Schlosser titles chapter 4 “Success”. This is an ironic title considering Dave Feamster had most of the hard work already completed for him. When Dave bought into the Little Caesars franchise, the popular name and business plan had already been established. He already had the supplier’s, equipment, and expertise needed to run a successful business; the only thing Feamster had to bring to the table was work and money. Dave didn’t have to struggle with introducing a brand new idea to the fast food nation unlike other entrepreneurs. Schlosser includes this contrast because it shows how much easier it is to buy into a franchise of a pre-existing business rather than opening a brand new one. With it being so much easier to buy into a franchise, more people are apt to doing that instead of starting their own business for fear of failure.
In chapter 2, “Your Trusted Friends”, Schlosser compares Ray Kroc and Walt Disney. Both of these men have taken the title of being two of the most successful business founders in the United States--eventually moving nationwide--and it’s not a surprise that their businesses have many similarities. Ray and Walt were both high school dropouts from Illinois that eventually served in the same ambulance corps in World War II. Both men shared similar marketing beliefs, blatantly
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To be a “cog in the great machine”, you are easily replaceable, unimportant, and entirely disposable. Schlosser argues that the employees in the meat packaging industries are the cogs. Today, roughly two thirds of the industry cannot speak English; the majority of them are Mexican immigrants looking for better pay, places to live, and hopefuls of health insurance. However, health insurance is gained six months after working in the company, and few employees make it that long. With meat packaging being considered one of the most dangerous jobs, it is easy to get rid of unwanted employees at a fast
In Studs Terkel’s book Working, Terkel begins a description of a steelworker named Mike LeFevre say that he is “a dying breed”, a laborer who’s the one who has to “build something”, doesn’t have a college degree and is a part of a “union”. Mike LeFevre, as history shows is a dying breed; during the 1980s, businesses chose to cut labor costs through globalization and providing non-union manufacturing jobs, who were paid “30% less than union workers”. Similarly, as Levinson writes in The Box, globalization and the lean corporation model was supported by the development of the shipping container, which alleviated the significant costs (“around 12% of US exports” and “10% of US imports”) and functioned as a “trading barrier” before the innovation
Chapter one examines the various occupations at McDonalds's. Barbara Garson finds that most workers here tend to dislike their jobs. Due to the tremendous amount of stress created by automated systems such as timers and computer generated productivity statistics McDonald's has a high turn over rate in employment.
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter “The Most Dangerous Job,” one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftly, accurately, while trying not to fall behind. Eric Schlosser explains how working in the slaughterhouses is the most dangerous profession – these poor working conditions and horrible treatment of employees in the plants are beyond comprehension to what we see in modern everyday jobs, a lifestyle most of us take for granted.
People slave for a number of hours of work and find themselves with minimum wage salaries and working with people they don’t want to be around with. In her article Serving in Florida, Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover as a low-wage worker for various jobs to expose the working conditions of working class Americans. Throughout her essay, she discusses how the employees are fearful of losing their jobs even though they are forced to work in inhumane conditions such as long hours, with no breaks between shifts. While undercover, Ehrenreich attempts to make an argument on how the upper and middle class can find it difficult to survive under minimum wage jobs and allow readers to figure out what can be done to change the restaurant business.
“‘Who that cracker think he is?’” (LeDuff 355). A quote from the article “At a Slaughterhouse Some Things Never Die,” Charlie LeDuff informs readers of the racial discrimination in the workplace of a slaughterhouse. In another article, “Working at Bazooms,” Meika Loe uncovers the power struggle and inequality between men and women in a workplace she dubs “bazooms.” The disrespect and unfairness is prevalent in these two qualitative studies. Findings from the studies has supported the split-labor market theory, stemming from Marx’s proletariat and bourgeoisie theory.
“Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer that grew the potatoes,” (Schlosser 117). Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser brings to light these realities in his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser, a Princeton and Oxford graduate, is known for his inspective pieces for Atlantic Monthly. While working on article, for Rolling Stone Magazine, about immigrant workers in a strawberry field he acquired his inspiration for the aforementioned book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, a work examining the country’s fast food industry (Gale).
Imagine being employee number 101 out of 1001. Now imagine working on an assembly line in a hot room filled with 1000 other women frantically assembling products for first world countries to use for ten seconds before discarding for a newer version. This job pays enough for you to get by but living in a third world country with low pay isn’t easy. What many people don’t understand is that the cost of production in a third world country is more inexpensive than it is in America. Hiring women to work in horrid conditions decreases employee loss because they are not rambunctious like men. “Life on the Global Assembly Line” by Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes clearly illustrates the hardships women go through for U.S. corporation production. Corporate powers have resorted to building production plants in third world countries to save money. U.S. corporate powers take advantage of third world
One of the most shocking books of the generation is Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The novel includes two sections, "The American Way" and "Meat and Potatoes,” that aid him in describing the history and people who have helped shape up the basics of the “McWorld.” Fast Food Nation jumps into action at the beginning of the novel with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher and the McDonald’s brothers. He explores their roles as “Gods” of the fast-food industry. Schlosser then visits Colorado Springs and investigates the life and working conditions of the typical fast-food industry employee. Starting out the second section, Schlosser travels to the western side of Colorado to examine the effects presented to the agriculture world in the new economy. Following Schlosser’s journey across the nation, he leads everything up to slaughterhouses and the main supply of income for fast food franchises – the meat. After visiting the meat industries in America, Schlosser explores the expansion of fast food around the eastern hemisphere – including the first McDonalds in Germany. Throughout Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser presents in his point of view and informative tone, a detailed disscussion of the conditions using various examples imagry and flowing diction/syntax to help support and show his audience the reasoning behind the novel.
