The Cracker Barrels of the world would do better with cultivating excellent employees and working to move them up. Long time employees know the company in ways that highly educated but out of touch outsiders will never understand. Not long ago I spoke with a guy majoring in business at a very expensive college and he said his friends wanted to go into consulting. How can you consult at a company when you haven’t even really worked? And anyone who has ever worked with consultants knows what a waste of money it is (see: Office Space!)
That's a really good point. How do you consult on something you have no experience with? We've also not emphasized the importance of experience and these kids get disappointed when their degree isn't enough.
Author and retired Army Special Mission Unit officer Pete Blaber, who has written several books on leadership (the best two of which are "The Mission, the Men, and Me" and "Common Sense Leadership Matters," which is about how the trickle down of poor leadership at fairly high levels caused the death of football player and American hero Pat Tillman) has a number of leadership principles/rules that he follows and advocates that other leaders follow. One of these is "always listen to the guy on the ground." To that I will add that the guy on the ground, or in the fight, or doing the work, likely knows more than you do. A good leader listens to those who do the work and bases his or her decisions on what he learned from those doing the work. Fail to do that and you will drive your organization off the tracks, as apparently the CEO at Cracker Barrel was trying to do.
I've said for a long time that the divisions in this country have far less to do with what we've been told divides us, like race, ethnicity, sex, i.e. immutable characteristics, than it does with wealth and education. I'm not saying that immutable characteristics don't divide us at all, but the "real" and significant divisions are based on money and education level. College educated and above and you're in one group, which is the "in" crowd, high school education and you're in the other group, which are the outsiders. The America I grew up in was not like that. Of course there were elites simply because some people had been wildly successful, but there were fewer elitists if that makes sense. Or at least it seemed that way from my perspective growing up in the 1960's and 1970's.
Commentator Mark Steyn has said a number of times that it was 8th grade educated America that won WWII. He is of course correct and I've thought a lot about what that meant and what it means for us as a nation as we decide what we want to be as we move forward. Steyn isn't saying that we didn't need engineers and rocket scientists and great brains to do what we did, but rather he's saying that we don't need everybody to be that because then there is no one left to do the work of using the tools that the great brains gave us to get the job done. And as Donald Trump says, we need to start building things here again. We are a long way from our "arsenal of democracy" days.
The democrat party has weirdly switched places with what was formerly the country club republican party and now they're the country club party, or at least it's modern equivalent. The democrats are the Hollywood elitists and billionaire club party, the Ivy League and other college elitists, and what's left for everyone else? Oddly enough that might just be the reformed republican party of Donald Trump. If you wrote that 25-30 years ago everyone would have laughed at you, assuming that you were telling a joke. But that seems to be the reality we find ourselves in.
My understanding from my parents, who grew up in the 1930’s and 1940’s, was that college-educated people respected those who were drivers, plumbers, electricians, etc. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.
America of the 1930's and 1940's was apparently like the Germany that I lived in from 1995-1998. Germans, including highly educated members of their society, all seemed to hold those who do the work in high esteem and treat them with great respect. As an example, it is working people who build the vehicles that Germany sells around the world that are considered some of, if not the best vehicles made anywhere. Germany seemed to value its workers and tradesmen far more than we do here, where at best you're an afterthought if you don't have a degree. I hope that's changing because not everyone can go to college, nor should they.
A brilliant analysis, Adam! Cracker Barrel changed their logo and restaurant design for the same reason other companies did all the woke pandering, they wanted to appeal to a more affluent, higher-end clientele. They don’t want all those dirty, uncouth working class people who are just a bunch of uneducated and backwards bigots and rednecks anyway, in their restaurants, drinking their beer, wearing their clothing, or shopping at their stores. The executives who run these companies all went to the same elite schools, live in the same gated communities and are all from the same upper-class backgrounds. They think their smarter, more sophisticated and more cosmopolitan than those barbarians outside the gates.
