke. "Two entree plate with Kung Pao and Orange Chicken." The machine recorded my order. To my horror, the robot lady spoke again, "Which side would you like with that?" That's when I knew I was actually trapped. I said "rice." That word is not enough to narrow it down for a computer. A human would assume fried rice, as it's the most popular side at Panda. They don't even present other types of rice when you order inside, they want you to take fried rice or chow mein. So the robot lady paused and waited for me to specify "fried rice" instead of "white rice". I said it, and my expectations of how much this sucks became a proven reality. Now the next thing that happened was truly dystopian. After my entree order was complete, the robot lady played a recording of fake typing sounds. What? Are you trying to trick me that someone is actually typing up my order? No one types shit anymore. What the fuck is that? Who needs that? Who wants to be fooled like that? Absolutely insane thing for that to get all the way through the software development cycle.

Next she asked me for a drink. I said "Medium Coke." They robot lady told me they were out of that and provided a reason. The agony of listening to a fake voice telling me a fake reason the store was out of coke. I don't care. But then, she proceeded to list off every drink the store had. This made the whole interaction agonizingly long. I tried to interrupt, "Sprite. Sprite. Sprite." No go. She would not accept my update until she finished listing all the variants of Fanta and vitamin water.

When I finally got to the window, a human was there and ready with my order immediately. Efficiency? No, it was because I was the only person in line.