Having worked at a McDonalds around the time this report was written, I know exactly what she's talking about. EVERYTHING had its proper way of being done, and doing it differently, say, putting on the ketchup before the mustard, or failing to smile while taking an order, would be cause for reprimand. But usually all that happened was the manager would say "Follow the SOC!" or "remember to smile!" I don't remember anybody actually getting fired for an occasional slip.
The thing was, what was asked of us was reasonable, and there was no reason to do it another way, so we rarely did. When we did deviate, it was normally to make an irate customer happy.
Some time after working there I also worked at a Subway Sandwiches. Once again, everything had a routine. This time the routine was definitely to our advantage. We would ask the customers what condiments they wanted as we moved down the line to those condiments ("Do you want cheese? Mustard? Mayonnaise?") Always a yes/no. Make them be specific. If we didn't ask while standing in front of it there would be a good chance of doing it wrong, which could mean making the sandwich over again. Needless to say, the routine rarely varied.

All this routine does make for a boring job. When everything is so pre-determined at every level it makes the worker feel that there's nowhere to go but somewhere else. There's no opportunity for personal growth, or income growth for that matter, and this leads to turnover. I no longer work in fast food.