Outsourcing Level 2

I know I am suppose to blog about my vacation, but I had to throw this in because it was just too good. Recently I went to a restaurant for an event’s after party. It seemed that the restaurant stayed open a little later than usual to accommodate our large group. Everything was good; we pretty much had the place to our selves. The service was a little slow but with so many people who kept moving around, it was better than expected. It was a long day for me and I ordered an appy of chicken fingers and I added a side of fries to my order. After chatting away I found this huge platter in front of me a huge portion of chicken tenders and a large almost super size amount of fries.

After digging in a bunch of us were really impressed with the fries. There was something definitely special about them. At first we couldn’t really place what was special about them, but then it hit one of my friends… they tasted just like McDonalds fries. McDonalds fries have a very unique special taste and once we had placed the taste there is no way anyone could argue that is where they are from. Conveniently about a block and ½ away from the restaurant was a McDonalds.

We all expect certain products to be outsourced; I doubt anyone doesn’t know that all calls for customer support are mostly getting routed to India. It also doesn’t really matter who help you pick your computer problem as long as it gets fixed. But have we come to a point where restaurant food is now outsourced? I mean sure it makes sense, you don’t have enough cooks, or products, buy a cheap finished product and sell it for a higher price. But when it comes to food, one would hope that if you go to McDonalds you actually get McDonalds products. Similarly, if you go to a fancy restaurant shouldn’t you expect that there is a chef/cook somewhere deep-frying your fries and not a delivery boy at the McDonald’s drive through picking it up?

Change for a change

Recently I went on an international flight and I was extremely impressed with an onboard program that I needed to write about it. I don’t know if this is something which all airlines do, but it really is an awesome idea. British Airways has this program in conjunction with UNICEF where all international flights have a little envelope which everyone is encourage to place their foreign currency change in. I think this idea is awesome because:

1. Everyone has change of foreign currency when you go away on vacation
2. Banks will not exchange it
3. Most people will never use this extra change
4. When a large amount of people put their change together it adds up to be a substantial amount.

I definitely encourage all airlines to adopt this idea. What good is a couple of English Pounds or American Dollars, or some YEN you will never use? Why not put it towards food, water and education for a poor country? It really impresses me how some people can come out with simple ideas which can then be implemented into large scale projects and do so much good. Next time you fly BA remember to keep your change and add it to that little pouch.