mini-linkspam

[firecat]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_20/b4228064581642.htm
Excerpt:

Go into the kitchen of a Taco Bell today, and you'll find a strong counterargument to any notion that the U.S. has lost its manufacturing edge. Every Taco Bell, McDonald's (MCD), Wendy's (WEN), and Burger King is a little factory, with a manager who oversees three dozen workers, devises schedules and shifts, keeps track of inventory and the supply chain, supervises an assembly line churning out a quality-controlled, high-volume product, and takes in revenue of $1 million to $3 million a year, all with customers who show up at the front end of the factory at all hours of the day to buy the product."

What's interesting about this story is the way it spins fast food work as something that takes skill. That's not how it's usually spun, but it makes sense to me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/jul/01/harrods-dress-code-sales-assistant?cat=law&type=article
Sales associate quits Harrods over makeup requirement in dress code.

Have you ever quit a job or chosen not to pursue a job because of the required dress code? Or am I the only one?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/01/change-your-life-tempo-in-relationships
Differences in "personal tempos" as an explanation for relationship difficulties (via wordweaverlynn)

Comments

[laughingrat]

*nods* Cooking and cleaning do take a lot of skill. I tried to work at Panera once. A vindictive (against whom, I wasn't sure--I'd been there all of two hours :)) co-worker threw me on sandwich assembly and refused to tell me what sandwiches were what and what went on them, and you better believe shit fell apart fast. There's a lot to know and a lot to do (and quickly) in food service, but it's knowledge and skills that are at the bottom of the value heap. Hmm.

[flarenut]

Yep. It's skills that can be taught relatively quickly to some largish subset of people, but skills nonetheless. (And of course Ford's great innovation was dividing things up into skills that could be taught relatively quickly to some largish subset of people too.)

There's also a big difference between being able to do it and being able to do it really quickly and well, which is why different franchises of the same manufacturing operation get different reputations.