The CEO of Cracker Barrel went on TV and declared that everybody loved the changes because the peasants-oops!-I mean our adoring public-will like what we tell them to like d*****t! We can play them like a harp from h***! But they were eventually forced to at least partially concede, and restore beloved old Uncle Herschel and their old logo as they had lost millions in stock value and the public was furious with them. Julie Felss Masino needs to resign immediately and Cracker Barrel needs to reverse the rest of the changes they made. That is how they can make this situation right.
You are also absolutely right, Adam that this whole affair also shows how devalued the blue collar trades are and that you are considered a failure and a fresh off the back of a turnip truck country bumpkin and a simpleton if you don’t have a college degree. Cracker Barrel is so embarrassed of their working class image and their “simple country” aesthetic they sought to completely change it even thought it’s what made their restaurant unique from all others in the first place. It also shows a veiled contempt for a certain demographic-white rural people and blue collar workers from the Midwest and South.
If Cracker Barrel really wants to make positive changes to their restaurant to get in more business and improve their situation here are some better ideas:
• Treat your staff better and promote those who show talent and ability.
• Make better food! Go back to making things from scratch and stop putting all these chemicals in your food.
• Try to reach out to and appeal to the younger generation while still also appealing to your loyal costumer base. Just marketing to old people isn’t gonna last long.
• Space your tables and chairs out, it’s so claustrophobic inside every Cracker Barrel I’ve ever been to!
• Have a greater social media presence.
• Do special deals and have days where you give away free food and drinks.
• Get rid of DEI initiatives and hire and promote people based on merit.
• Cut down your menu, it’s way too big. When your menu gets smaller your standards go up.
My dad was in administration at a prestigious university. I always felt at home on a university campus. Now I think the faster they fall, the better society will become.
They are now referred in groups of associates that used to "frequent" that establishment as "Crapper Barrel"! Now I know why, and you reading this do to! They should nail a toilet seat on that barrel, and throw the pay stubs of their wonderful employees into the barrel, as they are poor substitutes for wiping one's own ass! So sad! So "stupid". Were I a shareholder, (thank God I am not), I would demand replacement of the entire management TEAM that subscribed to this "stupidity"!
I WONDER, did they also change the menu offerings to reflect upon the new change in their new branding? "Shit on a shingle", "PEE SOUP", "Excramente ala-cart", "Road Kill Venison", the list is endless! What becomes of the simple "roast beef sandwich with Giardiniera? Maybe call it "get it to go", because you might need the "facilities" much too quickly, knowing that it may generate that "heat", perhaps a better name would be the "Hemorrhoid Hoagy"?
"When the CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Felss Masino, was asked what people thought about the logo and redesign, she confidently said that people around her loved the changes. Well, who do you think the people around her are?"
Truer words were never spoken, Adam, and it's the distinguishing characteristic of these people. They take care never to have any awareness, in any sense, of people they consider to be beneath them. Yet, though they know nothing of the working class or average person, they do despise them wholeheartedly. I know for a certainty that there's a real delight taken in destroying anything that is enjoyed by or is a symbol of the people to whom they feel superior, and Cracker Barrel was an obvious target for its nostalgic evocation of an earlier America where those who did some form of physical labor were respected rather than treated with mockery and disdain. They believe we deserve the mockery and are keen to see to it that we receive it. Oddly, they are as angry and vengeful as if we really did them some great injustice even as they seek to do one to us.
Exactly. They are in echo chambers and do not want to hear what regular folks believe about things. That will eventually kick them in the ass. But it takes time.
The sense of smug superiority and entitlement permeates the left. I see it, and experience it, these days during the so-called “resistance” to Trump. They cannot conceive of anyone they consider intelligent having a world view different from theirs; ergo, you’re an ignorant rube if you disagree with them.
As usual, nothing is new under the sun, and Orwell already said it better than I can:
"What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen."
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."
"It's frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence."
"When they talk about inclusivity, they’re including themselves. They want what their social circle wants."
