Fast Food Social Engineering

Some tales of social engineering games at fast food places. (pictures)

While visiting Wendy’s, my friend and I noticed that there was a small line going from the cashier to the door.

It was evident what had happened. The cashiers were slow, and being pre-lunch time, the first few people in line simply stood around the little sheep herding devices.

Social Engineering At Fast Food Places

The line gets longer Most likely, this was caused by a welcome sign slightly blocking the entrance to the guides.

As we stood in line waiting, it got closer to lunch time, and a long line of people started to arrive, extending out the door.

It was at that point I turned to my friend and said, “watch this.”

As we approached the herding device, I deliberately took the long way around.


Long way around

Now the interesting point about this was that I ended up exactly in the same spot that I would have been standing if I had just taken one step forward.

However, the guy behind me, and everyone else, blindly followed my path like ants on a sugar trail.

The line rerouted itself into the marked area, clearing the log jam of people.

But, I couldn’t leave well enough alone…


During the course of our lunch, I figured I’d take things one step further. “Watch this,” I said as I left the table and approached the counter. I had noticed the line had disappeared from a lull in traffic.

So, I went to the wrong side of the crowd herding devices and waited.

When the next two people walked in together, the moment they saw me, I made sure they saw me nod to the cashier, and I stepped up pretending that I was ordering, by pointing at the menu, but in the end getting a refill. They, in turn, took the position “in line” that I had just vacated.

Messing with foot traffic

Oddly enough, I got people to do this.And, because I’m evil, I held up the line enough for a few more people to arrive, thus establishing a line that ended up looking like this…

And, that’s how we left Wendy’s. A long line of people trailing out the other door, and people arriving getting into the queue backwards.

Meanwhile, over at Chic-Fil-A…

Chic-Fil-A has a bunch of stand alone tables in groups of two.

When I last went there with a party of six, rather than trying to squeezing into a booth, I decided to conduct an experiment and alter the environment.

I simply rearranged the tables at our end into an elongated configuration that suited our party. And, rather than putting them back the way they were done, neatly pushed in the chairs so that they could accommodate another party of that size.

The obvious advantages were two fold. One, there was a larger aisle allowing for more room, better passage, and improved safety. Two, by sliding the tables up and down the line, any size party from 2 to 18 could conceivably be constructed.

And that’s how I left things.

Upon returning about two months later, I found something interesting had happened. The tables had all been rearranged in the configuration I placed them.

An alternate table arrangement

And, to the best of my knowledge, this is the only Chic-Fil-A in the area that has them setup this way. It’s also the most comfortable to eat at.

What Is the VDOT Thinking?!?

Sometimes you just have to wonder what VDOT is thinking when they build an intersection. (photo)

October 31st, 2007 – the intersection of Ashburn Village Blvd. and Shell Horn Road. My buddy Chris and I are driving, and a van races up next to us in the left turn lane.

I start laughing out loud so hard I almost wet myself while reaching for the camera.

I don’t know what was funnier, the fact that she was totally oblivious to her surroundings until the very last minute and we had to kindly let her over the solid white line into our lane or the idiots in VDOT who put a stop sign in the middle of a left-hand turn lane.

I swear, this picture is not doctored!

Stop Sign in Intersection

Abnormal Urinal Heights

Who on Earth would need a urinal this high? You’d have to pee out of your chin.

So I’m at O’Faolain’s Irish Pub in Sterling, VA and have to hit the little boys room.

The urinals had to been designed by the Thornton Burgess Toiletry Company.

The Baby Bear urinal was at my ankles. The Moma Bear urinal was where you’d expect it. And the Papa Bear urinal was at my chest. Seriously.

Take a look at where would “it” would have to be and use the standard height of a stall’s handle as a reference point.

I guess Andre the Giant was Irish.

Urinal at Chest Height

Appetizer – 300 Pieces?

So I opened the menu, and the appetizer offered 300 buffalo wings. Three Hundred.

Went to lunch at the new Wings’N’Things off Rt. 606. Guess what they had on the menu?

A Platter of 300 Buffalo Wings. And they were serious.

I can only eat six before I’m full. Oh, and the catch, they all have to be the same sauce.

300 Pieces

That’s a lot of appetizers.

Free Air: 75 cents

Shell offers free air, and it only costs 75 cents per 3 minutes.

Marcus and I are driving on Waxpool Rd. in Ashburn, VA and he notices his car indicates he’s got low tire pressure. We look up and see signs all from the main road that the Shell station has Free Air, so we pull in.

However, turns out the “free air” costs 75 cents every three minutes.

Free Air

Only after you read the super fine print, do you discover that the air is free with a fill up. So we did that. And, $48 later, we got our free air.

Come on Shell, that’s a little deceptive.

Review: Picasa Web Albums

If you’re a digital photographer, then you know the hardest part of the workflow is getting your images to a webpage because of all the work that has to go on dealing with adjusting, labeling, resizing, and moving the images. Google’s Picasa Web Albums comes to the rescue, and it can handle a lot of photos well.

Take a quick gander at my web gallery. To be honest, I don’t know what you’ll find up there at any given moment. The reason? I’m having too much fun playing with it!

The album is hosted by Picasa Web Albums, and I already know what you’re thinking: you use Flicker or PhotoBucket. Well this is different.

Much different.

Goggle’s free Picasa, software will scan your system for photos. You can browse them super fast, present slide shows, crop, strighten, fix red eye, correct color, correct contrast, correct brightness, and apply a ton of effects. You can email, print, order prints, make collages, export, and blog. But you can now automatically upload as a Picasa Web Album. And it’s fast.


    Hint: make sure you go to Tools / Options.., select File Types, and turn on all the file types, like GIF and PNG, in order to get everything on your system.

OS X users aren’t left out at all, given that Apple’s iPhoto, does the above as well, Google gives you a plug-in that makes iPhoto export to a web album. They also give you an uploader, in the event you just have a folder with pictures.

The web album does all the rest, however — thumbnail browsing, photo selections, order organizing, downloading, publishing, printing, and notifications. Yes, you even get RSS feeds, so people subscribing to your photo album will know when you’ve updated without you having to send an email.

It’s interactive. It’s awesome.

This is a great tool for any digital photographer who wants to go from camera shoot to web pages in a very short period of time.

Walt gives Google Picasa Web Albums a thumbs up!