Saturday Night at the Satire

Long ago and far away in a place where people were proud to be Americans, we used to gather around the television set to watch Saturday Night at the Movies on NBC. Over the years, my attention span continued to decline until it's all that I can do to watch a commercial without reaching for the remote. So, the title Saturday Night at the Satire is my tribute to a day gone by. BYOP= Bring your own popcorn.

I love ice cream, but I am sick and tired of watching Joe Biden eat ice cream on the news. I understand that he likes ice cream. That's one of those comfort foods that those with dementia crave to make them feel better. This meets no one's standards for news. Call me when he eats a rack of ribs without choking!

Biden's latest stupid proposal to have the US Navy build a pier in Gaza is a disaster waiting to happen. This is like the "advisors" that we sent to Vietnam. How did that work out for us? What's our plan if some of our guys get killed by Hamas in Gaza?

I lived in Florida in the late 1970's when the waves of Haitians started turning up on the beaches there. The two biggest impacts of the Haitian influx were a crime wave and a comeback for tuberculosis which we thought we had eradicated. Why do we think that this time will be different? The Mariel boatlift was the same kind of thing. In addition to the good people who came, Castro emptied his prisons and sent them to us. You would think that we would have learned. You would be wrong if you believed that. 

Hundreds of people in our military were kicked out for refusing a vaccine that current refugees are not given the instant they are admitted to this country. This is a sure sign that something is amiss in Washington.

In a country where we can't find money to fix a pothole on the Interstate, the Democrats can always find a few hundred million to send to the Ukraine. I wonder how that works.

You know that sometimes you can't make up something as bizarre as things the federal government actually does. The government wants to change some laws so that McDonalds franchisees can have their soft serve machines fixed by third party companies. 

This is what the federal government thinks is important. Crime is rampant. Inflation is driving prices sky high. There is another war in the Middle East and armies of foreigners are crossing our borders with the help of the government. So naturally enough, the government wants to fix soft serve machines. Doors may fall off airplanes, but if Joe can't get a cone, the government is springing into action. There may not be any baby formula on the grocery store shelf, but the government wants to make sure that you can haul your baby to McDonalds in a car filled with overpriced gasoline and get them a cone.

After working in foodservice since 1967, allow me to share some inside information with you. I don't believe that the problem at McDonalds is all about the machines not working.

McDonald's soft serve machines are manufactured by Taylor. I have used some Taylor machines in the past and they were actually quality products. To be clear, this was before the "digital age" machines. Restaurant kitchens are not the ideal environments for electronic digital controls. Kitchens are hot, there's a lot of oil and grease, lots of hot water is being sprayed around to keep the kitchens clean. These conditions are not conducive to electronics-based appliances working reliably. As Ron Popeil would say, "Wait! There's more."

Soft serve machines are labor intensive. They are high maintenance women. Every night the machines must be disassembled and cleaned. Since lots of bacteria will grow at the temperature where soft serve machines operate, sanitation is critical. In the morning when you reassemble the machine, the parts must be washed and sanitized before reassembly. This is a fairly labor-intensive process. What's in short supply at every restaurant in the nation? Labor. 

So, as the restaurant manager, if you are busy and short staffed, you have to choose between good drive-through service times and having ice cream cones for the few folks who want those. Hint: Only one of those will affect your paycheck. You can't cut corners on the sanitizing process because that WILL make people sick. So, what's a manager to do? You tell people the ice cream machine is broken and use that labor to get guests served. Actually, I would tell people that their friends and neighbors are just too damned lazy to get a job or show up for work when they do get a job. If the government would stop paying people to sit on their asses, you could have enough employees to have ice cream ready for them. Of course, that's just me!!

If the machines are actually all broken, then Taylor has a problem. McDonalds is probably one of their biggest, if not the biggest, customers. Why would Taylor not fix the machines? Why would Taylor not improve their quality to prevent all of these warranty service calls? Maybe Taylor can't hire enough quality employees. Maybe McDonalds employees are sabotaging the machines so that they don't have to stop what they are doing to get some kid a cone. Or even worse, they might have to get Biden a cone. No matter which scenario you believe, they are all driven by the lack of good employees. 

That's this week's Saturday Night at the Satire!!