What Were They Thinking?

New at McDonalds... You can now get a McDonalds coffee in the morning and NOT have to put your own sugar and creamer in it! While I cannot find a citation for where this news has been posted, some billboards around town are advertising such lavish appointment.

Now, I must state, that I am here to not "bash, trash or badmouth" McDonalds, but I wonder how many of their marketing people have dined at McDonalds?

First making food, now they want to put things in my food? No thanks, I'll gladly pass on that!

I have no problem with their workers cooking my food, because the main effect of cooked food is that it sterilizes the food, whereas putting something in my drink does not mean what is put in there is sterile.

I would rather enjoy causing my own illness, than to have someone else "spike" my drink with their own source of microbes. In addition, McDonald's is taking a massive risk having their workers put in the sweeteners. All it will take for a massive law suit is for a worker to not pay attention and grab Sugar, or too many packets and give this product to a diabetic person.

Seeing as such, I would like to invite people who feel the same to me to post a comment on here and chime in!

I have no problem with McDonalds, but when it comes to them or me putting things in my coffee, I'd rather be responsible for doing so.

The force of Wal-Mart

It appears that every month or so, Wal-Mart is in the news for doing something "wrong."

In local news this month citizens on the south side of town are outraged at the news that their new Wal-Mart store will not offer lay-away, self checkouts, or be open 24 hours.

Wal-Mart cited reasons such as a lack of response and inadequate benefits from using these programs at this store. While it may make sense from their perspective, I believe it would make sense for them to possibly attempt a pilot program using these in addition to using a control study not using these programs. Comparing these results will provide a semi-scientific evaluation of the data.

Also, it must be kept in mind that if enough people become dissatisfied with the lack of these programs, they could even turn to Wal-Mart's competitors.

When Management Goes Wrong

In light of recent business scandals, there are many management professionals who should really re-evaluate where their priorities lie. It seems that many professionals are fundamentally worried about their market value. While being important, strictly looking at the market value is the most backwards way to "improve" their standing.

Instead, I charge CEO's to instead try and increase their asset efficiency, debt ratios, and other ratings, and the market value will follow. If the company is WORTH something, instead of APPEARING to be worth something through inflated earnings, and creative accounting; the market will increase its valuation of the company.

Management appears to have forgotten that profit is a side-effect of running a business, not a direct effect of conducting business. Profit comes from providing a service/product.


Next is business communication.

Drawing from my personal experiences at various employers, I venture to say that ineffective communication in an organization is one of my PET-PEEVES.

It is important in an organization, before there is a change in shift, or of people, to verify that the new shift/people know all of the pertinent information for the day. I have encountered times, when things were not mentioned to me, or I wasn't trained to handle, and I was disciplined for these actions. The entire practice at this particular organization was completely backwards. There was no flow of information between pool, instead information was stagnant and separated by the walls of the cubicle.

While sounding completely like a horrid work environment, ALL of this could have been avoided, had the management been more aware of the total lack of communication, and acted to have "communication seminars."