This is pretty much every compulsory DEI training I've ever endured. It's always sanctimonious, never humble and open-minded.
And now it's driving corporate decisions.
The Cracker Barrels of the world would do better with cultivating excellent employees and working to move them up. Long time employees know the company in ways that highly educated but out of touch outsiders will never understand. Not long ago I spoke with a guy majoring in business at a very expensive college and he said his friends wanted to go into consulting. How can you consult at a company when you haven’t even really worked? And anyone who has ever worked with consultants knows what a waste of money it is (see: Office Space!)
LOL exactly
That's a really good point. How do you consult on something you have no experience with? We've also not emphasized the importance of experience and these kids get disappointed when their degree isn't enough.
Author and retired Army Special Mission Unit officer Pete Blaber, who has written several books on leadership (the best two of which are "The Mission, the Men, and Me" and "Common Sense Leadership Matters," which is about how the trickle down of poor leadership at fairly high levels caused the death of football player and American hero Pat Tillman) has a number of leadership principles/rules that he follows and advocates that other leaders follow. One of these is "always listen to the guy on the ground." To that I will add that the guy on the ground, or in the fight, or doing the work, likely knows more than you do. A good leader listens to those who do the work and bases his or her decisions on what he learned from those doing the work. Fail to do that and you will drive your organization off the tracks, as apparently the CEO at Cracker Barrel was trying to do.
I've said for a long time that the divisions in this country have far less to do with what we've been told divides us, like race, ethnicity, sex, i.e. immutable characteristics, than it does with wealth and education. I'm not saying that immutable characteristics don't divide us at all, but the "real" and significant divisions are based on money and education level. College educated and above and you're in one group, which is the "in" crowd, high school education and you're in the other group, which are the outsiders. The America I grew up in was not like that. Of course there were elites simply because some people had been wildly successful, but there were fewer elitists if that makes sense. Or at least it seemed that way from my perspective growing up in the 1960's and 1970's.
Commentator Mark Steyn has said a number of times that it was 8th grade educated America that won WWII. He is of course correct and I've thought a lot about what that meant and what it means for us as a nation as we decide what we want to be as we move forward. Steyn isn't saying that we didn't need engineers and rocket scientists and great brains to do what we did, but rather he's saying that we don't need everybody to be that because then there is no one left to do the work of using the tools that the great brains gave us to get the job done. And as Donald Trump says, we need to start building things here again. We are a long way from our "arsenal of democracy" days.
The democrat party has weirdly switched places with what was formerly the country club republican party and now they're the country club party, or at least it's modern equivalent. The democrats are the Hollywood elitists and billionaire club party, the Ivy League and other college elitists, and what's left for everyone else? Oddly enough that might just be the reformed republican party of Donald Trump. If you wrote that 25-30 years ago everyone would have laughed at you, assuming that you were telling a joke. But that seems to be the reality we find ourselves in.
My understanding from my parents, who grew up in the 1930’s and 1940’s, was that college-educated people respected those who were drivers, plumbers, electricians, etc. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.
America of the 1930's and 1940's was apparently like the Germany that I lived in from 1995-1998. Germans, including highly educated members of their society, all seemed to hold those who do the work in high esteem and treat them with great respect. As an example, it is working people who build the vehicles that Germany sells around the world that are considered some of, if not the best vehicles made anywhere. Germany seemed to value its workers and tradesmen far more than we do here, where at best you're an afterthought if you don't have a degree. I hope that's changing because not everyone can go to college, nor should they.
A brilliant analysis, Adam! Cracker Barrel changed their logo and restaurant design for the same reason other companies did all the woke pandering, they wanted to appeal to a more affluent, higher-end clientele. They don’t want all those dirty, uncouth working class people who are just a bunch of uneducated and backwards bigots and rednecks anyway, in their restaurants, drinking their beer, wearing their clothing, or shopping at their stores. The executives who run these companies all went to the same elite schools, live in the same gated communities and are all from the same upper-class backgrounds. They think their smarter, more sophisticated and more cosmopolitan than those barbarians outside the gates.