Employment is hard to find and hard to keep and a job isn’t always what one hoped for. Sometimes jobs do not sufficiently support our lifestyles, and all too frequently we’re convinced that our boss’s real job is to make us miserable. However, every now and then there are reprieves such as company holiday parties or bonuses, raises, promotions and even a half hour or hour to eat lunch that allows escape from monotonous workloads. Aside from our complaints, employment today for majority of American’s isn’t totally dreadful, and there always lies opportunity for promotion. American’s did not always experience this reality in their work places though, and not long past are days of abysmal and disgusting work conditions. In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published. His novel drastically transformed the way Americans felt about the unmitigated power corporations wielded in the ‘free’ market economy that was heavily propagandized at the turn of the century. Corporations do not have the same unscrupulous practices today because of actions taken by former President Theodore Roosevelt who felt deeply impacted by Sinclair’s famous novel. Back in early 1900’s in the meatpacking plants of Chicago the incarnation of greed ruled over the working man and dictated his role as a simple cog within an enormous insatiable industrial machine. Executives of the 1900’s meatpacking industry in Chicago, IL, conspired to work men to death, obliterate worker’s unions and lie to American citizens about what they were actually consuming in order to simply acquire more money.
Angela Wexler is the bomber. First of all she has access to everything the bomber has been using. For example in chapter 3 when Turtle goes into the Westing house there are fireworks if Turtle stole them Angela lives with Turtle so, she can easily walk into Turtles room and grab them at any time. Also Angela is always stealing Turtle’s things as Turtle says in chapter 12,” All right, Angela, where is it?” When Angela says,” What?” Turtle replies,” The newspaper you took from my desk.” Since the first person Turtle asked is Angela it implies that Angela always takes things from Turtle.
As a French journalist and writer Robert Brasillach said in 1967 in Les Frères ennemis “History is written by the victors”. This quotation epitomizes the general idea of Chapter 12 of the Oyster war, The true story of a small farm, big politics, and the future of wilderness in America by Summer Brennan in 2015. Those who seem to have the most prominent and reliable influence in the controversy might be likely to win the battle. Indeed, entitled “David V. Goliath”, this chapter refers to the fight between rivals with unequal strengths. Summer Brennan manages to shed light on the interpretations’ complexity of the bone of contention. On different scales, she describes
[1] Information was mainly taken from the Harvard Business Case Study “The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King”
When you think of Walt Disney, you may think of Mickey Mouse, Disney Land, or Frozen, but you probably don’t think about laziness, sexism, or unfair treatment of others. The truth about Walt Disney is that he failed at art and directing until he hired others to do it for him, he stole credit for things he didn’t do, he was sexist, and horrible to his employees. Despite all this, many still see him as a hero. In “Walt Disney Hollywood’s Dark Prince,” Marc Eliot claims that Walt Disney is a story of overcoming difficulty to reach greatness, and that with hard work, anything is possible. However, Marc mistakenly reveals that all you need is greed, as Walt treated his employees unfairly, was incredibly sexist, and doesn’t even deserve most
The structural-functional analysis of jobs in the U.S. is governed by the workforce stratification and technology. The more educated and diverse a society is the better society’s job market is served. This social economic separation of class has been both good and bad for society. Many workers at the lower levels of employment are both pleased and displeased with many aspects of work. Though this fact also holds true with most any job at any level, pay scale often compensates for endurance of a particular job type. The security of a person’s job also is an issue that in today’s economic times forces one to be prepared for change. This is to say that even if one’s field of expertise is needed today it may not be tomorrow. This type of ever-changing job market leads many to believe that another socio-economic change may occur at any time. This change was apparent with the transition into the industrial age and again in the information age. These concerns caused stress, various health issues, a...
Not having to answer to a corporate boss is the dream of many and the flexibility that owning a business franchise creates provides this option. Success is not reached by simply creating a business, however. The level of success is measured by the size and efficiency of the business. Business growth is the driving force of the economy. The additional jobs and revenues created when a business expands allow the economy to grow at exponential rates. One of the fastest and most popular ways to increase the size of a business is to turn it into a franchise, which can then be purchased by individuals. Franchising provides opportunities that are beneficial to both the parent company and the purchaser. The company that owns the business can expand without having to pay such a large initial cost to open a new store since the franchise purchaser pays a cost to open the business. As well, the company can regulate many of the business activities so that there is a sense of consistency throughout all of the locations. The purchaser is allowed to use the trademarks and goods of the franchise which already have a large market presence. As well, they are provided with training and work standards by the company to help their business run smoothly (Kalnins & Lafontaine, 2004, p.761). Looking at the business model of the world’s largest food retailer, McDonald’s, provides great insight into franchising and business growth in general as well a better understanding of a global business that utilizes the franchising technique.