Posted on 04/04/2011 8:03:10 AM PDT by pickrell
One of the worst effects of the collapse of media credibility is the current inability of viewers to gain any insight or even discern any clues as to the future direction of the economy. This is a relatively new phenomenon, leaving those who need to plan ahead, with little guidance other than rough guesses. Unemployment rate reports are exposed as little more than expected propaganda.
Fortunately there exists a seldom-discussed indicator, unknown to the average entrepreneur, which has over the years proven to be unusually and surprisingly accurate. This indicator involves very little cost, and requires little training to master. Among those who recognized its usefulness some time ago, it is often called the McFish index.
At any local McDonald's restaurant, for the cost of $2.59, (and for a short time on sale for $ 1.99), there is listed upon the menu a powerful and probing economic indicator called either the Number 10, or in the local parlance, the fish sandwich. Research has shown that it is just as accurate whether the combo meal is ordered, or just the sandwich.
Hidden within that fish sandwich is a precise indicator of the economic anxiety present when it was made.
As any McDonalds customer can attest, sandwiches are served in little foam boxes, as much to keep them from falling completely apart, as to protect them from wind gusts and sudden attacks of hedgehogs.
In the construction of the McDonalds fish sandwich, the lower bun is overlaid with a layer of processed cheese, upon which a type of meat called squarefish is then placed, and upon which a further dollop of tartar sauce is dispensed. (Where squarefish may be netted in quantity is a closely held fishermans' secret.) Once assembled in this manner, the top of the bun is then applied, and the assembly quicknuked to melt the cheese to the perfect consistency while warming the bun.
The completed assembly is then placed into the styrofoam box, and slid down the little ramp, where mere minutes later, it is grabbed and dropped into a paper bag, along with the rest of the order.
This is How It Should Be and leading thinkers across the planet have agreed that if the most perfect sandwich were ever to finally be described, it would bear no resemblance whatsoever to the squarefish sandwich.
The trick is not to give in to the impulse to confirm whether the fish tastes the same as it did last week, taking bites before examination. (This may actually apply to all such sandwiches, but is only anecdotal at this point.)
Instead, carefully note the position of the bun top to the overall sandwich. Then note to which corner of the squarefish that the dollop of tartar sauce has been applied. The only place that the center of the dollop never adorns, as you are well aware, is the actual center of the fish square. In fact up to 23 percent of the tartar sauce ends up adhering to the side of the box, with a further 14 percent wedged outside the bun, like stucco waiting to be shaped.
This should not distress the customer, as the bun lid may be used in the same manner as a backhoe blade to scrape much of the errant sauce from the box, and reinstall it in an arid region of the fish surface.
Not so, you will quickly discover, is the cheese so easily dealt with. On especially vexing sandwich assemblies, as much as 60 percent of the cheese is offset to one side of the bun, with the rest now cooled and firmly clinging to the bun bottom and the inside of the box.
Amateurs and false hopers, have been known to go so far as to attempt to use a credit card to scrap the cheese completely free from the bun, to perform a misguided do-over. Since the cheese rips about half of the bottom bun free, sticking to it like gorilla glue when removed in this manner, the resulting repositioned cheese layer then resembles the surface of a Columbus freeway in late winter. Sadly, the side of the bun the cheese hangs over is never, ever, the same side that the tartar sauce was dropped on.
The art comes in the complex assessment of just how badly this sandwich was thrown together, in comparison to the one you ate last week, and the month before.
In wealthier times, the misalignment can become so severe as to give one pause. Little incentive exists to induce the sandwich assembler to even glance at the product as he prepares it. At the peak of a financial bubble, the component parts may not even coexist in the same box! While this is a clue to the customer to expand his horizons and seek new sandwich sources, it should also be noted that when fast food workers exhibit no fear of repercussions, go agressive in your stock funds....
As economic faltering begins to occur, some limits appear to manifest themselves, and the sandwich, while visually still resembling the result of a preschool art contest, begins to show less tartar sauce smeared onto the inside of the box. The attention to detail is no more than subconscious at this point, but is beginning to emerge.
As the bubble bursts, and the economic slide deepens, anxiety about job losses begin to settle in and condiment misalignment drops to less than 50% deviance from top-dead-center. This is where much of the cruelest jewelry begins to disappear from employees’ facial piercings, and hands often appear clean at work.
Once hard recession sets in, and panic begins to firmly grip society, all sandwiches everywhere soon astonish previously resigned customers, who note with increasing awe that sauces are often closer to the center than to the edges! And the occasional spot-on tartar blobs, when discovered by the unprepared, have been known to trigger full-blown anxiety attacks, and often seizures. A quick-thinking sandwich artisan, horrified that he has perhaps gone too far, will quickly join the customer convulsing on the floor, and disarrange the layers of ingredients on the offending sandwich, so as not to leave evidence for future lawsuits. Their hope is that what happens in McDonalds...stays in McDonalds.
My fish sandwich tonight was nearly like the picture up on the menu board. Tomorrow, I'm planting more vegetables, and moving into cash and precious metals. Gonna be a long summer I suspect.
So true, I’ve noticed in the past when the economy was good that customer service was crappy in a lot of businesses.
The area is chronically depressed.... "The current recession wouldn't be so bad, if it hadn't come on the heels of such hard times." is the morbid joke.
Anyhoo, Mrs Wbill noticed that everyone was generally ina good mood, willing to help, and so on, even at the McDonald's and other "low-end" (for lack of a better word) jobs.
When there's 100 people literally waiting to step over your body before it gets cold to take your position, that breeds a good work ethic, sez me.
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