The CEO of Cracker Barrel went on TV and declared that everybody loved the changes because the peasants-oops!-I mean our adoring public-will like what we tell them to like d*****t! We can play them like a harp from h***! But they were eventually forced to at least partially concede, and restore beloved old Uncle Herschel and their old logo as they had lost millions in stock value and the public was furious with them. Julie Felss Masino needs to resign immediately and Cracker Barrel needs to reverse the rest of the changes they made. That is how they can make this situation right.
You are also absolutely right, Adam that this whole affair also shows how devalued the blue collar trades are and that you are considered a failure and a fresh off the back of a turnip truck country bumpkin and a simpleton if you don’t have a college degree. Cracker Barrel is so embarrassed of their working class image and their “simple country” aesthetic they sought to completely change it even thought it’s what made their restaurant unique from all others in the first place. It also shows a veiled contempt for a certain demographic-white rural people and blue collar workers from the Midwest and South.
If Cracker Barrel really wants to make positive changes to their restaurant to get in more business and improve their situation here are some better ideas:
• Treat your staff better and promote those who show talent and ability.
• Make better food! Go back to making things from scratch and stop putting all these chemicals in your food.
• Try to reach out to and appeal to the younger generation while still also appealing to your loyal costumer base. Just marketing to old people isn’t gonna last long.
• Space your tables and chairs out, it’s so claustrophobic inside every Cracker Barrel I’ve ever been to!
• Have a greater social media presence.
• Do special deals and have days where you give away free food and drinks.
• Get rid of DEI initiatives and hire and promote people based on merit.
• Cut down your menu, it’s way too big. When your menu gets smaller your standards go up.
My dad was in administration at a prestigious university. I always felt at home on a university campus. Now I think the faster they fall, the better society will become.
Damn 😆
They are now referred in groups of associates that used to "frequent" that establishment as "Crapper Barrel"! Now I know why, and you reading this do to! They should nail a toilet seat on that barrel, and throw the pay stubs of their wonderful employees into the barrel, as they are poor substitutes for wiping one's own ass! So sad! So "stupid". Were I a shareholder, (thank God I am not), I would demand replacement of the entire management TEAM that subscribed to this "stupidity"!
I WONDER, did they also change the menu offerings to reflect upon the new change in their new branding? "Shit on a shingle", "PEE SOUP", "Excramente ala-cart", "Road Kill Venison", the list is endless! What becomes of the simple "roast beef sandwich with Giardiniera? Maybe call it "get it to go", because you might need the "facilities" much too quickly, knowing that it may generate that "heat", perhaps a better name would be the "Hemorrhoid Hoagy"?
"When the CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Felss Masino, was asked what people thought about the logo and redesign, she confidently said that people around her loved the changes. Well, who do you think the people around her are?"
Truer words were never spoken, Adam, and it's the distinguishing characteristic of these people. They take care never to have any awareness, in any sense, of people they consider to be beneath them. Yet, though they know nothing of the working class or average person, they do despise them wholeheartedly. I know for a certainty that there's a real delight taken in destroying anything that is enjoyed by or is a symbol of the people to whom they feel superior, and Cracker Barrel was an obvious target for its nostalgic evocation of an earlier America where those who did some form of physical labor were respected rather than treated with mockery and disdain. They believe we deserve the mockery and are keen to see to it that we receive it. Oddly, they are as angry and vengeful as if we really did them some great injustice even as they seek to do one to us.
Exactly. They are in echo chambers and do not want to hear what regular folks believe about things. That will eventually kick them in the ass. But it takes time.
The sense of smug superiority and entitlement permeates the left. I see it, and experience it, these days during the so-called “resistance” to Trump. They cannot conceive of anyone they consider intelligent having a world view different from theirs; ergo, you’re an ignorant rube if you disagree with them.