Word: mcdonaldization
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...Rodrick, 48, practiced law in Chicago for two decades before he invested in a McDonald's outlet in 1967. "I became so fascinated with it that I began spending more time at McDonald's than with my law practice," he says. "Finally, my law partner suggested that I spend full time at one place or the other. I chose McDonald's and I have never regretted it." Four years ago, Rodrick moved to Florida and opened four outlets. Today he works seven days a week behind the counter and earns "a million dollars in happiness...
Young employees at McDonald's are not munificently rewarded. Most make little more than the minimum wage of $ 1.60 an hour. The Nixon Administration last spring proposed raising the hourly minimum to $2.20 in 1975 but partially exempting students who work part time, a category that covers most of the McDonald's work force. Washington skeptics, who note that Kroc openly gave $250,000 to the Nixon campaign last year, dubbed the measure "the McDonald's bill." Congress accepted the special student provision but Nixon last week vetoed the minimum wage bill as inflationary...
...reason for the enthusiasm may be that McDonald's employees who work hard can go high quickly in the expanding business. President Turner started frying hamburgers at Kroc's first franchise near Chicago in 1956. He rose so rapidly as an "operations man," keeping an eye on new stores, that he never had time to claim the license that Kroc promised him. McDonald's also pays close attention to suggestions from behind the counter. Several of the chain's new products have originated in the minds of low-ranking employees. Among them: Egg McMuffin...
...McDonald's has had some stumbles. It has expanded overseas with all the zeal of missionaries bringing hamburgers to the heathen.* "We are educating people to a whole new way of life-eating with your fingers instead of forks," says Rolf Kreiner, who directs McDonald's advertising in West Germany. Still, McDonald's European branches lost $1,000,000 last year, partly because too many were located in suburbs, which are not flourishing overseas quite as much as in the U.S. The company is now shifting abroad to downtown locations, where it is drawing big crowds...
...giving them more money to eat out and less time to cook at home. But the industry has long been overcrowded; Minnie Pearl's Chicken Systems, Joe Namath's Broadway Joe's and a number of other chains all fell on hard times as competitors proliferated. McDonald's will have to scramble harder and harder to stay ahead of the pack. At present, a McDonald's outlet requires a population base of 30,000 to support it in the style to which Ray Kroc is accustomed. The company has already exploited many of the best...