Friday, July 09, 2004

THE 99 CENT ECONOMIC SURVEY In recent weeks I've noticed an important trend in the local economy: Customer service in the fast food businesses is on the decline. This is a sure indicator that a boom is in progress. I have two distinct memories that show the relationship between fast food employment and the economy at large. The first is from the winter of '91-'92. My mom and I went into a McDonald's in Brunswick, Maine and found that their entire crew was grown-up. I don't think any of the workers were under 25. While I didn't quite grasp the implications of this at the time (I was but 13), the memory was ingrained nonetheless. The second is from the '99-'00 time-frame when I was stationed in the DC area. Fast food service everywhere was horrible. One night at work my co-workers and I discussed this, pointing out that when unemployment gets low, the people getting employed in fast food are ones who would normally be either unemployed or employed on a "transitive" basis. We agreed that things would not get better without a decent recession (or unemployment getting so low that the fast food industry would be left with such lousy workers that it would be forced to do something unconventional to change that). Clearly, the quality of fast food service is inversely proportional to the overall state of the economy. After the Clinton bubble burst, I started to notice a bit of an improvement in fast food service. Not good, or great service, but acceptable (at this point I was living in Florida, a state which was one of the least affected by the slowdown). But now, I am happy to note that the quality of workers at McDonald's is on the decline again. May it stay that way for awhile. I invite others to share observations from their neck of the woods. NOTE: Before any fast food employees start plotting my violent death, I wish to point out that I was an employee of McDonald's in my younger days. It was my first job and our local economy in Virginia was in a bit of a slowdown, after one big boom and on the verge of the next. One night I was on quite possibly the smartest McDonald's crew ever, as it consisted of four members of the National Honors Society. Jackpotzrebie comment []4:15:27 PM   trackback []