maybe stories like this are designed to make people believe in the American dream... but it's still an enjoyable read
The American dream may be tougher to access, but it’s hard to argue that doing whatever you do with pride and responsibility can ever be a bad idea. I’ll be sharing this with my son and daughter.
It must be hard for so many blue-bloods to have some janitor outsmart them. But did he really outsmart them?
Unless any of the MBA Execs also toiled in the hot fields for years and had a Latino upbringing or perspective, they couldn’t fairly say they were outsmarted. They never had a chance. Any typical white bread MBA wouldn’t have come up with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos any faster than monkeys pounding keyboards until a great novel pops out.
I can compare this to a time I took part in an escape room with my kids and their cousins. As he shut the door on six adults and four kids our Game Master told us to make sure to listen to the kid’s ideas while playing. They can see things in unique perspectives and make connections that adults will likely miss. Sure enough, the Game Master was right. Several times when all the adults were stymied, the kids, aged 8 to 13 bailed us out by connecting clues in new ways.
To me this guy’s story can also stand as a cautionary tale to businesses that don’t bother to look for ideas from diverse perspectives.
Neither here nor there, but my uncle drove delivery for Frito Lay over this same time span. From what I gather, he used to love the company, but felt that it went to shit in the new millennium and was glad to retire.
He once joked with me that he was trying to get management to add “fromunda cheese” as a flavor. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if he knew the story.
For pretty much every company I've known, people near retirement age hold some form of the "it used to be a great company to work for" view. Probably has something to do with the way companies tend to get into "cut the fat" mode as they grow, or how things get automated and outsourced, or how pensions have shrunk and vanished, or some other variation of those themes.