Friday, August 25, 2006
Déjà vu
This is going to be my last post for a few weeks – I’ve got some stuff going on, and won’t be online for the duration.
In terms of a meaty post to tide you over, dear readers, all I can offer is this tidbit from today’s AFR (as usual, no URL). Strangely enough, the quote (or even the gist of the story) doesn’t appear in any other media today (AFAICT), nor is the occasion noted at http://www.pm.gov.au
Anyway, here’s the money shot:
Thirty or 40 years ago many Australians thought the idea of smiling, efficient, enthusiastic service was beneath their dignity . . . Many Australians had this silly idea that waiting was for someone else, that personal service was for wimps, and that real work lay elsewhere*.
- PM John Howard, speaking at McDonald’s head office cum training site in northwestern Sydney, 24 August 2006
I got déjà vu (as well as the creeps, needless to say) when I read the above. I wasn’t able to Google up anything to back my hunch, though, apart from this Howard-as-McDonald’s-and-GenY-luvvie “bookend” from a couple of years ago.
Catch you in a bit.
*Alexander Symonds, “Praise be to McDonald’s burghers” AFR 25 August 2006
This is going to be my last post for a few weeks – I’ve got some stuff going on, and won’t be online for the duration.
In terms of a meaty post to tide you over, dear readers, all I can offer is this tidbit from today’s AFR (as usual, no URL). Strangely enough, the quote (or even the gist of the story) doesn’t appear in any other media today (AFAICT), nor is the occasion noted at http://www.pm.gov.au
Anyway, here’s the money shot:
Thirty or 40 years ago many Australians thought the idea of smiling, efficient, enthusiastic service was beneath their dignity . . . Many Australians had this silly idea that waiting was for someone else, that personal service was for wimps, and that real work lay elsewhere*.
- PM John Howard, speaking at McDonald’s head office cum training site in northwestern Sydney, 24 August 2006
I got déjà vu (as well as the creeps, needless to say) when I read the above. I wasn’t able to Google up anything to back my hunch, though, apart from this Howard-as-McDonald’s-and-GenY-luvvie “bookend” from a couple of years ago.
Catch you in a bit.
*Alexander Symonds, “Praise be to McDonald’s burghers” AFR 25 August 2006
