Fast Food Fast Talk or 50 Fabulous Parties for Kids

Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life

Author: Robin Leinder

Attending Hamburger University, Robin Leidner observes how McDonald's trains the managers of its fast-food restaurants to standardize every aspect of service and product. Learning how to sell life insurance at a large midwestern firm, she is coached on exactly what to say, how to stand, when to make eye contact, and how to build up Positive Mental Attitude by chanting "I feel happy! I feel terrific!"
Leidner's fascinating report from the frontlines of two major American corporations uncovers the methods and consequences of regulating workers' language, looks, attitudes, ideas, and demeanor. Her study reveals the complex and often unexpected results that come with the routinization of service work.
Some McDonald's workers resent the constraints of prescribed uniforms and rigid scripts, while others appreciate how routines simplify their jobs and give them psychological protection against unpleasant customers. Combined Insurance goes further than McDonald's in attempting to standardize the workers' very selves, instilling in them adroit maneuvers to overcome customer resistance.
The routinization of service work has both poignant and preposterous consequences. It tends to undermine shared understandings about individuality and social obligations, sharpening the tension between the belief in personal autonomy and the domination of a powerful corporate culture.
Richly anecdotal and accessibly written, Leidner's book charts new territory in the sociology of work. With service sector work becoming increasingly important in American business, her timely study is particularly welcome.

Library Journal

Leidner (sociology, Univ. of Pennsylvania) uses participant observation to explore aspects of service-industry efforts to insure sameness of effort and routinization of work. The author chooses for examples the ubiquitous McDonald's and the Combined Insurance Company, whose founder, W. Clement Stone, formulated the Positive Mental Attitude (PMA). Both companies achieve service provider-service recipient relationships that are routinized yet acceptable both to the customer and employee. The much-touted ``worker rebellions'' are largely nonexistent; many if not most employees prefer a well-choreographed approach to the point of sale. Leidner's book includes much of interest to students of business and human behavior, but her turgid prose does not lend itself to easy reading. For academic libraries.-- Norman Lederer, Thad deus Stevens State Sch. of Technology, Lancaster, Pa.

New interesting textbook: Organisatorisches Verhalten: Eine Strategische Annäherung

50 Fabulous Parties for Kids

Author: Linda Hetzer

If your child loves parties, but you don't always love planning them here's a collection of 50 ideas for new, unusual, and easy-to-create celebrations for every occasion — birthdays, national and religious holidays, special family days like a new home or a new baby — that will not only thrill children but adults as well. 50 Fabulous Parties for Kids will show you how to choose a theme, make an invitation, select party crafts or games, and decorate a fun-shaped cake to go with the theme.

Parties are age appropriate, from three to twelve, have themes popular with all children and will not require expensive materials or excessive amounts of time.

50 Fabulous Parties for Kids is an invaluable sourcebook for any special event involving children.

Library Journal

This fun-filled book will get the entire family working together to prepare for special celebrations. Hetzer organizes the book into four categories of parties: for small children, for older children, for preteens, and family events. Each party receives several pages of carefully written directions, presented so that young children can do the reading. Line drawings illustrate the text. Topics include theme parties, such as a fairy-tale party for baby's first birthday. Directions are included for making all kinds of clever decorations, noise makers, invitations, and refreshments. Teachers as well as parents who do volunteer work with children will find this book a treasury of quick and easy ways to create perfectly fabulous parties. For most public libraries.-- Nancy E. Zuwiyya, Binghamton City Sch. Dist., N.Y.