It's all about the McMoney.
March 3rd 2007 20:38
I decided to "smarten" myself up and read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I've only gotten through I think a third of the book, not from lack of interest (I was up until two thirty reading it) but from lack of time.
If you haven't read it, I reccomend it, if only to arm yourself with the knowledge. Sure, every story has two sides, but I think the side Mr. Schlosser gives is the side we as the people haven't gotten, and need to know. Again, I haven't read the whole book, but it starts off gently handing you information from the get go. It tells us how our Fast Food Nation was started, and how it's able to thrive. It doesn't cram it down your throat either. It actually offers up a pretty sympathetic and all american story of Carl Karcher, the person who started franchising McDonalds for the McDonald brothers.
The McDonald brothers, out of frustration (and from what it would seem laziness) they decided to change the way they ran their resteraunt. They hired teenaged boys, and fired their car hops (they got sick of teen aged boys coming to see the girls) they replaced all their glassware and untensils with disposable (got tired of above teen aged boys stealing and/or breaking everything) Also, they were the first to assign each person with a specific task, one for the fries, another to grill, another to add condiments, another to wrap etc, thus giving birth to the assembly line fast food resteraunts we've grown accustomed to today. By doing this, they were able to fire their costly, and well trained short order cooks, (an near art form in it's heydey) and were able to attract more families by getting rid of the girls with short skirts and flirty smiles and chatter (car hops were paid by tips only, so they did their best to insure they got paid) Carl Karcher saw this, and knew this would be a gold mine. Boy, was he right.
If I've learned anything so far from the book is that EVERYTHING these corporations do has been carefully plotted out to do one thing... maximize revenue. Things that you take for granted and give no second though to, people have spent months and millions of dollars to make it that way. It's mind boggling.
Anyway, I am loving the book because I have a bit of conspiracy theorists spirit in me and this book just feeds into that.
If you haven't read it, I reccomend it, if only to arm yourself with the knowledge. Sure, every story has two sides, but I think the side Mr. Schlosser gives is the side we as the people haven't gotten, and need to know. Again, I haven't read the whole book, but it starts off gently handing you information from the get go. It tells us how our Fast Food Nation was started, and how it's able to thrive. It doesn't cram it down your throat either. It actually offers up a pretty sympathetic and all american story of Carl Karcher, the person who started franchising McDonalds for the McDonald brothers.
The McDonald brothers, out of frustration (and from what it would seem laziness) they decided to change the way they ran their resteraunt. They hired teenaged boys, and fired their car hops (they got sick of teen aged boys coming to see the girls) they replaced all their glassware and untensils with disposable (got tired of above teen aged boys stealing and/or breaking everything) Also, they were the first to assign each person with a specific task, one for the fries, another to grill, another to add condiments, another to wrap etc, thus giving birth to the assembly line fast food resteraunts we've grown accustomed to today. By doing this, they were able to fire their costly, and well trained short order cooks, (an near art form in it's heydey) and were able to attract more families by getting rid of the girls with short skirts and flirty smiles and chatter (car hops were paid by tips only, so they did their best to insure they got paid) Carl Karcher saw this, and knew this would be a gold mine. Boy, was he right.
If I've learned anything so far from the book is that EVERYTHING these corporations do has been carefully plotted out to do one thing... maximize revenue. Things that you take for granted and give no second though to, people have spent months and millions of dollars to make it that way. It's mind boggling.
Anyway, I am loving the book because I have a bit of conspiracy theorists spirit in me and this book just feeds into that.
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Summer Banks
Romance Writers
