Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

McBurned Off: The real story of how McDonald's lost

Page 2 of 2 [ 29 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Previous topic | Next topic

Oodain
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,

30 Jul 2011, 12:37 am

as far as i know they actually lowered the temperature


_________________
//through chaos comes complexity//

the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.


iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

30 Jul 2011, 12:46 am

Oodain wrote:
as far as i know they actually lowered the temperature


Didn't seem like it when I worked there in 2007, but then again so few people ordered coffee at my location that it had time to sit after it was brewed. Try drinking it freshly brewed though and it will scald your mouth. The water that goes through the coffee grounds is 212°F, boiling, and it remains fairly hot for a while while it sits on the heating pad.



number5
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Jun 2009
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,691
Location: sunny philadelphia

30 Jul 2011, 9:26 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
number5 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
They did set it to a temperature that quickly causes third degree burns and that was decided at the top. Such was established during the course of court proceedings. They decided that if some people ended up with third degree burns, well, that's that.


Really, that's an interesting assertion. Proof please.


From: http://www.social.mtu.edu/faculty/spete ... sfacts.htm

"Stella had never initiated a lawsuit and was not looking to initiate one now. However, she and her family thought McDonald's should pay $15,000 to $20,000 to cover her daughter's out-of-pocket expenses (which were about $2000) and wages lost while staying home to take care of her and to reimburse Medicare for over $10,000 of medical expenses. About six months after the accident, Stella's daughter wrote to McDonald's to request reimbursement for these items and to ask that McDonald's lower the temperature of its coffee. Although McDonald's had previously settled many claims by other coffee burn victims for amounts up to and exceeding $500,000, it offered Stella and her family only $800."

They had full knowledge of the injuries they were causing and had even paid out for them already. They had indeed simply accepted the fact that their product was causing injuries because no action was taken to prevent further injuries.


Quite interesting, and that does seem to be executives at work though. How much have the numbers changed now that a warning label is printing on the cups and lids?


I doubt the warning labels had any impact. They did lower their serving temp policies as mentioned above, but I have no idea enforced these policies are (they're probably not).

I've worked at a couple of coffee shops back in the day and we were required to test the temps semi-regularly before serving, but this was a company policy, not a government standard. There is a government standard with steamed milk products due to bacterial growth, but that's a bit different.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

30 Jul 2011, 10:36 am

Back in the Old Days the courts recognized the doctrine of contributory negligence. The way that goes is as follows:; If a person in any wise contributes by his negligence or stupidity to any damages that happen to him he does not collect a cent.

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end....

ruveyn



leejosepho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,011
Location: 200 miles south of Little Rock

31 Jul 2011, 1:29 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Back in the Old Days the courts recognized the doctrine of contributory negligence. The way that goes is as follows:; If a person in any wise contributes by his negligence or stupidity to any damages that happen to him he does not collect a cent.

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end....

ruveyn

I tend to agree there, but there can still be a fine line between "negligence or stupidity" and simple ignorance and how accountable a manufacturer or retailer should be when all possible scenarios cannot possibly be anticipated. No matter how careful I try to be, and even with many years of overall mechanical experience, I still cannot use a hacksaw without getting injured (or without injuring myself, if you wish) almost every time!


_________________
I began looking for someone like me when I was five ...
My search ended at 59 ... right here on WrongPlanet.
==================================


number5
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Jun 2009
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,691
Location: sunny philadelphia

31 Jul 2011, 1:51 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Back in the Old Days the courts recognized the doctrine of contributory negligence. The way that goes is as follows:; If a person in any wise contributes by his negligence or stupidity to any damages that happen to him he does not collect a cent.

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end....

ruveyn


But we are long time past those days and business is much different. In the old days, businesses were run by people, often by the owners themselves. Word of mouth was an important factor in building a reputation. If a burger joint had a habit of scolding its customers, especially to the degree seen here, the town would talk and they'd fix up their act quick. There was direct motivation to make your customers happy. If you didn't, you'd probably have to close up your shop.

Now we've got these ginormous corporations with thousands of heads under the CEO. They have amazing marketing and PR teams whose sole job is to sell the awesomeness of their company to the public. They employ lawyers who can negotiate non-disclosure policies with just about any plaintiff making it so that the public never learns of any wrongdoing. Even if those injury pics got out in a timely fashion, it would have barely made a dent in McD's sales.

We're dealing with well-oiled machines here. The consumer used to be able to make an impact with their dollars. That power has shifted dramatically. Corporations now make the rules and tell us how to play. Consumer protection is more important today than ever before, yet our protections are being slowly dismantled.



marshall
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Apr 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,752
Location: Turkey

31 Jul 2011, 3:46 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Oodain wrote:
as far as i know they actually lowered the temperature


Didn't seem like it when I worked there in 2007, but then again so few people ordered coffee at my location that it had time to sit after it was brewed. Try drinking it freshly brewed though and it will scald your mouth. The water that goes through the coffee grounds is 212°F, boiling, and it remains fairly hot for a while while it sits on the heating pad.

The problem is coffee immediately poured from boiling into a styrofoam cup will stay at near 200 F for several minutes while pouring into a normal cup or mug the temperature cools almost immediately. I've also expereinced the styrofoam becoming flimsy at such a high temperature. In fact the melting point of styrofoam is only 250 degrees F. The solution is not to serve coffee in a damn styrofoam cup. If I want my coffee to stay hot I transfer it into a sealed thermus. There's no need serve coffee that hot in a styrofoam cup that doesn't allow it to cool at all.



xenon13
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Dec 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,638

31 Jul 2011, 8:31 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Oodain wrote:
as far as i know they actually lowered the temperature


Didn't seem like it when I worked there in 2007, but then again so few people ordered coffee at my location that it had time to sit after it was brewed. Try drinking it freshly brewed though and it will scald your mouth. The water that goes through the coffee grounds is 212°F, boiling, and it remains fairly hot for a while while it sits on the heating pad.


They have checked McDonald's coffee and found that they were raising the temperatures again.



iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

31 Jul 2011, 11:07 pm

xenon13 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Oodain wrote:
as far as i know they actually lowered the temperature


Didn't seem like it when I worked there in 2007, but then again so few people ordered coffee at my location that it had time to sit after it was brewed. Try drinking it freshly brewed though and it will scald your mouth. The water that goes through the coffee grounds is 212°F, boiling, and it remains fairly hot for a while while it sits on the heating pad.


They have checked McDonald's coffee and found that they were raising the temperatures again.


Who are they? Let me know if McDonald's ever manages to raise the temperature of liquid water above boiling point.



iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

01 Aug 2011, 10:38 am

Image



marshall
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Apr 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,752
Location: Turkey

01 Aug 2011, 2:39 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Image

Durrrrr... More proof that conservatives are blunt simplistic thinkers uncomfortable with details and nuances. Just like I pointed out in another thread.



iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

01 Aug 2011, 2:44 pm

marshall wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Image

Durrrrr... More proof that conservatives are blunt simplistic thinkers uncomfortable with details and nuances. Just like I pointed out in another thread.


Liberals are selective in their usage of details and nuances, ignoring everything that goes against their heartfelt ideology and emphasizing only what fits their paradigm.



marshall
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Apr 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,752
Location: Turkey

01 Aug 2011, 8:02 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
marshall wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Image

Durrrrr... More proof that conservatives are blunt simplistic thinkers uncomfortable with details and nuances. Just like I pointed out in another thread.


Liberals are selective in their usage of details and nuances, ignoring everything that goes against their heartfelt ideology and emphasizing only what fits their paradigm.

At least liberals try to address the points of conservatives instead of just posting trite slogans.