As the old saying goes in the U.S., the customer is king.
In Japan, the saying is that the customer is God.
As is customary in the United States, the worker doesn't get paid enough or treated with enough respect by their superiors to care if the customer is a king, a god, or some a-hole chump. The typical American worker doesn't get paid enough to pay their bills, even though there's plenty to go around. (Yeah, I know it's worse in a few other countries, but that doesn't make it acceptable, especially because a handful of ultra-wealthy scumbags have 100,000 times more than they could ever need, thanks to the hard work of people who have nothing.)
Even though I'd prefer to be treated like a somewhat valuable customer when I go to Burger King, I can certainly understand why it doesn't happen. But since I already know it's not gonna happen before I make a conscious decision to eat at either Burger King or somewhere else, I choose not to eat at Burger King. I have no need to wait in line for 10 or 15 minutes, then give my order to someone who hates their job and their customers, wait another ten minutes for my microwaved, processed "food," wait in the line again because they got my order wrong, wait again for different food to be reheated and packaged, and then eat the groady crap in a dirty dining room.
Why would I pay for that? I don't. I refuse to. And it's not just Burger King; it's almost every fast food joint. And it happens because the shareholders would rather steal from their employees and customers than actually earn their inflated income. It happens because the people who work at these places allow it to happen. It happens because the American people have grown to accept disgusting, overpriced food, and horrible service as the norm.
But I can't blame the employees for doing a horrible job at places like Burger King because they have no incentive to care how well they do their job. No matter how good a job they do, they know they're still gonna have to do the work of two or three people for minimum wage.
Fortunately, in one region of the United States, good workers and smart consumers have a choice to avoid that kind of experience, thanks to In-N-Out Burger (which is not a corporation). And that's why In-N-Out is packed from open to close, in over 300 different locations. When you do things right, and when you're not greedy, you receive so much more than when you cut corners and try to steal from everyone. In-N-Out has figured this out and given the rest of the United States a perfect model to learn from, yet the rest of the United States refuses to learn. It's the American Way.
I figured it out on my own that this kind of business model works, and then I confirmed it by using In-N-Out Burger as a case study, informally. I don't know of any other company in the United States that operates with this kind of business model, although Cheesecake Factory comes close (and REI used to come close). I've wanted, for so long, to open a pizzeria using the same business model, mostly because I can probably do it better than just about everyone. Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it, simply because I don't have any money.
If I was able to open a pizzeria, I would pay my workers a better hourly wage than I would pay myself in the beginning, if not for a long time after the beginning. (By choice; not because there isn't enough revenue coming in to pay myself, which is why most independent pizzeria owners pay themselves less than they pay their staff.) I would treat my people how I've never been treated at any job I've ever had. If I somehow make what appears to be a bad hire, I'd make sure the person knows what I expect from them before making the decision to fire them (because I may not have trained them right). And if they still don't get it after re-training, see ya.
I'm a lead-by-example kind of guy, whereas most Americans are "Do as I say, not as I do" people.
Obviously Bob and I both figured out on our own that you are not in the United States. (I wrote my post before I saw Bob's.) It wasn't difficult.
I hope I get to experience Japan someday. Sounds like it'll feel like being in a giant In-N-Out Burger.
