Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

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She didn't ask for coffee that would stay hot after a twenty minute commute. She asked for coffee.

She was served coffee hotter than other places served coffee. Other places had listened to and responded to the CDC's warning about beverage serving temperatures and had reduced the temperature of the drinks that they served while still allowing people to order extra hot drinks.

Yes, when a kettle boils the water is at 100 Celsius. But you pour that into a cup and add milk. Try it at home if you have a thermometer. Try taking the temperature of coffee that you find acceptable to drink with the temperature that McDonalds was serving their coffee at.

Do you realise that the McDonalds coffee case was used as propaganda by insurance companies? They misreported the case (they said she was driving; that the vehicle was moving; that she sued for and got millions;) they also said "of course coffee is hot"'and did not mention that McD's was serving coffee hotter than other places and had ignored many previous injuries and the CDC warning on temperature.

And as she didn't specifically ask for coffee served at a specific temperature, McDonald's had no way of knowing what temperature she preferred.

What McDonald's did have, however, was a way to estimate what temperature it's customers in general prefer their coffee served at. Roadside Coffee is, after all, a pretty competitive market. If you're too far off temperature wise, people go elsewhere.

Hence, by the standards of "the community", or whatever you wish to call them, McDonald's served coffee at the right temperature. Or at least close enough not to offend enough of them to lose measurable business.

Out of curiosity, did McDonald's manage to poor milk into the cup, and still have it end up that hot? Maybe I have weird ideas about coffee, but for someone all too used to lukewarm coffee once milk is added, that actually sounds quite impressive for such a decidedly low rent establishment.

> What McDonald's did have, however, was a way to estimate what temperature it's customers in general prefer their coffee served at. Roadside Coffee is, after all, a pretty competitive market. If you're too far off temperature wise, people go elsewhere.

Yes. They had 700 previous burns cases that they settled out of court (including some very serious full thickness burns). They were serving coffee that they admitted was not fit for consumption (because they knew it would burn the mouth at the temperature it was served at). They knew they were serving coffee at higher temperatures than other places selling coffee. They knew they were serving coffee at a higher temperature than people have it at home.

And they did all this despite their paying customers not wanting their coffee that way? Simply because they wanted to, above else, be as nasty as they could to people, never mind lost sales, complaints, court fees and what have you?

In other words, the corporate culture of their coffee operation is not greedy, as often assumed, but specifically sadistic. Happy to suffer lost sales and revenue, higher legal fees, and a shattered reputation, just for the pleasure of burning people?

It would be interesting to see the kind of interview processes that managed to maintain that kind of a corporate culture despite all the churn inherent in minimum wage job environments.

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