Free Five Loaves, Two Fishes and Six Chicken Nuggets: Urinations From Inside the Fast Food Tent by Barry Gibbons Page B
Authors: Barry Gibbons
Tags: General, Business & Economics
opportunities for the low-skilled and itinerant. It provides an entry point for those who can and want to develop. It has helped millions of students make ends meet on a journey that otherwise might have been impossible. And for those (like me) who are lucky enough to progress in life, it provides a workplace experience that should make you a more empathetic and sensitive manager of those less fortunate.
Schlosser had 288 pages. I’ve got loads more ammo, but I’ll stop after a couple. Fast food ain’t the real problem. Schlosser’s the real problem – inasmuch as he exists on the planet with six billion peers. Their aspirations and needs create demand forces that are supplied by people. As such they are occasionally subject to greed and abuse, and are occasionally out of control.
If we could cure those diseases, it would be an historic first. Meanwhile, it’s a wonderful world with a lot of faults. We could and should try to do better.
I haven’t had one for a year, but I suddenly feel like a Whopper.
20. And now for something completely different
W ith a start I realise it is over a decade since I left my position as the Anna Kournikova of Big Business. From the minimal research I have done on the subject, it seems nobody missed me. Few people, apart from my bank manager, evidenced any distress at the time. Had he actually been dead, he assured me, he would have accorded me the honour of turning in his grave.
I have never missed that world for a minute. Others who have left it have felt the need to justify the move – ‘wanting to spend more time with the family’ being a favoured reason. I simply decided that after a quarter of a century of bosses, I would never work for anybody again.
I have survived, without the covering fire of a big corporation and a pay cheque, thanks to the rigid application of a three-part formula I designed at the time. The three elements are deceptively simple: 1) make a lot of lists; 2) forget one person every day; and 3) track nothing but cash flow. It was only with the wisdom afforded me by ten years of hindsight that I realised that if I had applied these rules while I was a big cheese, I would have been a far better CEO. Let me expand.
It was Tom Peters, I think, who said, ‘If you’ve got more than one priority, you got none.’ Forgetting the massacre of the English language, this always struck me as sound advice. I followed it, as I know thousands of other managers did – and still do. Today, however, I start every day with a new Post-It note, listing at least twenty tiddly things with which I must occupy my time. Some days I have two lists. Some days I have lists of lists. I suddenly realised this is actually a magnificent way to run a business – because having the Single Great Big Priority From Hell is now far too inflexible for modern needs.
Business is so multidimensional and fast-changing, my new way is the only way to map your journey. Besides, if you have no real idea about your priorities, your competitors won’t have a clue . This is now the only way to stay ahead of the market. Also, if you can change priorities on a dime, and actually forget or lose some, you can avoid the SMEF (spontaneous massive existence failure) that is so popular among many of today’s global giants.
The next element is a lot more subtle – forget one person every day. I invented this because of worries about my memory. I have an outstanding ability to remember the names of all the Kinks, but an outstanding inability to remember somebody I met yesterday. Clearly, I am heading for short-term memory troubles in my later years, so this tactic was devised to get there first. In this way, I will be in control. So I work hard and deliberately sit down and forget somebody every day.
Eureka! I found I had stumbled on another winning management strategy. We all know far too many people and constantly try to remember more. We (particularly males) need to stop trying to impress. We need to
Schlosser had 288 pages. I’ve got loads more ammo, but I’ll stop after a couple. Fast food ain’t the real problem. Schlosser’s the real problem – inasmuch as he exists on the planet with six billion peers. Their aspirations and needs create demand forces that are supplied by people. As such they are occasionally subject to greed and abuse, and are occasionally out of control.
If we could cure those diseases, it would be an historic first. Meanwhile, it’s a wonderful world with a lot of faults. We could and should try to do better.
I haven’t had one for a year, but I suddenly feel like a Whopper.
20. And now for something completely different
W ith a start I realise it is over a decade since I left my position as the Anna Kournikova of Big Business. From the minimal research I have done on the subject, it seems nobody missed me. Few people, apart from my bank manager, evidenced any distress at the time. Had he actually been dead, he assured me, he would have accorded me the honour of turning in his grave.
I have never missed that world for a minute. Others who have left it have felt the need to justify the move – ‘wanting to spend more time with the family’ being a favoured reason. I simply decided that after a quarter of a century of bosses, I would never work for anybody again.
I have survived, without the covering fire of a big corporation and a pay cheque, thanks to the rigid application of a three-part formula I designed at the time. The three elements are deceptively simple: 1) make a lot of lists; 2) forget one person every day; and 3) track nothing but cash flow. It was only with the wisdom afforded me by ten years of hindsight that I realised that if I had applied these rules while I was a big cheese, I would have been a far better CEO. Let me expand.
It was Tom Peters, I think, who said, ‘If you’ve got more than one priority, you got none.’ Forgetting the massacre of the English language, this always struck me as sound advice. I followed it, as I know thousands of other managers did – and still do. Today, however, I start every day with a new Post-It note, listing at least twenty tiddly things with which I must occupy my time. Some days I have two lists. Some days I have lists of lists. I suddenly realised this is actually a magnificent way to run a business – because having the Single Great Big Priority From Hell is now far too inflexible for modern needs.
Business is so multidimensional and fast-changing, my new way is the only way to map your journey. Besides, if you have no real idea about your priorities, your competitors won’t have a clue . This is now the only way to stay ahead of the market. Also, if you can change priorities on a dime, and actually forget or lose some, you can avoid the SMEF (spontaneous massive existence failure) that is so popular among many of today’s global giants.
The next element is a lot more subtle – forget one person every day. I invented this because of worries about my memory. I have an outstanding ability to remember the names of all the Kinks, but an outstanding inability to remember somebody I met yesterday. Clearly, I am heading for short-term memory troubles in my later years, so this tactic was devised to get there first. In this way, I will be in control. So I work hard and deliberately sit down and forget somebody every day.
Eureka! I found I had stumbled on another winning management strategy. We all know far too many people and constantly try to remember more. We (particularly males) need to stop trying to impress. We need to
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